Australasian Centre for Leadership Studies - Leadership Training Resources

We’ve all played charades: silently acting out a word, phrase or name for others to guess.

Sometimes it’s easy. Either because the word is easy to act out or because the audience just “gets it” through shared familiarity.

Here’s a scary thought: what if your name came up in a game of charades at work? What would the person or group who had to act it out actually do to communicate your identity to the group?

Would there be lots of smiles, open arms, generous gestures, smiles, attentive listening, looks of confidence and encouragement? Or would there be hunched shoulders, seriousness, finger wagging, hands on hips, anxiety, or even hostility?

Whether we hold formal or informal leadership roles, those around us develop expectations of our typical behaviours. These become, quite reasonably, the ways in which people anticipate we will conduct ourselves.

“Everyone watches the boss,” writes Daniel Goleman in The New Leaders. “People take their emotional cues from the top … even when leaders were not talking, they were watched more carefully than anyone else in the group” (pp.9-10).

There’s a simple principle behind this: we trust what we see. Words can be misleading or misunderstood. Thoughts and intentions are unseen and unknowable. Actions speak louder than words.

Of course, what people see us do in turn affects the way in which they interact with us. If they’ve learned to expect openness and acceptance, they’ll be open; if they’ve learned to expect questioning and exploration, they’ll come prepared with good information; if they’ve learned to expect resistance, they’ll ask themselves if it’s worth the grief or they’ll come prepared for battle; if they’ve learned to expect irritation or exasperation, they’ll limit their interactions to the absolutely necessary - and then proceed with caution!

But there’s another dimension to our leadership behaviours. Because, particularly in uncertain or ambiguous situations, people tend to model their own behaviours on those of the leader - formal or informal. This, of course, creates organisational culture - “the way things are done around here".

One of the key principles Situational Leadership® teaches is that it is our behaviour - not our thoughts or intentions - that creates our leadership “style". It’s our words and actions that create patterns of behaviour that communicate our style to others.

The problem is that we are often not as aware of our own behaviour as others are because we see our behaviours through the lens of our intentions and in the context of our own circumstances. And those internal views are impossible for those around us to see. So they trust what they see: our outward behaviour. And they interpret that behaviour as reflecting our attitudes, our values and our standards.

Here are three things to think about in managing our leadership behaviours to create more positive and effective relationships:

1. Identify your typical influencing behaviours. Think about an upcoming interaction and what you typically say and do in such situations. Create a silent movie - a charade - of what your behaviour in such a situation would look like. What would others typically see you do? And how might they interpret that behaviour?

2. Anticipate the situational needs. Thinking situationally isn’t complicated, but it does require conscious and informed discipline. Without the discipline of analysing the situational needs of those we are seeking to influence, the natural impulse is to simply go with gut instinct, habit or the path of least resistance. Do you need to be more task oriented, or less? Does the situation require high levels of supportive behaviour, or not?

3. Plan the most appropriate influencing behaviours. Once you’ve identified the situational needs you can evaluate whether your typical behaviours (Step 1) are likely to get the outcomes - long-term as well as short-term - that you’re after, or whether you need to adapt in some way. Again, this is not complicated, but it doesn’t happen without conscious planning. Of course, if you’re not so familiar with the behaviour required it can take some time and practice! And if others aren’t familiar with you using a particular behaviour, it might take them some time to get used to it, too.

You can start this process immediately. And you can evaluate it, too. After you’ve engaged in the situation, reflect on what you did. What charade would be acted out by someone who was watching or someone who was involved in the situation?

Our behaviour is important, because people trust what they see. Our actions speak louder than our words. And they leave a lasting impact. It’s called our “leadership style".

Aubrey Warren
National Master Trainer
Situational Leadership® Australia

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