GUERRILLA LEADERSHIP

Corporate Leaderships! One of my favourite subjects…

I was recently talking to a friend of mine and picked up a point for discussion. Usually we talk on diverse topics of mutual interests. This time it was on Leadership styles.

I became even more excited at this topic as we touched upon the various aspects of Leaderships in different contexts that one encounters on a daily basis.

You find a leader everywhere.. Be it in Offices, Politics, Sports, or even at home(managing your domestic help do need a skill).

You find all types of people. Some are best known as leaders and some as followers…. And the role reverses in different situations… How people adapt themselves to be Leaders or Followers is in itself a skill!

In this post, I would like to briefly touch upon some of the Leadership styles that we encounter. I am not going to list down and elaborate on the different styles. Instead, I thought of just summarising through the already available plethora of knowledgebase.

  

I guess all these different concepts and leadership styles and the roles the leaders play are self explanatory from the exhibits above.

Some are authoritarian, some are democratic, some are participative, some follow Laissez faire etc. And some leaders are King Makers!

But to my surprise we have been encountering a new set of leaders who are different from whatever is listed above.

Before I come to that, let me also list out some more different styles that we tend to emulate or study.

Leadership lessons from the animal kingdom!

That is a vast subject in itself. Just a few examples from the Animal Kingdom.

When we talk of Leadership in that category - the most popular name that comes to anyone’s mind is the lion, the king of the jungle. The lion rules by dominating those around him. Nobody dares to mess with a lion. Male lions are also great delegators; they eat, they sleep and they mate.  The lioness takes care of everything else.

However, when you ask around, very few female managers choose the lion as the animal that best reflects their leadership style. May be they are self-conscious to admit. On reflection, many of those who choose a lion change their minds. As, a lion tends to represent an autocratic management style, leading through fear rather than cooperation. A lady leader in the corporate world may not want to project such an image perhaps.

Let’s look at an Elephant! The matured and elderly female is the head of the Elephant herd. The headship is rarely challenged. The herd look up to their leader for the constant guidance and inspiration. When the matriarchal head gives up in life due to old age, the next senior most is unanimously selected as the team head. The survival of the entire herd depends on the experienced guidance of the aged female. The aged female elephant never acts like a boss but always will have solutions to the problems of the herd. If you look at an Elephant, it looks mighty and powerful, yet you can see a beautiful demeanour and calmness around it, unless it goes cranky ;).

I can list traits of many from that world which have established leadership qualities viz., Horses, Dolphins, Queen Bee or even a Golden Retriever.. Lots to learn!

However, I take this opportunity to also point out a new set of leadership style that is very different from any of the styles mentioned above.

These leaders have traits similar to King Makers. King makers drive the whole show through their remote control style of management and have all the members working as per directions while they don’t have the accountability directly. And all the members know who their leader is and report obediently. Our new friends are a slightly different lot. They have full control like the King Makers. The difference being, they control the members individually and the members do not talk about their leader amongst themselves. The control is very individualistic, yet as a whole!

I would like to call them Guerrilla Leaders!