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Harvard Business Review
a day ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
When Your Go-To Leadership Style Stops Working
As you move into senior roles, some leadership styles will come more naturally than others, shaped by your personality and past successes. And over time, your favored style may become your brand, expected by others and increasingly authentic to you. But what happens when your preferred approach suddenly loses followership? If you don't adjust, you could diminish your credibility as a leader. On the other hand, adopting an unfamiliar style can be both awkward for you and confusing for your colleagues. The challenge to become versatile across leadership styles is arguably harder than improving technical expertise or strategic competence because it calls for personal transformation. And these days, if you're not committed to developing past your comfort zone, you're unlikely to inspire others to stretch themselves and follow your example. In my work coaching executives, I've seen that having the courage to develop greater adaptability in their leadership approach is worth the effort. Leaders who expand their range of styles not only sustain followership, they're often surprised by how agility gets easier with practice. Here are five strategies to help you successfully meet the moment when your default leadership style stops working. Scan for shifts in the business, stakeholders, and yourself. When your leadership style loses impact, it's typically because something changed in the systems around you. To avoid blind spots in your effectiveness, look for sudden changes in three areas: the business you serve, the stakeholders you manage and influence, and your personal concerns. Ask yourself: Have market dynamics, customer needs, or product strategies shifted? Are your stakeholders requiring something different in order to willingly follow you? And within yourself, have any new responsibilities demanded a change in your confidence and presence? I once coached a VP who noticed morale dropping across his team and complaints rising from internal customers about work delays. As he scanned for shifts in the business and key stakeholders, he recognized that constant pivots in strategy to keep up with market competition confused the team's priorities. At the same time, internal customers were applying pressure on shared projects. And the new VP, newly promoted, was trying too hard to please everyone, rather than managing around a clear vision and strategically setting boundaries on service. The result was a purely reactive team seen as order-takers targeted for criticism rather than valuable strategic partners. By scanning at the level of the business, stakeholders and self, the VP realized he needed to lead with more clarity and conviction to improve credibility around what his team could promise and deliver. Shifting his style with this intention helped reset and re-engage both his team and stakeholders more effectively. Identify a style you're overusing and try on new ones. To help you assess which styles you tend to favor, consider how you show up across these six leadership styles, as provided by psychologist Daniel Goleman's research: directive (using command and coercion), authoritative (defining a vision to follow), pacesetting (insisting on high standards), affiliative (preferring personal bonds), democratic (seeking consensus for decisions), and coaching (prioritizing individual growth). Several factors influence your chosen style, from your personality and unique strengths, to how you were taught about leadership, perhaps from prior bosses or mentors. But comfort breeds complacency, and as needs change, your over-reliance on one approach can limit future followership. One of my coaching clients was a CEO who had spent his whole career at his company. Because of his deep institutional knowledge and a scrappy, 'roll up your sleeves and get it done' personality, he preferred to operate in the weeds, involving himself in extremely tactical issues. This pacesetting style—hands on, detail oriented and pushing for his view of excellence—worked well when the company was small and his leadership team was made up of longtime colleagues who expected it. But as the business scaled and new leaders were hired to help the company develop a mature operational structure, his involvement became a bottleneck. And his style, once effective for solving simpler problems, now limited his managers' capabilities in addressing increasingly complex ones. He realized that in order to sustain effectiveness, he needed to try on some new styles, namely a visionary one that encouraged team ownership, and a coaching one that empowered others to grow themselves in preparation for future demands. Be transparent about style changes. Expanding your range of styles is a sign of sophisticated leadership, but be prepared for growing pains. Not only is adopting a new style unfamiliar to you, but it may confuse others if done without warning. Failing to share the context of what and why you're changing, may be seen as erratic and even worse, diminish trust. To ensure alignment, build on your ongoing social contract, explaining your intention and how you'll experiment with broadening your range when leading your team. You might tell them: Over the past year, I've noticed a habit of mine that is getting in the