Task vs People Oriented Leadership

Knowing your leadership style is knowing how you relate and influence others. And it's super important as we build our personal, meaningful revolutions to know how we interact with people. Because the leader that knows their strengths, knows their weaknesses, knows where they might have blind spots, is going to be the most effective leader that they can be. Right? And if you don't know, you fall into mistakes or decisions that don't help serve your cause. And we want to make sure that you're maximizing the good that you're putting out in the world. So it's important for everyone to know their leadership style. And especially between two different polls, task oriented or people oriented. Hey everyone, I'm Sean Butner, certified high performance coach and host of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. And today we're going to be talking about the leadership style between task and people oriented leaders. And why is this important? Well, first off, there's a million different ways that you can define leadership and measure leadership or think and discuss about it. But I think it's really important to know that task oriented and people oriented leaders are needed for any organization. Right? Task leaders really focus on driving results and managing resources and timelines and they're 100% dedicated to realizing organizational goals. And you need people to get stuff done. So that's why task leaders are super important. People leaders tend to think about developing talent and your people in support of achieving organizational goals. So it's a little bit more hands off maybe in guiding results. But the overarching theory is if you develop people to be better professionals, to be better leaders themselves, that you'll get those results. And again, both are needed in your business, in your team or company. Because if you're too task focused, you get people that will, you'll miss the warning signs essentially that people are burnt out or that they get fed up and they leave at critical moments in the organization. If you're too people focused, you might not make those unpopular but necessary decisions to help keep the business whole, to help keep the project on track, or to help you advance at a reasonable level of progress. So thinking about which type of leader are you, are you more task oriented? Right. Or are you more people focused? And I bring this up because, you know, my first tech job at Walmart, I had a really great set of examples of different types of folks. And that's where I first heard this concept of task versus people oriented leaders. And so I had, I was part of a team and, and there was one leader, this guy Frank, and I'll say his last name was a really great Guy, he's a former Marine and you know, he led our development team for a little bit. He was a new manager, I think at the time, years and years and years ago. But Frank, being a Marine, being very mission focused, was very put everything on the line, you know, type of a manager. So, you know, we have a project due, expect everyone to stay in the office until it was complete, which could mean like 80 to 120 hour work weeks, which is not an exaggeration. Like, it was really crazy on, oh, we got to get this done, all hands on deck. And then, you know, you're expected to still show up and not take any recovery time and which is fine. Like it was really good for getting that project done. But when you push people too hard and you don't give them that chance to catch their breath, to rejuvenate after a hard push, people burn out, right? And so you stop loving your job. You stop, you know, giving forth your best effort. You start to minimize what you're doing day to day because, you know, it doesn't matter if you do your best or not. Like, you're just going to feel tired all the time in that particular example. So that was a little bit of an extreme. And as part of his learning process, I think he got better as time went on versus another manager. I had Joe, who Joe knew that, you know, if you were up all night on trying to fix a problem for one of the clients, that you needed some time to sleep, you know, because that'll help you make clear decisions. And Joe was really good at making sure people were getting what they needed. And we're also taking opportunities to grow at the same time. So those are two different kinds of leaders. Joe is very people focused. And so again, you know, ideally, if you're a leader, you're a little bit of both. And you have a good mix of that. If you are two people focused or task focused, again, it's going to be really tough for you. So again, this comes back to, are you more of a task oriented leader or more of a people oriented leader in that type of role? And that leads me to the first point, right? As we're talking and thinking about leadership styles, as we're thinking about what is your deep purpose, your deep mission, that personal, meaningful revolution that you're doing for your business, or you're doing because it's a cause that's close to you, you know, what is your leadership style? You know, how much do you lean towards task versus people? If you had any blind spots, you know, Are they, does it tend to be? Oh, I never noticed that people were overworking and weren't getting what they needed and so they pulled back. Is it. I can never get the projects in on time because I'm too focus on how much people feel. You know, from my personal experience, Walmart had a good mix of both types of leaders and so depending on who you were working for at the time, you'd have a good balance. And Apple is actually pretty interesting. They tended to be more task focused. So a lot of my work as a software engineer on the team was kind of checking in on people when there was a big event at work where people got angry or whatever like hey, are you okay? Like what's going on? And so making sure that people felt heard and you know, felt like they were contributing to the team or felt like, didn't feel like nobody saw the terrible behavior that went on, you know, was part of what I feel like I was really good at there. So I tend to be a little bit more people focused. But again like I strive to be more balanced in that you have to get results, you have to get your projects in on time. As a solopreneur, as someone that is doing this content and trying to, you know, get people into my coaching business and my, you know, meaningful revolution community, you know, part of being more task focused is making sure that things are getting finished and advanced so that you know, the business can make money. So that's again another example of why you need, you want a mix of people. And so when I hire my first employee, it will probably be someone that's a little bit more task focused to help balance out my people focus make sense. Okay, point number two guys, I just talked about it. It's to identify a counter style person on your team to hire that person to, you know, make sure you're having