You Can Live With Anyone, Well Almost: A Transformational Guide To Relationships

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In some organizations, for instance, leaders are expected to shake things up, and to foster and support change. In others, they are expected to sustain the status quo. In some, they are expected to be proactive, and assertive; in others, more passive. All of these elements - concepts of leadership, methods of leading, attitude toward change, assertiveness - combine with personalities and individual experience in different ways to create different styles of leaders. There are a number of theories about leadership style, many involving a continuum - two opposite styles with a number of intermediate stops between them.

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We'll try here to present four styles that summarize many of the existing theories, and to show how they interact with another, all-embracing way of looking at leadership style. Keep in mind that each of the styles below is a stereotype that actually fits very few real people. Each is meant to outline the characteristics of a style in very simple and one-sided terms. Hardly anyone actually sees or exercises leadership as inflexibly as laid out here.

Most leaders combine some of the characteristics of two or more of these styles, and have other characteristics that don't match any of those below. You can find many descriptions of other leadership styles as well. What this list really provides is some useful ways to think about your own and others ' leadership. It's also important to remember that people can be either effective or ineffective in any of these categories.

An autocratic leader might simply, through his behavior, serve to strengthen the very forces that he's trying to squash. A managerial leader may be an excellent or a terrible manager. Adopting a certain style doesn't necessarily imply carrying it off well. There are also some styles that are by their nature less effective than others. One which appears in the literature, for instance, is laissez-faire, which means letting things happen as they might, and providing neither vision nor direction nor structure. This may work for a short time in an organization that has already devised successful ways of working, but it won't suit even the best organization over a long period of time, and will be disastrous in an organization that needs direction and structure.

Autocratic leaders insist on doing it all themselves. They have all the power, make all the decisions, and don't often tell anyone else about what they're doing. If you work for an autocratic leader, your job is usually to do what you're told. An autocratic leader often maintains his authority by force, intimidation, threats, reward and punishment, or position. Although he may or may not have a clear vision, and may or may not be steering the organization in the right direction, he's not concerned with whether anyone else agrees with what he's doing or not.

Autocratic leadership allows quick decision-making, and eliminates arguments over how and why things get done. At the same time, however, it may reduce the likelihood of getting a range of different ideas from different people, and can treat people badly, or as if they don't matter. If, as is often true, the leader is concerned with his own power and status, he'll be looking over his shoulder, and moving to squelch any opposition to him or his ideas and decisions. Innovation or the use of others' ideas is only permissible if it's part of the leader's plan.

Effects on the organization. Autocratic leaders often leave fear and mistrust in their wake. Others in the organization tend to copy their protection of their position, and their distrust of others' ideas and motives. Often, autocratically -led organizations are not particularly supportive of personal relationships, but much more keyed to chain-of-command.

Everyone has her own sphere, and protects it at all costs. Communication tends to go in only one direction - up - as a result of which rumor can become the standard way of spreading news in the organization. At its best and there are decent autocratic leaders - see the box directly below , autocratic leadership provides a stable and secure work environment and decisive, effective leadership. All too often, however, it can sacrifice initiative, new ideas, and the individual and group development of staff members for the predictability of a highly structured, hierarchical environment where everyone knows exactly what he's supposed to do, and follows orders without question.

Although the above paints a pretty bleak picture, many autocratic leaders are not hated and feared, but rather esteemed, and even loved. It depends on their own personalities - like anyone else, they can be nice people, or highly charismatic, or even willing to listen to and act on others' ideas - on the organization itself in the military, most soldiers want someone firmly in charge , on the quality of their decisions, and on the needs of the people they lead.

If they're generally decent and not abusive, make good decisions for the organization, and fulfill the parent-figure or authority -figure image that most people in the organization are looking for, they can be both effective and well-respected. The leader who sees herself as a manager is concerned primarily with the running of the organization. Where it's going is not at issue, as long as it gets there in good shape.

She may pay attention to relationships with and among staff members, but only in the service of keeping things running smoothly. Depending upon the nature and stability of the organization, her main focus may be on funding, on strengthening the organization's systems and infrastructure policies, positions, equipment, etc. If she's efficient, a managerial leader will generally be on top of what's happening in the organization.