way of achieving the results we all want. I like to jump in and insert myself in the work when I don't see progress. But that's not working for either of us. Going forward, I'm going to try to empower you more, asking questions to invite your ownership and delegating more intentionally. If I seem quieter in meetings, it's not that I'm disengaged, and if I'm asking lots of questions, I'm not trying to test you. I'm just trying to listen and encourage your process and solutions rather than mine. Reinforce how this shift will help everyone: 'Being a more intentional coach will not only help me spend more time on the big issues on my plate but also show you I trust you and want to give you opportunities to show what you can do.' Taking ownership for where your style needs to expand can understandably make you feel exposed. But remember it's courage, humility and your modeling of vulnerability that will strengthen your team's capabilities and increase your followership. Practice, seek feedback, and expect pushback. Once you've clarified your intentions, start experimenting in small, yet visible ways. Ask for feedback on how your new approach is landing, but don't be discouraged if some colleagues aren't happy with it. After all, even if your prior style had its flaws, it was familiar. Changes in how you lead them may feel unwanted until they experience the benefits of adaptation. One of my coaching clients was an SVP of technology, responsible for innovating engineering processes to improve his company's competitive edge. His style was grounded in vision-building and democratic decision-making, motivating the team to imagine the impossible and engage in healthy, inclusive debates about how to get there. While his team felt safe and supported, several recent project failures reduced other stakeholders' confidence in the SVP's operational maturity. He developed a reputation for overpromising and underdelivering, caused by two problems with his leadership approach: his unwillingness to give critical feedback to his team and an aversion to consistent, detailed reporting to his peers on progress. To his credit, he made demonstrable changes in his approach in response to these setbacks. To more objectively assess his team, he asked himself who he would re-hire (or not) if he had to start the team from scratch. Then he defined specific gaps for each and coached them with targeted feedback, acknowledging that his prior avoidance of that limited their potential. And when his team engaged in endless debates, he redirected them toward closure and action. Lastly, he had his team develop a cadence for planning and reporting out to stakeholders based on key metrics of interest. Not everyone on the SVP's team welcomed these style shifts. After all, it meant more work and personal accountability. But he continued to seek feedback as a way of calibrating his approach to avoid over-indexing the other way. And by persisting with experimentation while accepting the pushback as a necessary part of evolving, he offered a model for them to expand their range as leaders too. Commit to developing versatility over mastery. As you experiment with new leadership styles, don't be discouraged if some just never feel right. Stay open to practicing across styles so you have access to more choices when the moment calls for it. And commit to choosing your approach based on purpose rather than personal preference. This not only increases your leadership effectiveness in a given context, but it ensures you're actively growing your adaptability muscle for future needs. In today's ever-changing workplace, being adaptive is a major strategic advantage. A recent study reported more than 60% of corporate learning professionals believe leaders must become more behaviorally adaptable to meet future needs. And these days, companies are even creating C-suite roles specifically designed to foster agility because of its criticality for achieving enterprise-wide alignment. But versatility demands vulnerability and often letting go of your core identity. For example, if you're a leader who has built trusted relationships before setting expectations, you might view the necessity to be authoritative and decisive first, as an affront to your values and 'who you are.' And yet in holding onto what feels authentic, you could miss the opportunity to use a directive style when it's more effective for the moment at hand, such as providing clarity in crisis, or helping new employees know what is expected of them before ramping up to their own level of competence. To develop your adaptability across styles, let go of the need to feel authentic at all times. Versatile leaders often embody all six styles in the span of a day, depending on the purpose of the interaction. Read the room, consider if people need you to be decisive, observant, facilitative, or something else at that time, and show up accordingly, just to see what works. In any leadership role, your style of engaging others plays a significant part in determining success, sometimes even more than the subject matter of the work. And when your style suddenly loses its desired impact, it can be hard to know how to shift it without losing your authenticity or confusing those you lead. By using these strategies, you can make sure you're sustaining followership by optimizing your style for the moment and developing your adaptive range for future shifts.
