THE ‘COCKTAIL’ EFFECT – WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE? Leave a comment

Nicki Rowland, Director of Practices Made Perfect and co-owner of The Exceptional Leadership Academy, explores different leadership styles and the ‘soft’ skills required to nurture a positive environment in the workplace.

IS YOUR COCKTAIL A DISASTER?
Working as a team is no mean feat. Every day that we go into work we face hurdle after hurdle. Difficult customers, broken equipment, time constraints and health and safety issues are regular events that add to the pressures that our teams face on a daily basis. Add to the mixture a drop of tension, a sprinkling of criticism and a dash of attitude and you have a cocktail for disaster. Team members fall out, motivation is lost and resentment sets in. The foundations of your once ‘united front’ begin to shake. As leaders, it is our job to identify the most appropriate leadership style that ensures harmony, commitment and accountability in our businesses and that we are formulating the perfect cocktail.
You may be asking yourself “Why is Nicki likening what can happen in the workplace with the making of a cocktail?” Well, read on and find out…

SHAKEN OR STIRRED?
The quote “Shaken, not stirred” is synonymous with the fictional, film character James Bond when ordering his martinis. Shaken and stirred are two words that mean nearly the same thing. However, for bar tenders the terms carry great significance as shaking or stirring a cocktail can greatly alter the attributes of the drink. In a similar way, whether your team is ‘shaken’ or ‘stirred’ reflects on the style of leadership in your business and can significantly influence how individuals perform, react and behave. Let me explain.
Shaken refers to a cocktail that has been prepared after the ingredients are placed in a metal cocktail shaker and shaken vigorously by the bartender. In a shaken cocktail, the temperature drops significantly as ice cubes melt and make the drink very cold and more dilute. Similarly, the ‘temperature’ of your culture can be directly affected by the way in which you choose to handle a situation. Go in wielding a big stick to shake things up and hackles will rise, nerves will fray and individuals will become decidedly frosty. Motivation and morale then take a nosedive and standards and performance are ‘diluted’ across the board.
Molecules in a shaken drink are also more volatile and reactive. The shaking action energises the particles and they react with other ingredients more readily. In a similar way, ‘shaken’ team members are more reactive and their tolerance levels to stressful situations at work are greatly reduced. All it takes is a low key event to overfill their ‘highball’ glass and negative emotions will effervesce and overflow. Some people believe that shaken gin is bruised and loses its original flavour. Likewise, team members who have had their self-esteem battered by an autocratic leader can become stubborn, resistant and do not perform to the best of their ability at work.
Stirred refers to a cocktail that has been prepared by placing the ingredients in a steel jar and then delicately mixing them using a spoon. This results in slower chilling of the beverage due to the more gentle nature of stirring. In turn, the ice cubes do not melt as quickly. The goal of a proper stirring technique is to do the exactly the opposite of shaking, i.e. avoiding aerating and agitating the drink. In business, the benefits of ‘stirring’ your team using a democratic leadership style are far reaching. A good leader will always takes the initiative and procures others to go the extra mile in order to achieve the task in question. A good splash of charisma is a key ingredient to inspiring others. Once you have their attention, you should be able to gain your team’s commitment to achieve other goals. With a democratic leadership style, you should be able to coordinate tasks well, delegate them accordingly and complete them ahead of schedule. If team members are ‘stirred’ steadily and smoothly, every individual will move in one direction at a constant pace (just like molecules in a liquid) and the results will be very appertising.

IS STIRRING A LOST ART?
I have noticed in both bars and businesses alike that STIRRING IS BECOMING A LOST ART. Everywhere I go, bar tenders seem to be shaking drinks, regardless of their contents. This is most unfortunate because a well stirred cocktail will have a certain texture that cannot be attained by shaking. Similarly, on walking into businesses that I consult for, I witness varying leadership styles. The Covid-19 crisis has shaken up the management of organisations even further and I see 5 main leadership styles emerging. There are pros and cons to each approach so let us explore them in more detail:

1. Authoritarian Leadership – a leadership style that imposes expectations and determines outcomes. It is often a ‘one man show’ with the leader having a ‘it’s my way or the highway’ mind set. This can be advantageous if the leader is more knowledgeable than the team and needs to give clear guidelines. However, creativity will be sacrificed with limited input from the team and a synergistic, collaborative way of working is lost. Team members can become disenchanted and resentful and staff retention decreases.
2. Participative Leadership – this approach is deep rooted in democratic theory. The essence is to engage team members in decision-making and encourage a cohesive way of working. The leader will generally have the last word but everyone has a voice that is heard. This leadership style increases motivation and job satisfaction and allows individuals to be innovative. The downside is that the decision-making process can take a great deal of time and productivity can reduce.
3. Delegative leadership – this can also be described as “laissez-faire leadership” where the style focuses heavily on delegation. This can be positive and very empowering for team members if they are competent, motivated and given the required time to complete tasks. However, disputes may arise when ‘command responsibility’ is not clearly defined. A team may then become divided and morale plummets.
4. Transactional leadership – uses rewards, punishments and other transactions to get the job done. This ‘give and take’ style means that the leader sets rigid goals and team members are rewarded for their compliance. This approach focuses on following institutionalised regimes and procedures in an efficient manner, rather than driving change or improvement to an organisation. The upside is that results can be measured, team members know exactly what they have to do and that appropriate rewards (or penalties) will follow. However, it is a ‘managing with a big stick’ approach where empathy is lost and team members become subservient.
5. Transformational leadership – the leader inspires their team with a vision and purpose that encourages and empowers them to achieve it. The leader ‘leads from the front’ and shows their team the way. They are a ’yardstick’. They make expectations of quality clear, live those expectations and have a zest for life. Transformational leaders get a complete buzz from seeing their team flourish and grow. Staff are then motivated, energised and driven to achieve and develop. The downside to this leadership approach is that standards are high and expectations are even higher. It requires constant work from the leader to sustain standards and keep their team buoyant.

DEVELOPING YOUR OWN RECIPE
No leadership style is a stand-alone entity. It is important to recognise which leadership style is most appropriate in varying situations. You are unlikely to be a successful leader if you simply mimic one of the above styles. It is all about creating your own cocktail, your own flavour, your own brand. Leadership is not just a process of delivering a certain response at a given time. It is about using your natural leadership strengths in an authentic way to inspire and motivate others. Much like a cocktail, it is getting the right blend of ingredients to produce a delectable result. As, American author and screenwriter, Elsa Maxwell, once said “Cocktails are society’s most enduring invention”.