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Depending on the size of the organization and her management level, she'll have control of the budget, know the policies and procedures manual inside out, be aware of who's doing his job efficiently and who's not, and deal with issues quickly and firmly as they come up. What she won't do is steer the organization. Vision isn't her business; maintaining the organization is. In general, a well-managed organization, regardless of its leadership style, is a reasonably pleasant place to work.

Staff members don 't have to worry about ambiguity, or about whether they'll get paid. As long as oversight is relatively civil - no screaming at people, no setting staff members against one another - things go along on an even keel. Good managers even try to foster friendly relationships with and among staff, because they make the organization work better.

On the other hand, good management without a clear vision creates an organization with no sense of purpose. The organization may simply act to support the status quo, doing what it has always done in order to keep things running smoothly. That attitude neither fosters passion in staff members, nor takes account of the changing needs and they do change of the target population or the community.

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The organization may do what it does efficiently and well Obviously, the leader of any organization - as well as any other administrator - has to be a manager at least some of the time. Many are in fact excellent managers, and keep the organization running smoothly on a number of levels. The issue here is the style that person adopts as a leader. If she sees management as her primary purpose, she's a managerial leader, and will have a very different slant on leadership than if her style is essentially democratic, for instance.

A democratic leader understands that there is no organization without its people. He looks at his and others' positions in terms of responsibilities rather than status, and often consults in decision-making. While he solicits, values, and takes into account others' opinions, however, he sees the ultimate responsibility for decision-making as his own. He accepts that authority also means the buck stops with him. Although he sees the organization as a cooperative venture, he knows that he ultimately has to face the consequences of his decisions alone.

Democratic leadership invites the participation of staff members and others, not only in decision-making, but in shaping the organization's vision. It allows everyone to express opinions about how things should be done, and where the organization should go. By bringing in everyone's ideas, it enriches the organization's possibilities. But it still leaves the final decisions about what to do with those ideas in the hands of a single person. Some models of democratic leadership might put the responsibility in the hands of a small group - a management team or executive committee - rather than an individual.

Democratic leadership, with its emphasis on equal status, can encourage friendships and good relationships throughout the organization. In more hierarchical organizations, clerical staff and administrators are unlikely to socialize, for instance; in a democratically-led organization, such socialization often happens.

It helps people feel valued when their opinions are solicited, and even more so if those opinions are incorporated into a final decision or policy. What a democratic leadership doesn't necessarily do - although it can - is establish staff ownership of the organization and its goals. Although everyone may be asked for ideas or opinions, not all of those are used or incorporated in the workings of the organization.

If there is no real discussion of ideas, with a resulting general agreement, a sense of ownership is unlikely. Thus, democratic leadership may have some of the drawbacks of autocratic leadership - a lack of buy-in - without the advantages of quick and clear decision-making that comes with the elimination of consultation. A collaborative leader tries to involve everyone in the organization in leadership. She is truly first among equals, in that she may initiate discussion, pinpoint problems or issues that need to be addressed, and keep track of the organization as a whole, rather than of one particular job.

But decisions are made through a collaborative process of discussion, and some form of either majority or consensus agreement. Toward that end, a collaborative leader tries to foster trust and teamwork among the staff as a whole. A collaborative leader has to let go of the need for control or power or status if she is to be effective.

Her goal is to foster the collaborative process, and to empower the group - whether the staff and others involved in an organization, or the individuals and organizations participating in a community initiative - to control the vision and the workings of the organization. She must trust that, if people have all the relevant information, they'll make good decisions Collaborative leadership comes as close as possible to ensuring that members of the organization buy into its vision and decisions, since they are directly involved in creating them.

It comes closest to the goal of servant leadership explored in the previous section, and it also comes closest to reflecting the concepts of equality and empowerment included in the philosophy and mission of so many grass roots and community-based organizations. It thus removes much of the distrust that often exists between line staff and administrators.