Harvard Business Review
a day ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
HBR's Best Practices for Supporting Employee Mental Health
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, people across the globe faced new anxieties about their health, families, income, and stability. For company leaders, all that upheaval put worker mental health into the can't-ignore category of issues affecting their organizations. External forces affecting employee mental health have continued to proliferate since: The fast pace of AI implementation is changing the shape of many careers, geopolitical tumult brings worry about stability, and murky and shifting economic outlooks can lead to cost-cutting measures like layoffs. In short, your people have a lot to worry about right now. A new survey from the workplace wellness consultancy Mind Share Partners in partnership with Qualtrics of over 1,100 U.S. employees found that 90% of participants reported 'at least minor levels of one mental health challenge,' with the top three stressors being U.S. politics, global events, and personal finances. As a leader, you're likely feeling it, too: A 2024 Businessolver survey of 3,000 CEOs, HR professionals, and employees found that 55% of CEOs reported experiencing a mental health issue (such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout, and obsessive compulsive disorder) in the past year. It's time for leaders to recommit to supporting their employees' mental health—and their own. HBR's archive has plenty of strategies for how to do it right. Change Systems, Not Individuals Companies are making larger investments in employee wellness programs than ever; however, data suggests those programs aren't actually resulting in better well-being outcomes for employees. According to a trio of authors drawing on a wide body of workplace wellness research, individual-level interventions like well-being apps and employee assistance programs are likely to be ineffective unless paired with systemic interventions. To take a more holistic approach to workplace well-being, the authors suggest leaders become 'behavioral architects' by embedding well-being strategies—and support—into all levels of the organization. Consider changes like increasing flexibility (even trying a four-day workweek) to give employees more control over their work-life balance, putting together volunteer-led 'well-being champion networks' to provide them with peer support, and training managers to support their team members' mental health. Consider Identity Workplace mental health expert Morra Aarons-Mele points out that 'work is about people, and people are messy and difficult.' That may appear obvious at first glance, but identity —the interrelated elements that make up our concept of ourselves—is a critical dimension of how people experience and talk about mental health challenges. Employees from younger generations may be more comfortable discussing mental health than their older counterparts, for example, and men may feel more stigma around mental health than women do. Aarons-Mele has a few suggestions for how to counter these differing perspectives: Create an organization-wide shared language and baseline of knowledge about mental health. Ensure men are visible in mental health conversations. Create opportunities for people who share lived experiences and dimensions of identity to connect with one another. Look to Your Own Leadership Behaviors As a leader, your day-to-day behaviors can inadvertently cause your employees undue stress and anxiety. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic put together a list of five common behaviors to watch out for. For example, are you adding unnecessary complexity by making employees guess at what you'll do next? Are you telegraphing pessimism, leading them to assume a situation is worse than it is? Being more aware of how your actions affect your employees can help you 'bring out the best in people even in the worst of times,' according to Chamorro-Premuzic. And while many conversations about mental health have moved out of the shadows and into the open over the past few years, both stigma and concerns about repercussions persist. As a leader, you have influence, and discussing your own mental health can make your employees feel more comfortable discussing theirs. As Kelly Greenwood, founder and former CEO of Mind Share Partners, puts it, telling your own story 'reduces stigma and normalizes the ups and downs of being human—especially as a high-performing professional' and 'positions vulnerability as a strength instead of a weakness and shows it's possible to succeed and thrive with a mental health challenge.' Greenwood offers a guide to crafting an authentic, compelling story for employees in a way that's both inclusive and protective of your own boundaries. Improve Uptake of Programs Storytelling may also help increase employee participation in the mental health programs you've invested in. A team of behavioral scientists and organizational behavior scholars recently conducted a study of 2,400 employees at the Swiss pharma company Novartis to test their participation in the company's peer-to-peer Mental Health First Aid support program. While plenty of employees had volunteered to be mental health first aiders (i.e., a source of support for colleagues), overall uptake in the program remained low. The authors presented participants with various anonymous stories of their colleagues accessing the program, varying in severity from work-related stress and anxiety to depression and panic attacks caused by external factors. Their initial findings showed that 'simply hearing about colleagues' struggles [could] normalize access to mental health support at work and increase uptake of an existing peer-to-peer support mental health program by as much as 8%.' That might not sound significant, but the authors note that at a large corporation like Novartis (comprising approximately 78,000 employees), the increased uptake could translate to 2,000 employees making use of the resource. Don't Neglect Your Own Mental Health To be effective at