Directive vs. Empowering Leadership
Why You Need Both
Being an empowering leader takes more time and effort than a directive approach. But is this extra work really worth it?
Data seems to suggest that the answer is “yes”. While reading Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last, I came across the following:
According to a study conducted by Dr. Natalia Lorinkova, who studies management and leadership at Wayne State University, “Teams led by a directive leader initially outperform those led by an empowering leader. However, despite lower early performance, teams led by an empowering leader experience higher performance improvement over time because of higher levels of team-learning, coordination, empowerment and mental model development.”
You can find the cited study in full here. But if we were to oversimplify its implications, we might say that it proves micromanagement does not work well in the long term. That is great news because it means all the effort we invest in coaching our team and promoting autonomy is time well spent. Still, I think this only tells part of the story.
New Times, New Leaders
I was pleased to discover that data supports the intuition that teams led by empowering leaders perform better in the long term. However, even if the data suggested otherwise, I believe being an empowering leader isn't a choice; it's a necessity. Let me explain why.
Historically, companies could easily stay in business by maintaining the same processes and org structures for decades. In these companies, career growth was straightforward: you diligently performed your tasks according to your job description, your superiors told you what to do, how to do it, and by when. If you did it well, every few years you’d move up, get a new job description, a raise, and maybe a bigger office. After a few of these, if all went well, it would be you telling people what to do, how to do it, and by when. The cycle repeated itself.
In that reality, a directive approach to leadership was effective most of the time. Flexibility, adaptability, and entrepreneurship were neither required nor requested. Tasks remained the same, and oftentimes your superiors knew best how to do the job by the mere fact that they’d been in the business longer.
Today, the world has changed dramatically. If they want to have a chance of staying in business, companies have to constantly adapt to new market trends, business needs, and disruptive innovations. A specific org chart rarely lasts more than a couple of years.
Technology evolves so rapidly that leaders today cannot assume they always have the necessary skills to dictate what needs to be done. In fact, when you recruit new talent, the idea is that you hire THEM to tell YOU what should be done!
That is why I believe that, in the world we live in today, directive leadership is not just ineffective—it’s inapplicable.
The only viable approach is empowering leadership, centered on delegation, autonomy, independence, and trust. This is the only way to be effective in the long term.
But there’s a catch. Of course, there is!
Be Directive! …Sometimes
Despite its many benefits, you cannot be an empowering leader 100% of the time. No leadership style is universally effective. Reality is always more nuanced than we’d like it to be.
There are times when a more top-down approach is necessary. There are times when you need to be very specific about 'who' should do 'what' and 'how.' One example is during times of crisis. Let me share a personal story.
I vividly remember this one time during the go-live of a new service our team was launching. We had our best people on it, meticulously planned the steps, the dependencies, and the timeline to the minute. We all felt very confident. But, as usual, reality had a different script.
As we flipped the switch, disaster unfolded. Unexpected behaviors, crashes, and bugs popped up everywhere. Because Murphy’s law, of course! I immediately jumped into a call with the rest of the team. No one turned on their camera. All I could hear was silence. My team seemed frozen. I started asking questions but replies sounded more like mumbles than real answers.
Every minute the service was down meant revenue loss for the company. This was no time for coaching or lessons learnt. I had to jump in and take charge. I shared my screen, opened a notepad, and began listing out every issue as it came in. Then, I personally assigned tasks to each team member, told them precisely what to do, and instructed them to report progress directly to me every 30 minutes until the issue was fixed.
Do I like leading that way? Absolutely not. Was it necessary? 100% yes!
When you need immediate results and can’t afford the time to put everyone on the same page, you need to be ready to step in and literally tell people what to do. There’s no way around it.
It’s important to note that being directive does not mean being rude or yelling at people. It means clearly guiding people and closely supervising progress when quick action is needed or when working with inexperienced team members who need guidance. Be prepared to apply this approach when necessary.
Conclusions
How do you guide your team in times of crisis? Do you naturally lean more towards an empowering or directive leadership style?
Please let me know—I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please let me know by leaving a comment or sharing it with a friend.
If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover in a future issue, feel free to send me a message. I’m always looking for suggestions and new ideas.
Thanks for reading. See you next week. 👋😊
Cheers,
Fusco.
💡 If you'd like to know how I can support you, check out this link.
💬 Or, if you’d like to have a chat, send me a message on LinkedIn.