The Balanced Leader
By Tim McEwan and Roderic Yapp

Leadership is often defined in simple terms. The majority of articles on LinkedIn argue that leadership ‘is all about empowering people’. Whilst I agree with that most of the time, it’s not a rule that applies to every situation.

If you saw someone get hit by a car whilst crossing the road, would you want to be empowered to make the decisions in that situation? You might but chances are you’ll prefer being told what to do by a Police Officer who arrives on the scene and takes control of the situation. Empowering people works well in many situations, but not all of them.

When you ask people to share stories of ‘the best leaders they’ve ever worked for’, they talk about people who support them unconditionally; create an environment of absolute clarity; build strong relationships based on trust, and many other things.

Ultimately, they talk about how the leader behaved so in its simplest terms, leadership is all about behaviour. It is about how you behave and the impact that behaviour has on the people around you.

But all behaviour is based on context.

What’s appropriate on a night out with friends might not be appropriate on a company off-site. That’s why leaders need to be able to understand the context and  be able to choose how they behave so that their behaviour generates the best outcome for them, the team and the wider organisation.