The most common question I have gotten in any leadership conversation is easy to identify. It normally comes out after a few minutes of conversation, but it always gets asked. What is THE most effective leadership style? Sometimes I’ll get an add on that asks if that is an easy question to answer. In short, yes, it’s easy to answer, and the answer is IT DEPENDS. That is not a very satisfying answer, and certainly not one that is widely pushed in academic or publication settings. The reason it’s not the common answer is money. If I want to sell a book, or further an academic theory (we will cover construct proliferation, or the idea that there are so many leadership theories out there that they cannot all stand-alone soon) I can’t really say that my idea will work, but not for everyone. First, I want to take a moment to look at the question a little deeper.

What is the best or most effective leadership style? When I became an Air Force officer, I asked some superiors how to hone my leadership style, which is a very common question for people new to leadership roles. The advice I got was to just pick a leadership book and find out what works for me. That was not comforting for a 2nd Lieutenant with 220 people (many of whom had over 20 years’ experience) in his Aircraft Maintenance Unit. I don’t think it was a bad answer, but it was obviously one that did not have a lot of thought put into it. The reason I don’t believe there was much though put into it is that those superiors fully understood the context of my duties. They should have had an idea of what I would need to be successful.

The issue I have with a lot of self-help books on leadership and organization is that they normally pitch their “rules” or their “way” of doing business and assume it will work across all contexts. Even within one business (the Air Force, in my case), each location had its own set of “ism’s”. Consider Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene Texas and Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas Nevada. We had Dyess”isms” and Nellis”isms” which were peculiar to the location. They are both Air Force bases, but they had very different mission sets and operating norms. With that, I would have had to drastically alter my leadership style based on the situation. I cannot call it situational leadership, because that is its own leadership theory which does not mean what you would intuitively think it does (ref 1). Regardless, I could not choose one leadership style for my career and call it good.

I cannot say that books on leadership are bad, I am working to turn my dissertation research into a book myself, but I can say that they are incomplete. But when selling a book, you don’t want to begin by saying “I might be wrong here, but this is what worked for me”. Fortunately, I LOVE being wrong! So, I don’t have a one size fits all solution. Those books are so popular exactly because that is what people love, a silver bullet solution. We are narrative creatures, and the Hawthorne effect (ref 2, whatever gets measured will improve, at least temporarily) plays a big psychological role in this. We will cover the Hawthorne effect in depth at a later date, but just think about it like a diet. If you start a diet, you may weigh yourself daily. If you lose a little or gain a little, you can normally attribute it to some very recent behavior or dietary/exercise changes. If you read any leadership book, thanks to the recency bias (ref 3), you will be very cognizant of anything leadership related because you just read a book on it. And mind you, reading a book is no small feat for many people. Now imagine if I told you that you needed to read 20 different books on leadership to be prepared to face a multitude of situations?!

The good news is you don’t have to read 20 books today. I view leadership more as a toolbox than a tool. If you have a pipe wrench, that is great to tighten a pipe, and while that tool may drive a nail with enough blood, sweat, and tears, there is an easier tool for that job (it’s a hammer, for those who were in suspense). So, which leadership style is most effective? It depends. You need to accurately understand your context. Are you in a big organization or a small organization? Are you in the highest levels of management, or further down the hierarchy? Are you trying to lead subordinates, peers, or people who outrank you? You need to determine if you are dealing with a pipe or a nail, only then can you choose a pipe wrench or a hammer. BUT, once you have learned that skill, it is in your toolbox! Sure, you may have to dust it off if you haven’t used it in a while but understanding the fundamentals of applying the right leadership style in the correct context will only help you.

There are a few fundamental truths I have found, but nothing that has been “proven” academically. Realistically only a few things have been “proven” academically (Universal law of gravitation, Newton’s laws of motion, etc.), but even getting a behavioral theory widely accepted is difficult. These observations are more axioms than anything, which do have research to back them, but are a bit difficult to summarize from an academic perspective. Luckily for us, this is a learning environment and not a strictly academic one! I have two axioms that I believe in, and they are: 1. transparency and 2. empathy. I believe if you operate with transparency and empathy, you will be far more successful in leadership journey.

In transparency, we must realize that we are a sentient gatherings of star dust on a small blue dot in a huge universe, there is no way for us to know everything…I know it…you know it…they know it…own it. That means asking for help and not being afraid to say, “I don’t know”. People sometimes hear the word empathy and immediately jump to emotional intelligence writ large or simply prefer to keep emotion out of their leadership style. I prefer to look at empathy a little more analytically through the lens of sonder (ref 4) which is the realization that everyone has a life as rich and complex as your own. At a bare minimum, we need to treat people with kindness and consideration. If we simply think of empathy as doing no harm to a person, we at least need to know enough about the person to understand what motivates them.

If we use transparency and empathy as our toolbox, any tool we put inside them will be more effective even if they are not used absolutely correctly (full disclosure, I have driven a nail with a wrench before, so this parable works). Again, I cant just look at a person and guess what kind of leadership style is going to be best for them. I cant even always determine what leadership style will be most effective for me with a subordinate if I have only had brief interactions with them. It all takes time, patience, and practice. But just remember as we move forward on this leadership journey, there is no one right way to lead. In the meantime, let’s work to be humble, work to be kind, and work to be a little better today than we were yesterday. Thank you for your time, and please keep an eye out for my upcoming podcast!

1. Hersey, Paul, and Kenneth H. Blanchard. “Situational leadership.” Dean’s Forum. Vol. 12. No. 2. 1997.
2. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-hawthorne-effect-2795234
3. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-recency-effect-4685058
4. https://thepracticalpsych.com/blog/sonder#:~:text=Sonder%20meaning&text=John%20Koenig%20coined%20this%20term,relevant%20to%20our%20well%2Dbeing.