Choosing the Right Managerial Style

What is your Managerial Style – Leadership or Management. Coaching or Supporting?

I have deliberated on this question a lot during my career. While the definition of each of them is very well documented, often conversations tend to pitch one against another, which puts newer managers in the uncomfortable spot of picking one vs other and guessing which one is better or worse making wrong choices (it certainly did for me).

Having seen these styles work well and not-so-well in my career (as a manager and a tech lead), I now believe that a good line managers need to adapt and use both techniques. The success of style depends entirely on context and people.

Management

When I say Management, I refer to following operational style:

Overseeing goals of a team
Being tactical in determining strategy in every step
Being Operation thinker who plans execution steps
Focusing on objectives
Minimizing risk in execution and seeks stability
Sometimes Teach by doing

Leadership

At a high level, operating style for “Leadership” is:

Setting vision and directing
Influencing & Coaching people through reasoning (explaining “why” we are doing things)
Making people feel part of vision and motivating them to creative in execution while still staying on track
Being a strategic thinker
Optimizing for long term autonomy of the team (some times trading off immediate risks)

There are enough subtle differences between the two styles and often it is not entirely sure what is ideal. In this write up, I try to capture a framework for choosing between the two styles.

Learnings From Mistakes

I made this mistake early in my management career. There was a project that an engineer reporting to me was working on. It involved a lot of cross organizational alignment, planning and execution. I knew this was a steep step up for this engineer. By then through training I received (or let’s say I probably took wrong lessons) I had this idealistic view of a manager leading through coaching than being very tactical and execution focused.

Before too long, this approach backfired for the team and engineer. Project execution was constantly falling off track despite the best efforts of the lead engineer. There was lack of clarity for everyone involved in schedules, dependencies and what needs to be done when. All this while I was still Coaching the engineer – guiding them through questions, helping them arrive at decisions and figuring out the path of the project.

So what happened? What the engineer really needed was more hands on support than just coaching. Someone who can help operationalize the project, help in figuring out milestones, how to get alignment on deliverables and timelines across the team. Purely relying on coaching and expecting the engineer to ask the right questions and figure out a path forward, is setting up for failure at that stage of their career.

It’s through experiences like these that I now believe that to be a good Engineering lead (at least as line managers), one has to be able to operate in both styles depending on context and people involved. You need to be able to do any of the following depending on context.

Directing – Setting path, operationalizing, assigning clear deliverables
Supporting – Help in brainstorming, provide feedback proactively, teach by doing if needed
Coaching – Let them make the decisions, provide high level directions, ask probing questions, help with setting decision frameworks
Delegate – Trust and only get involved when asked

Learnings From Mythology

I was recently forwarded a story about two leaders in Hindu mythology and their differing styles. It is very relevant to current topic in this blog. So I modified that slightly here to draw parallels to our subject.

Ramayan and Mahabharata are two epics in Hindu mythology. The centre story of both these books is around victory of good over evil.

In one story Ram (protagonist) leads his army to defeat Ravana in his land, While in the second Krishna (protagonist) oversees Pandavas defeat Kauravas in the battle at Kurushektra.

In Ramayan, Ram is the best warrior of his side. He leads his army from the front. Strategizes & directs different people to do things which will meet the objectives. His people while very skilled are not capable of operational tactics.. Ram sets direction & also tells people what to do during difficult times. Ultimately they won the war & the final outcome was achieved.

On the other hand Krishna told Arjuna (skilled warrior), I won’t fight the battle. I won’t pick up any weapon; I would only be there on our chariot as a charioteer.

And he did what he said. He never picked up the weapon & he never fought. Still, Pandavas won the war & final outcome was achieved.

What is the difference?

It was their managerial style & It was also the type of people who were being led and situation at hand.

Ram was leading an army of warriors who were not skilled fighters & they were looking for direction. While on other hand, Krishna was leading Arjuna who was one of the best archers of his time.

While Ram’s role was to show it & lead from the front, Krishna played the role of a coach whose job was to help clarify doubts, provide general guidance needed for Arjuna to go about his work.

Krishna couldn’t teach Arjuna archery but he could definitely help him see things from a very different perspective whereas Ram had to use his superior skills and experience in helping guide his warriors across difficult terrains.

So they had to operate in two styles:

Ram- A skilled warrior, was tactical, gave precise roles & instructions (operationalizing the strategy), motivated the army to fight with specific cause in mind. He needed the trust of his warriors to be able to do this. Hint: Management.

Krishna: Arjuna was looking for a coach who provides strategic clarity, explains vision and why it was needed. Krishna did exactly that, he coached Arjuna and allowed the team to take lead, fight for the cause of the team, use his skill and creativity in succeeding. Hint: Leadership

What type do you need to be?

Look at the combination of your team, project and context to reflect what type of role you need to play.

One who keeps answering/solving problems for people ? Or Who asks relevant questions from their people so that they can find their own solution?
Someone who tells/directs, is tactical and operationalizes the plan? Or Someone who coaches and sets a path and lets their people find their own ways?
Are u someone who has had bright engineers but yet fall through in execution of larger projects? Or do you have an engineer who is an expert who seeks clarity and direction?

Best outcomes are achieved when you put the right hat based on the context.