Forceful Leadership and Enabling Leadership: You Can Do Both

What It Takes to Increase Versatility

Taking the view that performance problems in managers often represent a lack of versatility—with versatility defined as the ability to turn or pivot from one managerial capacity to a complementary one—sheds light on what is involved in helping managers develop. Performance problems or development needs frequently arise because one leadership approach is emphasized at the expense of the other. In the extreme case, managers become so enthralled with one approach that they completely lose sight of the other. In their behavior the problem shows up as difficulty turning in one direction or the other. In their minds they are so identified with one approach that they in effect turn their backs on the other. In my ...