5Leadership Styles
I'd like you to think about the route you normally take from your home to your favorite grocery store. How long does it take? What are the typical landmarks along the way? How many stoplights do you typically pass?
Now, if for some reason the path that you normally travel was under construction, what alternate path would you take? There isn't just one way to get to your local grocery store. Based on how fast you want to get there, whether you want to take the scenic route, or if you feel like dealing with a certain number of stop signs or traffic lights, you may choose to go your typical route or deviate as you see fit. In other words, you have options! You can switch it up.
The routes you choose to take to the grocery store—or anywhere, for that matter—aren't the only situations in life where you have options to switch it up.
Think about how you used to handle issues or disagreements in your life 10–15 years ago. While many of us depend on our tried-and-true values, we've acquired a level of wisdom and experience that allow us to handle issues more eloquently and more effectively based on our experiences, education, and knowledge. It's also as a result of us adopting different styles we can use to address various issues. Many of us may just brush off our knowledge with passive comments like these:
- “I'm not the person I used to be.”
- “A 20-year-old me would have.”
- “I have a lot more to lose.”
But the truth is that there is more to you than those passive ...
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