Great Leaders Focus on Behaviours, Not Styles.

I recently had a coaching client—let's call him Mark—who attended our first session seeking guidance on the leadership style best suited for his success. He'd been promoted to team leader and was convinced that if he could master transformational leadership (or maybe servant leadership?), his team would magically start performing like a well-oiled machine. Three months later, by focusing on authentic relationship-building behaviours instead of trying to conform to a specific leadership "box," Mark found that his team was more responsive to change, and he experienced less stress in leading them.

Mark's story isn't unique. Many new leaders fall into the "style trap"—believing there's one ideal leadership approach that will solve all their challenges.

However, new research from Eva et al.* reveals that 12 popular leadership styles share 80% of their variance. In other words, whether you call yourself a transformational, authentic, or servant leader, you're likely doing the same fundamental things—building relationships, communicating vision, and supporting your people.

This research validates what we've always believed at People Smart: effective leadership isn't about adopting a specific leadership style. It's about understanding your leadership purpose, values and strengths, then developing behaviours that leverage these to build meaningful connections with your team to achieve organisational goals and objectives.  

Behavioural Recommendations

The competency track

• Develop task-related competencies such as goal setting, monitoring progress, and providing resources

• Being a change agent by demonstrating change-oriented behaviours such as communicating vision, inspiring innovation, and adapting to challenges

It's about the relationship

• Prioritise relationship-building behaviours, including:

  • Building genuine connections with team members

  • Demonstrating authentic care for followers' development and wellbeing

  • Creating positive emotional bonds that enhance trust and engagement

Knowing yourself

• Develop authentic, values-based behaviours by:

  • Understanding your values and strengths

  • Developing behaviours that feel authentic to you

  • Create consistent behavioural patterns that reflect your genuine leadership purpose

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The most powerful leadership development occurs when we help leaders identify relationship-building behaviours that feel authentic to them, not when we try to force them into predetermined style categories.

After all, your people need you to show up authentically and consistently in ways that inspire, support, and connect.

Lets us help you or your leaders to learn the relationship behaviours that make a difference.

*Eva at al. (2024). An Inconvenient Truth: A Comprehensive Examination of the Added Value (or lack thereof) of Leadership Measures. Journal of Management Studies, 2024.