leading others, it's critical that you take care of yourself. If today's roller coaster of uncertainty is (understandably) making you anxious, Morra Aarons-Mele emphasizes how important it is that you address it: 'If you don't look your anxiety in the face at some point, it will take you down.' Instead of ignoring it or trying to push through it, she offers a four-stage process for managing your anxiety. First, you'll do some reflecting, looking inward to better understand what you're feeling and why. Then, you'll start developing tactics for managing your anxiety, including (healthy) compartmentalizing and connecting with others. Next, you'll learn how to be vulnerable with peers and employees—without oversharing or letting the conversation go off the rails. Finally, you'll put together a support system outside the organization to help gut-check your decision-making and advise you on more sensitive situations. Doing this, Aarons-Mele notes, 'means you'll have better workdays, both when things are status quo and during transitions and tough times.' . . . The past few years have taught us a couple things: It's not reasonable to expect employees (or yourself) to check their emotions at the door when they come into work, and simply spending money on interventions like wellness apps isn't sufficient on its own to support them. As a leader, taking a more holistic view of your employees' mental health—and working through and sharing your own experiences—can make them feel more engaged and improve the health of your organization. More Resources
Harvard Business Review
2 days ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
4 More Ways to Structure AI–Human Work
Yesterday, we shared three ways to begin structuring work for AI-human teams. Today, we're back with four more tips to help you build a scalable workforce strategy that treats agentic AI as a core part of the talent mix. Redesign your labor model. Blend full-time employees, freelancers, and AI agents into a unified strategy. Decide whether to build your own AI tools, lease them like temp staff, or outsource entire functions. Match your approach to the needs of the business—and develop new KPIs that reflect how digital labor actually works. Establish legal and ethical rules now. Draft company-wide AI policies with legal, compliance, and ethics teams. Define how data is used, how bias is addressed, and how systems remain accountable. Regulatory risk is rising—and early movers will adapt faster than those who delay. Continuously refine your human–AI mix. Don't treat AI deployment as a one-time event. Monitor performance, retrain models, and update strategies as needed—and as the technology evolves. Stay focused on people. AI should amplify—not replace—human strengths. Invest in training that boosts creativity, relationship skills, and ethical judgment. This is how you'll stay competitive and keep your best talent engaged.
Harvard Business Review
2 days ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
AI-Enabled Digital Twins
Download the report The health care landscape is undergoing a seismic shift fueled by technological advancements, empowered patients, and a burgeoning demand for accessible, personalized care. To navigate this turbulent yet promising era, the industry is looking to new technologies such as digital twins that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Harvard Business Review
2 days ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
Great Leaders Make People Feel Noticed
Last year, I worked alongside a major airline's cleaning crew at a busy airport. In the airline business, turnaround time is everything. When you deplane, these workers begin sanitizing the bathrooms, seats, and floors. They're under constant pressure. The team I observed that day had some of the highest cleanliness scores at the airline, and it didn't take me long to find out why. Tanya is the cleanliness support coordinator who audits the planes and is responsible for the team. When I met her, she took me to the agent at the ticket counter to get my pass for the day. 'Isn't her smile the best?' Tanya said before explaining how long the ticket agent had been with the company and pointing out her favorite things about working with her. Next, as we went through security, Tanya found a TSA officer and asked how his vacation went and about his kids by name. We descended into the cramped hallway at the tarmac level. It was bustling with workers moving in and out to meet flights. Tanya stopped and asked a cleaner we passed how his daughter was. He pulled up a photo on his phone, beaming. Then, she asked him a question she asked everyone that day: 'Is there anything you need from me?' Tanya's supervisor told me she's in the top 10% of leaders in the organization. In an occupation often rendered invisible, Tanya makes everyone feel seen. She notices —an overlooked but foundational leadership skill that's increasingly needed today. The Power and Urgency of Noticing In January 2025, Gallup reported employee engagement hit its lowest point in a decade. During that same timeframe, services to improve engagement became a $1 billion industry and organizations invested millions in well-being programs and perks. Yet seven in ten people are still disengaged. Why? One data point stands out: Just 39% of employees in the sample strongly agreed that someone at work cares for them as a person. That data mirrors 2023 findings from the human capital management firm Workhuman, showing that 30% feel 'invisible' and 27% feel 'ignored.' It's hard for people to care if they don't first feel cared for. Feeling seen is essential to fulfilling our fundamental need to matter —a prerequisite for motivation, well-being, and lasting engagement. Noticing is the deliberate act of paying attention to the details, ebbs, and flows of someone's life and work. When I asked Tanya how she developed her approach, she told me that her supervisor—a director-level leader—is 'always there for me.' He makes her feel seen. Tanya then does the same for her team. When leaders model the behaviors of truly seeing everyone in their everyday interactions, the people they serve are more likely to do it for those they lead. This is a critical reminder of the cascading effect of noticing people, especially for senior leaders. How Leaders Notice So, how do we become better noticers? Here are three ways leaders—whether you manage a small team or lead an entire organization—can do just that. Know the barriers to seeing others Leaders are always crunched for time, and the first barrier to truly seeing others is hurry. While researching my book The Power of Mattering, an employee named Sonia shared this story: '[My manager and I] would have a weekly check-in, and almost every time my boss would show up with five minutes left in the meeting and leave right when it ended. She'd say, 'Sorry, I was busy again.'' Sonia was new to her role, a new mother, and needed support. 