David Chrislip and Carl E. Larson, in Collaborative Leadership - How Citizens and Civic Leaders Can Make a Difference, equate collaborative leadership not only with servant leadership, but with transformational see below and facilitative leadership as well. They identify four characteristics of the collaborative leader:. Collaborative leaders also generally foster close relationships among staff members, making for more communication and cross-fertilization in their work, and leading to more effective ways to accomplish the organization's goals.

On the down side, management can be neglected in favor of building a collaborative organization. Even more to the point, collaborative decision-making can be excruciating. Depending upon the group, ideas can be talked to death, and insignificant disagreements about insignificant areas of policy can take hours to resolve. Collaborative decision-making can be democratic - based on a majority vote after discussion - or dependent on arriving at consensus, with a range of possibilities in between.

Consensus decision-making is particularly difficult, in that it requires everyone to agree before a decision can be made. A single determined individual can derail the process indefinitely. Even at its best, a consensus process can take inordinate amounts of time, and try the patience of all involved. It's not impossible to employ, but it takes real commitment to the ideal of consensus, and enormous patience.

In practice, true consensus decision-making is most often used in collective organizations, which are significantly different from collaborative ones, and often involve everyone in leadership. A different view, popularized by James MacGregor Burns, contrasts two styles of leadership: Transactional leadership , as its name implies, views leadership as based on transactions between leader and followers.

The leader sees human relations as a series of transactions. Thus rewards, punishments, reciprocity, exchanges economic, emotional, physical and other such "transactions" are the basis of leadership. In simplest terms, I lead this organization by paying you and telling you what you need to do; you respond by doing what you need to do efficiently and well, and the organization will prosper.

Transformational leadership looks at leadership differently. It sees a true leader as one who can distill the values and hopes and needs of followers into a vision, and then encourage and empower followers to pursue that vision.

A transactional leader thinks of improvement or development as doing the same thing better: A transformational leader thinks about changing the world, even if only on a small scale. These two ways of looking at leadership style are not mutually exclusive: Assuming, as almost all leadership theorists do, that transformational is either better than, or a necessary addition to, transactional leadership, what elements go into creating a transformational leader?

What styles are transformational leaders likely to employ, and how? The transformational leader conceives of leadership as helping people to create a common vision and then to pursue that vision until it's realized. She elicits that vision from the needs and aspirations of others, gives it form, and sets it up as a goal to strive for.

The vision is not hers: Martin Luther King's overwhelming "I Have A Dream" speech derived its power not only from the beauty of his oratory, but from the fact that it crystallized the feelings of all those citizens, of all races, who believed that racism was a great wrong. In that speech, King spoke with the voices of the hundreds of thousands who stood before the Lincoln Memorial, and of millions of others who shared in his vision.

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That speech remains as the defining moment of the Civil Rights struggle, and defined King - who had already proved his mettle in Birmingham and elsewhere - as a transformational leader. The conception behind transformational leadership is thus providing and working toward a vision, but also has elements of empowerment, of taking care of people, and even of task orientation. The job of the transformational leader is not simply to provide inspiration and then disappear. It is to be there, day after day, convincing people that the vision is reachable, renewing their commitment, priming their enthusiasm.

Transformational leaders work harder than anyone else, and, in the words of a spiritual, "keep their eyes on the prize". The methods that transformational leaders might use to reach their goals can vary. They'll virtually always include involving followers in the goal, as well as charisma, which comes, if not from personal characteristics, from the ability to put a mutual vision into words, and to move a group toward the realization of that vision. What style does all that imply? The managerial style is perhaps least appropriate to transformational leadership, since it pays no attention to vision.

The autocratic pays little attention to the ideas of others, and is not generally congenial to the transformational leader.

On the other hand, there was Hitler, who tapped into the deepest emotions of those he led, and voiced them in a frightening but highly effective way. There is no guarantee that a transformational leader will work for the betterment of humanity, although he may couch his vision in those terms. The intersection of the transformational and the autocratic is not impossible, but it usually has, at best, mixed results.