regular meetings and make sure that not you're not butting heads, but that all the different types of perspectives are addressed when trying to make a decision. And it's not to slow you down, it's not again to prevent you from leaning into the style of leadership that you have in this, you know, two pole type of framework. You know, again task or people oriented. But it's to make sure that you can identify areas where you might not see there's a problem. You know, like sending your whole team to go on a training when you have a deadline in two days is not a great thing. It's pretty obvious but you know, it's those types of things where maybe if you're inclined to just say yes to training. That having someone to be like, hey, like we have this thing due, can we maybe do that later? You know, so I think that's really important. Third thing in trying to identify your coaching style and this, you know, dual framework is to actually find a mentor or coach. And you know, at Walmart, I had a senior manager who was helping me talk through how I was showing up as a leader. And oh, this is something that's also really important, that everyone is a leader. It doesn't matter if you have formal authority as the boss at the job or you just are on a team when you work with people, when you're in your family, you know, if you're, you know, a parent, if you're a kid, like there are opportunities for you to take leadership in that relationship. And so, you know, again, for me, I had a senior manager that would help, you know, help me kind of explore my leadership style and explore like, oh, are you more people or task focused? Okay, like, well, what do you think about this scenario? Right? And so that's another reason why and a great reason to hire a coach. And if you are like, huh, in my business, I don't know my leadership style. I haven't done the work to kind of, you know, do the personal development to increase my leadership skills. That's a great reason to hire a high performance coach. And you'll find in the link below this video a way to check out a strategy session. And that strategy session will take a look at what you're going after, walk you through the high performance process, provide some high performance strategies and habits for you, tailored to what you're working on. And you'll have a plan to walk out after that. And so there's two options after you fill out the application if you're interested, and I'll just do this really quick if you're interested, you fill out the application. You either choose a free option where I record that session and we'll cut it up and put parts of it on YouTube to just highlight how awesome coaching is. Or you can pay for a private session and you get to make that choice after you fill out the application. So hit the link globe if you want to explore your leadership style a bit more and if not, cool, just go through the rest of these points, moving on, then know about the style you need to be effective. Right? So a task oriented leader and a people oriented leader have different strategies, different ways of communicating that can help them be more effective. And so for example, if you are task oriented, you have to be very clear at setting the goal and connecting that goal to the organization's goals. Right? And so you have to be constantly communicating so that people aren't guessing. How does this task right here relate to the picture as a whole? As a people focused person, for example, you might want to be identifying what skills does the team need to really deeply succeed or increase the pace of work or increase the amount of progress that the team can get done and then, you know, move people towards those types of trainings and skill buildings or hiring people that have those skills that can help level up the group. So like I said, each style kind of has its own set of strategies that are really great. And again, as a coach or mentor, it's really great to hit a coach or mentor to try to suss that out for you. So make sure you again, check that link below if you want to hire a coach or engage your network for people that are really great in your field, it might have an opposite style for you to help check you that in that area. So, and then from the podcast, from a lot of the work I've done with clients, really great leadership, regardless if you're task or people oriented, is you have to really understand your blind spots. You need someone that will speak to the best of who you can be without having an agenda. Right? And so sometimes if you're talking about leading your family, you know, your spouse or your kids have a particular way that they wish you were, they will kind of lean on you to be that versus what's actually good for the family or great for you or great for everyone. So having someone who is fighting for the best you doesn't have that agenda, just wants you to be as productive and happy and confident as you possibly can is really great. But you know, a lot of, I mean, it's called a blind spot because you don't know. And if you don't know what you don't know, then you can't fix things. So again, it's really important as you think of yourself as a leader in all these different contexts at work, at home that you're trying to figure out, like, what am I missing? What information am I not getting because of, because I'm the dad, I'm the mom, and the kids don't feel like they can say what's on their mind, right? That happens a lot. So how do you get around that? That's a really common thing, I think in organizations and family behavior that can really come up. So, you know, think about that. So understanding your leadership style is essential to becoming a great leader. And it's essential to really getting people on board your personal, meaningful revolution. And so again, it's important. You know, there's again, a bunch of different types of leadership, you know, servant leadership, which can, you know, be an umbrella under both of these people versus task focused. There's so many different facets of leadership, which is why it's such a big topic and why people love to study it. And there's so many different books you could read. But I think sorting people into people versus task oriented leaders is a tool that can be helpful and can help really help you accelerate your business, your career and your leadership. So if you guys love this video, make sure to check out last week's video on relationships up over here. Love to check that out. You can see that on my YouTube channel too. If you're catching this on the blog again, there'll be links in the show notes to the strategy session. If you are wondering what type of leader you are and you want someone to talk you through that or you just want to level up your life, I'd love to do that for you. That's it, guys. We'll see you next week on the Meaningful Revolution newsletter. This is Sean Butner signing off. Go out there, live with more joy, more personal growth, more impact in your communities and we'll see you soon.