{"id":136034,"date":"2021-07-21T14:04:03","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T13:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=136034"},"modified":"2021-07-23T11:14:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T10:14:00","slug":"types-of-leadership-styles-that-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/types-of-leadership-styles-that-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Types of leadership styles that work (and those that don\u2019t)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gordon Gekko from Wall Street<\/em>, Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada<\/em>, David Brent from The Office<\/em> \u2013 toxic styles of leadership have been immortalised on the screen through the decades, but none of them can compare to the horrors of bad leadership in real life. And when it comes to unrealistic demands, unachievable targets and damaging work environs<\/a>, the creative side of industry has been an ideal breeding ground for particularly nasty styles of management over the years\u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n

We asked our PR network for some of their own stories (names removed to protect the innocent):<\/p>\n

\u2018An old boss of mine was the definition of The Devil Wears Prada. She once commented that I would have to charm with my personality since my looks let me down. During the launch of a restaurant she insisted we all walk around with our hands on our hips in case a photographer caught us with a devastating case of Sausage Arm\u2026\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026my first ever job was for a well-known trade publishing house in the early 1980s \u2013 one of my bosses would verbally abuse me and occasionally hit me over the head. One of the other editors said I needed to stand up for myself (I was 18), so the next time the chap started on me, I told him not to. He said ‘make me’, so I stood up and swung a punch at him. I missed almost completely and ran off…\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026controlling, insulting, demeaning. She got violent and used to throw things. The receptionist bought my boss the wrong kind of roll from the bakery once. Thankfully, she had great reactions and ducked just in time\u2026\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

PR, marketing, advertising and media have been known as a haven for bad and outdated leadership styles and truly awful workplace superiors \u2013 if you\u2019ve been in the business for a while and don\u2019t have a related anecdote that springs to mind immediately, it\u2019s very likely someone you work with does. This history of crappy leadership is understandable. In these creativity-focused sectors powered by financial targets, lead generation and, above all, the bottom line, unconventional working styles and abrasive personalities can reign free\u2026 if they are seen to get results.<\/p>\n

\u2018The reality is that all sorts of bad leadership approaches may be tolerated by companies if the person is generating commercial value or has specialist, hard-to-replace skills,\u2019 says Access Intelligence\u2019s Head of HR Kate Fraser, who has worked with her share of big (for both the good and the bad) characters in important roles.<\/p>\n

\u2018At least now it is normal for both managers and team members to talk about the impact of individual management styles on company environment.\u2019<\/p>\n

Approaches to management and leadership have \u2013 thankfully \u2013 changed drastically since \u2018Management Science\u2019 came in the wake of \u2018Mass Production\u2019<\/a>. Even since the 1990s, where bosses loudly calling their employees The C-Word during frustrating projects \u2013 another example shared by a former pro who worked with a certain big brand during the decade of fax machines and pub-as-office \u2013 wasn\u2019t so frowned upon.<\/p>\n

Beyond the anecdotal, old-school cruelty at work just doesn\u2019t really\u2026 work. A survey from Businessolver<\/a> this year found that 92% of employees would be more likely to stay in their job if their bosses would show more empathy. An OC Tanner study<\/a> showed that 79% of employees who quit their job left because of a lack of appreciation. Cruel leadership styles can even impact physical health within teams, as found in a Karolinska Institute report<\/a> that showed links between leader qualities and incidences of heart disease in the workforce.<\/p>\n

\u2018Human nature hasn\u2019t fundamentally changed, whether we are talking about employees in the 50s or employees in the 90s or now,\u2019 says Kate. \u2018People have always valued development opportunities, autonomy, recognition and meaningful work, and good leaders have always understood the value of adapting their approach depending on individual competencies and personalities.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are two key things to which leaders and managers have needed to adapt in the past decade or so which are not easy to get right. Employees expect meaningful experiences that have a purpose going beyond money or even self-development, in which the positive reputation (as opposed on to commercial success) of companies is important. And work is often undertaken\/achieved through networks and influence rather than through role authority.\u2019<\/p>\n

Exerting control through rank-pulling and tyrannical rule (a la Katharine Parker in Working Girl<\/em>, or, perhaps one of the worst film bosses of all time, Darth Vader) is out \u2013 or, at least, it should be \u2013 and supportive leaders that allow creativity and good ideas to flourish are what can make modern teams work.<\/p>\n

New people-first initiatives \u2013 like Bumble\u2019s week-long closure<\/a> back in June to give staff experiencing burn out a break, job sharing for senior roles at the BBC<\/a>, KPMG\u2019s voice-only meetings on Fridays<\/a>, and the Human Givens approach being used at Splendid Communications<\/a> \u2013 are positive changes and, hopefully, signs that aggressive and outdated leadership styles will go the way of those fax machines and printed media directories \u2013 relegated to the past.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026Every day I wanted to crash into the central reservation on the motorway just so I would have a good enough excuse not to go into work. I left to work in-house for a global brand. Guess who made contact with me two weeks into my new job? Nice as pie, telling me she knew I\u2019d go on to great things and did I need a PR agency? I had great delight telling her that while I was working there, she would NEVER make it onto the approved supplier list and to never contact me ever again. That\u2019s the last I heard from her. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018I see her name pop up from time to time and it makes me think back to my early days in the industry. As hard as it was, it shaped me into being a better boss. I\u2019d never want anyone junior to me to feel how I did. For that, I\u2019m grateful.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

For more on maintaining mental wellbeing at work, watch our accessmatters session with KDP Consulting\u2019s Katie Phillips<\/a> on spotting the early signs of burnout and how to protect yourself and your colleagues. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada, David Brent from The Office \u2013 toxic styles of leadership have been immortalised on the screen through the decades, but none of them …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":136036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,3725,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136034"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141455,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136034\/revisions\/141455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}