Fidel Castro initiated and has maintained desperately-needed land, education, health, and other reforms in Cuba, for which he is still revered by much of the island's population. He also eliminated any vestige of political freedom, imprisoned and executed dissenters and political opponents, and was at least partially responsible for destroying much of Cuba's economic base in the name of ideological purity. As with the four styles described earlier, there is no guarantee that either a transactional or transformational leader will be an effective one. The democratic and collaborative styles are both better possibilities for transformational leadership.

Both allow for input from everyone, and both encourage participation in the realization of long-term goals.

It can be difficult for a highly motivated, charismatic leader to operate in the collaborative mode, but it can also be tremendously satisfying. There is an argument to be made that, because of the high degree of ownership of the vision in a collaboratively-run organization, the collaborative style could be the most successful for transformational leadership. As noted above, David Chrislip and Carl Larson actually see collaborative and transformational leadership as essentially the same. All that said, it is probably true that any leader, even a highly collaborative one, uses a range of different styles at different times - even, perhaps, in the course of a single day.

Decisions have to be made, major and minor crises have to be met, situations and conflicts have to be resolved, often right at the moment. It is important to realize that different styles may be appropriate at different times, and for different purposes. In an emergency, no one would suggest sitting down and making a group decision about what to do.

There has to be decisive action, and one person has to take it as soon as possible.

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As long as it's clear who that person is, there should be no question about the philosophical issues involved. By the same token, it's counter -productive to make decisions about how people should do their jobs without at least consulting those people about what might work best. Good leaders usually have a style that they consciously use most of the time, but they're not rigid.

They change as necessary to deal with whatever comes up. There are at least two other factors that have to be considered when choosing a leadership style. The first is that leadership style - at least at the beginning - must, to at least some extent, be consistent with what people in the organization expect. You can try to change their expectations and perceptions of how an organization should be run - that's part of leadership - but you have to start by meeting them at least halfway, or you'll never get close enough to talk about it.

Thinking in Systems

If you're trying to turn a system that's been autocratic into a collaborative one, you have to accept that most people in the system not only won't welcome the change, and that some won't even understand what you're suggesting. You also have to accept that they've probably developed their own methods of getting around the rigidity of the system that they'll continue to use, even if the system is no longer rigid.

It can take a long time just to get your ideas across, and longer to help people overcome their suspicions and break old habits. A few may never be able to. You need patience, and the willingness to act occasionally in ways you'd rather not. In the second story at the beginning of this section, the school principal was on the side of the angels: The problem was that the teachers expected something entirely different. They wanted someone to tell them what to do, and then leave them alone to do it.

They saw the principal's plans as just another way to trick them into doing things they didn't want to do, and to get them to work longer hours. The more he tried to explain how what he was asking was for their benefit, the more they resisted - they'd heard that line before. If he had started where the teachers were, the principal might have been able to be more successful. That would have meant his "running" the school as his predecessor had, and introducing reforms slowly over a long period.

Suggestions to receptive teachers might have started the process; professional development could have helped it along. He might have used incentives of some sort to encourage teachers to try new things, rather than assuming they would be happy to be more independent and creative. Paying attention to the expectations of the staff might have paid off for the principal in the long run.

Finally, your style needs to be consistent with the goals, mission, and philosophy of your organization. As mentioned earlier - and in numerous places elsewhere in the Community Tool Box - an organization cannot remain faithful to its mission if its internal structure is at odds with its guiding principles. An organization dedicated to empowerment of the target population, for instance, must empower its staff as well.

For most grass roots and community-based organizations, this consistency would mean using some variation of a democratic or collaborative style. What kind of leader do you want to be? Perhaps even more important, how would you be most effective as a leader? What kind of leadership style would be of the most benefit to your organization, and would allow you to be the best leader you could be? The leadership styles described in this section aren't the only ways to look at leadership.

As we've already discussed, most real leaders use a combination of styles, and there are others that haven't really been touched on here. It's possible that Alexander the Great was a born leader, but how much are you like Alexander the Great? Just about all leaders, even great leaders, have to learn how to lead, and have to develop their skills over a period of time. Click play to watch what Terry had to say: Terry lost 30 pounds in nearly five months, while also increasing his exercise from zero days per week to nearly every morning.

