This question not only lies at the heart of most Leadership Coaching sessions, it is a huge factor in how my clients are also impacted by other leaders above and parallel to them. However, it is rarely clearly defined, making it hard for people to find their way when promoted into leadership roles.

In fact, it seems much easier to say what good leadership is not, because it impacts us so strongly when we run up against it. Poor communication, hoarding information, control issues, micromanagement, playing favorites, lack of appreciation or praise, being disorganized and other factors have caused huge amounts of stress in my clients over the years. Both in the clients doing it and suffering as a consequence of others doing it.

No one intends to lead badly, but just as horse trainer Buck Brannaman says that your “horse is a mirror to your soul”, your leadership style is a mirror to you also. It magnifies both your strengths and your weaknesses.

It would be easy to list all the qualities that make a good leader: empathy, compassion, decision-making, ability to sort through information quickly, good judgement, communication skills, team-building skills and intentionality around the culture they are creating. What is not so easy, is to say what qualities are needed to achieve those things if they do not come naturally to you.

So often my clients have been promoted into leadership roles because of their skill in their particular job, but not necessarily because of their soft skills. Soft skills are character traits (hard to teach!) and interpersonal skills (also hard to teach!) which are essential for pulling a team together and organizing it, in a way that is both healthy and productive.

Some of my clients have found that they already have all the traits necessary for relating to others and creating a team, but that it is hard to find the confidence to stand up as a leader and tell people what to do. This can be especially hard for groups who have been marginalized in the past, and possibly continue to be. Both because of internalized messages and because of real friction from others. These leaders need extra support in finding their confidence and benefit from finding other leaders in the same boat to relate to. As a female coach I can be helpful to women, however, as a white woman I have to be realistic about my limitations in how much I can relate to the struggles of my clients who are people of color. I try to acknowledge the systems of power that they are working against and I will probably always need ongoing development in this area. I do know that dealing with systemic issues like this can be very fatiguing and people dealing with this kind of pervasive power imbalance need more support in terms of finding safe spaces and implementing regular and impactful self care (beyond superficial self care, like a relaxing bath).

Perhaps counterintuitively, leaders for whom the work and the organization’s mission come much more naturally than the soft skills, have much more of a struggle developing an effective leadership style. Confidence can be a boon but also a stumbling block, in that if you believe you are doing really well, you won’t be very open to learning new skills. Also, interpersonal communication and connection requires a degree of humility that may not come naturally to them. This issue is becoming more and more apparent as culture shifts away from power-over structures, towards power-to, and soft skills become increasingly valuable. It can be a rude awakening for people who grew up with more ‘traditional’ hierarchical structures being modeled to them, and who see that kind of leader in their mind when they step into the role.

To me, leadership has always been a service role – almost as if the traditional pyramid of a hierarchy is turned on its head. The more people ‘beneath’ you, the more you are serving. Of course, this model does not suit all of my clients, it depends on the culture of their company and industry. There is a big difference between a leader in the army and a leader in a service industry, for example. But if you find yourself struggling because you prefer a more traditional approach, but you are being told you need to work on your soft skills or empathy, then there is some work to be done. Not solely on incorporating new skills, but in terms of trying to evolve your concept of what a leader is. Although we all have our own unique leadership styles, if your style is rubbing up against the culture in your company or even the wider culture we are all a part of, you will encounter ongoing problems.

This could be a blog article in itself – the difficulty of changing with the times. Because the times not only bring new technology, they also require us to expand our thinking and adapt how we see the world and even ourselves. This can be very confronting for some people, and although it seems like we can simply tack on another skill, like listening, for example, if you want to be a great leader, you need to be able to evolve with the times. You need to evolve because the people you are serving and their dynamic is evolving, and if you are rigid in the face of that, you will not be able to hear and see them and what they need.

This is obviously a huge topic, not one I can easily cover in one article. But the TLDR is that I have seen two main paradigms with leaders that need support. Some with great soft skills who feel a lack of confidence in their ability to take ownership of their role. Others with a lot of confidence, but an identification with an older concept of leadership, which is more rigid and distant, more autocratic you could say. And perhaps counterintuitively, it has been the first group which lacks confidence that actually comes along in leaps and bounds, and I think it is because their humility means they are more open to learning and change.

Of course, leadership is much more nuanced than this and there is much more to consider, but in this article I wanted to talk about the two major trends I have seen in people seeking leadership coaching.

So let me leave you with a couple of questions to think about:

• Which group do you identify with the most?
• What is your idea of the perfect leader?
• How would you feel if you reported to you as a leader (including both pros and cons)?

I hope you enjoyed this article, why not share it with someone you think will be interested in the ideas I discussed, perhaps it will spark a conversation. And if you are struggling at all – either with your own leadership style, or with someone else’s – remember that change is always possible. We just need to find the right path forward for the individual, as we do not all learn and evolve in the same way. There is always hope!