The Benefits of Changing your Leadership Style

This is a true account of an experience I had many years ago when a change in leadership style dramatically improved the performance of the business. In the late 1990’s I worked in a factory that printed and bound children’s books. It was a great business with strong values but sadly struggled against tough foreign competition particularly in China who could print and bind books far more cheaply than we could. The factory had a manager who was responsible for all aspects of the supply chain, from purchasing of raw materials, through printing and warehousing and finally delivery to the customer. He was very experienced and new the business inside out having been had been promoted from the shop floor into vacuous supervisory, and management roles before he was responsible for the whole site. He was however, what I would call a very ‘traditional manager’. . I call him traditional because of his style. He liked to keep control of everything, could be very dictatorial (‘when I want your opinion I will give it to you), and was almost obsessive about cost. He did not really trust any of us, and I got the feeling that he believed that if he did not tell us what to do all the time we would get things wrong! Because he was so cost focused, he didn’t spend money except on essentials and thought things like training and development were a total waste of money. If any of us needed to spend even the smallest amount we had to seek approval from him first. The consequence of his style and approach was that most of us only ever did what they were told to do, we rarely went the ‘extra mile for him, we were not very engaged and some had quite divisive relationships with their colleagues. Sadly, the manager didn’t recognise that his style also had consequences for himself. Because he disempowered his team and wanted to control everything he ended up doing things that we should have been doing and so worked long hours and was often stressed. He also couldn’t understand why some of us would not do more and take some of his work off him! The ultimate consequence on the business was that it didn’t respond to the changes in the marketplace as quickly as it should have done, and did not have the levels of productivity and responsiveness needed to compete. Eventually, the manager retired and a new person took on his role. However, this person did not have the detailed technical knowledge of his predecessor. He was not from the printing trade and he knew that he did not have the skills and experience to tell his managers ‘what to do’. However, he did understand about how to lead people effectively and recognised poor morale, team work, performance and lack of personal responsibility among many of the team he had inherited. He therefore decided to take a new and different approach from the previous manager , and did a number of things. He: Set clear expectations with each member of his team regarding their performance and behaviour. Got ‘out of their way’ and allowed them to get on with their job without undue interference. Invested in a development programme to enable them to improve their own leadership and coaching skills. Supported and coached each individual manager to take greater responsibility Took action with anyone who either did not want to or could not meet the expectations set. Over a period of 12 months, there was a massive change in the team and their performance. As individuals we understood what was expected of us and grew in confidence as a result. Overall we all took on greater levels of responsibility and gained more job satisfaction. As a consequence, the manager was able to spend time on other activities such as setting out a new strategy for the factory, planning for investment, and reorganisation of factory operations. All of this concluded with a dramatic improvement in the operational performance of the factory – lead times were reduced by 75%, stock levels were reduced by over 50%, productivity increased by 25% with a corresponding reduction in cost per unit. All of which meant that the factory became more competitive and successful. For me it was an interesting lesson in the importance of leadership style and the impact that it can have on business performance, in both a negative and positive way.