Five Things I’ve Learnt about Leadership

Having spent 16 years working in Higher Education and a few more in the creative industries prior to that, I’ve experienced my fair share of different management styles and, indeed, have also been in management positions myself. Here are five highly subjective observations about what I think makes a good leader.

1. Be Visible, and Be Human

No one’s expecting a manager to be super-human, and I don’t think anyone wants that. We want someone we can relate to and be able to speak openly to, and if they’re put on a pedestal (either by themselves or us), the chances are we won’t feel comfortable going to them when we need help. The managers I’ve connected with and respected the most are those who admit they’re fallible, face up to mistakes, and take responsibility. A sense of humour goes a long way, too, especially when the chips are down, and everyone needs a boost. Being able to take the sting out of the situation with a bit of gallows humour or silliness can put staff in a more positive frame of mind, and that makes them more capable of tackling the issues at hand.

2. Be a Barrier

As a manager, I always saw myself as a barrier between my team and the pressures and stresses of being fired from the outside. That’s not to say that I’d ever mislead staff, assuring them everything was OK when it wasn’t, but I always liked to spend some time thinking about the matter at hand before deciding what people needed to know at that time (or, indeed, what was helpful to know at that time). The worst managers I’ve worked under have seemed to delight in passing on the pressure as soon as humanly possible, allowing their own insecurities, fears, and unchecked emotions to influence how the information is received by their teams. Thinking on your feet and reacting quickly is sometimes a valuable tool for a manager, but knee-jerk reactions can bring unnecessary stress to staff. Being a manager usually means you’re given more financial compensation than the team you’re leading, so it’s right that sometimes you bear the burden so they don’t have to.

3. Empowerment and Trust

I’ve witnessed (and been on the receiving end) of micromanagement that is so stifling it’s almost comical. Almost. But it rarely, if ever, gets the best out of a team, as they begin to second-guess everything they do in case it’s not what the manager would want or simply stop being productive because the manager will just change it all anyway. It’s a real grind to work under these conditions, and goodwill, morale, and optimism soon disappear to make way for a working environment filled with resentment, fear, and negativity. You don’t want to let people go off and do whatever they want, whenever they want, but you do need to empower your team to come up with and implement their own ideas, and trust them to make good judgement calls. Just check in every now and then for ‘updates’, which can serve the dual purpose of support sessions and quality checks.

4. Authority and Clarity

Decision-making can be unpleasant, particularly if you know something is going to be controversial or unpopular. But decisions need to be made, and you need to trust your judgment in making them. Just make sure your reasoning is clear when communicating it to your staff, and always do so with confidence and authority. Nothing goes down worse than asking people to do something when you’re unenthusiastic about it yourself. And make sure you communicate it to everyone at the same time. Hearing things on the ‘grapevine’ rather than directly from managers can have a negative impact on confidence and morale as staff may get the impression they’re not important enough to hear it from ‘the horse’s mouth’.

5. Listen (But not to Everyone)

Make sure you listen to those who are actually doing the job on a daily basis; those at the coal face who will be able to advise you of the real-world practical implications of the idea you’re looking to implement. In education, for example, it stands to reason that if a decision is being made about something which impacts the running of a classroom, you need to speak with the people who are in those classes. That said, the phrase ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ is a good one when it comes to leadership, and it’s certainly the case that if you canvass the opinion of everyone, you’ll end up with a contradictory mess that gets you nowhere. So, listen to those who are at the coal face but who also know about the bigger picture of your institution. If you don’t, you’ll get bogged down with having to explain why someone’s idea won’t work because it’s not financially viable/ it’s not inclusive/ it goes against institutional policy/ it’s simply ill-informed etc. etc.

By Glenn Fosbraey is Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Winchester