In the meantime, he completely overcame his late night overeating patterns that battled for years. There was no solution to his late night overeating — until he started working with EvolutionEat. Liz and Terry are total badasses. They each work over 70 hours a week, are at the top of their fields, and have demanding social and family lives. Instead, through coaching, we helped them train habits that worked with their lives — not against them.

We teach our clients how to achieve results beyond their wildest dreams because we take a realistic, sustainable, long term approach to weight loss and lifestyle change, whereby we train the fundamentals of mastery through daily accountability, transparency and self-empowerment. Our clients create the lives of their dreams. Nathan , Pilot who lives across the world in Japan. The overall key to my success has been the support and encouragement that you have given me.

Daniel has taught me that anyone can become the version of themselves they aspire to be through simple routine that, compounding over time, creates wide sweeping change. Previously, I was such a perfectionist and paralyzed with over analysis. That I really started to transform. I knew it was time to go through EvolutionEat and start mastering my diet, to start getting back some control of my food choices — and, as a result, my life.

I lost 20 pounds in 5 weeks. But the list of benefits is ridiculous: Sometimes that requires upfront conversation. Engineering the Alpha; One of the most highly regarded experts in the fitness industry. His heart is massive, his awareness beyond his years, and his mission a gift to us all. If you struggle with nutrition and the deeper emotional issues that often accompany it, then please look to Daniel for guidance and support.

We need heart experts and soul-centered coaches to help guide us back to our center. Daniel is a heart expert and he will help you get in touch with yours. Because most people focus on the end result of weight loss, instead of the process, they often turn to unhealthy and unsustainable approaches, like extreme dieting.

I see the harmful results of dieting every day in my work with people suffering from bulimia and binge eating disorder, which commonly begin after a diet. The context shift that Daniel provides is transformational, because it allows you to build good habits into your life so that they will become lasting changes. Daniel not only understands it, he coaches clients from a place of true empathy. EvolutionEat means creating a lifestyle that guarantees your lifelong success and dream body.

Create the Lifestyle of your Dreams. Are you tired of experiencing life this way? Tried every diet and nothing works? The Winter of Personal Evolution! Evolve your relationship with food once and for all. Create peace and freedom inside as you glow on the outside. You have more energy. You create more time. You become more creative, less stressed.

You feel calmer, happier. You become way more productive. You look and feel absolutely awesome. Apply by booking a free coaching call. When eating healthily becomes automatic, losing weight becomes effortless, which frees you up to be more productive in all other areas of life and start focusing on the things that actually matter to you. What is EvolutionEat Transformational Coaching? EvolutionEat Transformational Coaching includes: Daniel will work with you directly to help you shift your mindset and give you practical tools and strategies that you can use immediately.

Daniel and the EvolutionEat support staff will communicate with you inside the private Facebook community throughout the week, supporting you through your breakthroughs and holding you accountable to your goals. This is the step-by-step, exact process for complete diet and lifestyle transformation, developed by Daniel over the past five years and tested on over a hundred clients.

Digitally delivered master classes 25 total, 60 minutes each. In other words, how to make your diet a lifestyle that lasts forever. Unlimited, lifetime access to all master classes and all live coaching sessions. So that you can watch if you miss a lesson, or if you need some inspiration a few years down the line.

The Community is here to help you build healthy eating habits, enjoy food again, calm your body and mind, simplify your life, and connect. Every member is here to support one another. The EvolutionEat team will facilitate discussions on a daily basis to help support your every day. Having a close-knit community of inspired, like-minded superstars is a game-changer and is crucial to your development. You will get the most out of your peers by serving each and every member who enrolls.

Think of it this way: Holy shit , right? You will be photographing what you eat for accountability and sharing your results with your partner and the community. The Doors Are Open! Yes, I'm ready to enroll! Apply by booking free coaching call. What We Eat It is our natural birthright to be fit and healthy. The application takes about 2 minutes to complete.

Scheduling a call does not guarantee admission. This has to be a perfect fit.

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