Beyond the One-Right-Way Leadership Myth
Leadership development content has a long tradition of identifying the one right leadership style — servant leadership, transformational leadership, situational leadership, Level 5 leadership — and proposing that leaders adopt it as their primary approach. The research picture is more nuanced: different leadership behaviours are more effective in different contexts, and the leaders who produce the best outcomes across varied situations are those who can adapt their approach to the specific demands of each situation rather than those who are most consistent in any single style.
This doesn’t mean that all leadership styles are equally effective — the research is clear that some behaviours (using power to coerce compliance, taking credit for team members’ work, making decisions without relevant information) are consistently negatively associated with team performance and individual wellbeing. It means that within the range of effective leadership behaviours, the appropriate emphasis shifts based on the team’s experience, the task’s clarity, and the situation’s urgency.
Directive vs. Empowering Leadership: The Situational Dimension
Directive leadership — clear instructions, close oversight, specific performance expectations, and direct correction when performance falls short — produces better results than empowering leadership when the team is inexperienced with the specific task, the task has precise performance requirements, the time pressure is high, or the consequences of error are severe. In these contexts, the empowering leader who gives autonomy to a team that lacks the experience to use it well produces worse outcomes than the directive leader who provides the structure the situation requires.
Empowering leadership — delegation of decision-making authority, fostering self-direction, encouraging innovative approaches, and providing coaching rather than instruction — produces better results when the team is experienced and capable, the task involves creative problem-solving, motivation comes from autonomy rather than from external pressure, and the environment is stable enough that careful deliberation is possible. The leader who is directive with an experienced expert team is suppressing capability; the one who empowers a new employee in a high-stakes situation is abdicating responsibility.
Transformational Leadership: Inspiration at Scale
Transformational leadership — the ability to articulate a compelling vision that connects people’s work to something larger than daily tasks, to inspire commitment rather than merely compliance, and to elevate team members’ aspirations and capabilities beyond what they believed possible — is the leadership style most consistently associated with team performance, innovation, and follower wellbeing in the research literature. The transformational leader doesn’t just manage the existing situation — they change what people believe is possible and enlist them in creating something that didn’t exist before.
The practical elements of transformational leadership that can be developed: a vision for what the organisation is building and why it matters, communicated in ways that connect to each team member’s values and motivations; the genuine interest in each team member’s development and success that creates individual relationships rather than generic management; and the intellectual stimulation that challenges team members to question assumptions, think differently, and bring their full cognitive capability to the work. None of these require a specific personality type — they require deliberate attention and practice.
Authentic Leadership: The Credibility Foundation
Authentic leadership describes leaders who maintain consistency between their stated values and their observed behaviour — what they say they believe is reflected in what they actually do when it’s costly or inconvenient. The opposite — performative leadership that adopts whatever behaviours seem appropriate to the audience — produces followership that’s transactional rather than committed, because people who detect the performative quality don’t trust the person behind the performance.
Authentic leadership doesn’t mean leaders should share every thought or eschew strategic communication. It means that the values they articulate publicly are the values they actually use to make decisions when no one is evaluating them — and that when they get this wrong, they acknowledge the inconsistency rather than explaining it away. The leader who makes a decision inconsistent with their stated values and admits it (‘I didn’t live up to my stated commitment to transparency in this situation, and here’s what I’m going to do differently’) demonstrates more authentic leadership than one who explains why the inconsistency was actually consistent.
Developing Leadership: The Practices That Actually Build Capability
Leadership development has a history of over-investing in the knowledge dimension (leadership courses, frameworks, models) and under-investing in the practice dimension (applying specific leadership behaviours in real situations with feedback). Leaders who attend leadership programmes and return to their roles without changing specific behaviours typically don’t develop — they add knowledge that doesn’t translate to changed practice. The leadership development that produces lasting behaviour change combines knowledge, specific practice goals, regular feedback on actual behaviour (not self-assessment), and sustained attention from a coach or mentor.
The leadership practice that produces the most development per unit of time for most managers: the regular, honest one-on-one conversation with each direct report, where the manager’s primary role is listening and coaching rather than directing and informing. This practice develops the manager’s listening skills, their coaching capability, their understanding of each team member’s situation and motivation, and their ability to give useful feedback — simultaneously developing multiple critical leadership capabilities in the most relevant possible context.