'It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. It came to the point that I'd journal and cry and then keep going,' she said. Hurry and care can't coexist. Noticing others takes time, but when leaders rush, it becomes too easy to cancel a one-on-one meeting, forget to check in on an employee who's struggling, or answer a few more emails instead of connecting with a team member. Noticing also requires attention, and the erosion of our ability to pay attention is another barrier to seeing others. Research by psychologist Gloria Mark shows that our average attention span for a single activity has decreased from over two minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds today. The decrease is due to increased distractions and information overload. One result of the strain on our attention is that interactions become automatic. Our one-on-ones start the same. Performance evaluations become robotic. The weekly team meeting becomes habitual. Walks down the hall turn into a rush to a meeting room, avoiding eye contact with those we're passing by. This attentional autopilot can cause us to miss signals: An employee starts sharing less, a colleague's voice takes on a different tone, or someone seems less energized than they used to be. The good news is we can get out of attentional autopilot through ' articulated intention '—being deliberate in setting goals for how we want to show up in our interactions to ensure we're making people feel seen. This starts consciously deciding to slow down, make space, and use our time to pay deeper attention. Make space and use time for connection Leaders need to proactively make space and use their time to connect more deeply. This doesn't mean adding more meetings. Tanya is a busy leader in a busy job, but she practices something I've seen many beloved leaders do: She optimizes the interactions she already has. Here are some ways to start: Use real-time interactions for relationship-building. The adage 'most meetings could be emails' is popular because most meetings and interactions at work are information transactions. Save those for email and other text-based platforms. What can't be an email is checking in on how someone is doing on a project they were struggling with, seeing how an employee whose parent is in the hospital is doing, or supporting someone who's been overloaded. Make space for discussing how people are doing, not just what they do, in your real-time interactions. Leverage in-between moments. The composer Claude Debussy wrote, 'Music is the space between the notes.' It's in that space that the sounds are heard and felt. The same is true in an organization. The 'notes' are the formal meetings, evaluations, or other scheduled touchpoints. Culture and connection are built in the in-between spaces—the few minutes before a virtual meeting starts, running into a colleague on the elevator, or the couple of seconds after you're wrapping up a phone call. Use these transitions as checkpoints. Pay attention and use noticing language. When you create space and start using time to connect, pay deep attention. One way to immediately improve your attentional skill is to write down what you observe. I worked with a lead nurse in an emergency room who uses a memo pad to keep track of positive patient outcomes. She then starts her team huddles sharing a positive story and recognizing their role in it. As you share back what you note and observe, use noticing language: 'I saw that…' 'I wrote down that…' or 'I remembered that…' These are all signals to people that they're seen. Gather the data to notice others As Tanya passed by employees, she asked, 'Is there anything you need from me today?' As a result, the team shared details about their work, asked questions about future scheduling, and discussed challenges they were having. If she asked, 'How's your day going?' or something just as mundane, it's unlikely she would have had the details she needed to address their concerns. To gather better information so you can truly see others, try the following: Ask meaningful questions. Go beyond the greetings like 'How are you?' or 'How's your day?' Ask questions that reveal the details of people's lives and work. Your questions should be clear, open, and exploratory. For example, 'What has your attention today?' or 'What's been most meaningful today?' or 'What is challenging you right now?' Ask questions that allow for more than a 'yes' or 'no' response. Instead of, 'Did the meeting go well?' you might ask, 'What was most interesting to you in that meeting?' Finally, be exploratory, not evaluative. Instead of, 'What's the status on the project?' you might ask, 'What's been working well on that project? Any roadblocks I can help with?' Check-in on energy and emotions. Energy and emotions are also data we need to lead people better. One well-researched practice is to do a green, yellow, or red check-in to get a sense of people's energy (green means you're able to be present, yellow means you're somewhat stressed, red means you're overloaded). Or you might ask: 'What's giving you energy today? What's taking away energy today?' What's important is to not jump in to 'fix' what you observe—awareness is the goal. Later, you might say, 'I noticed you were a 'red' today, what can I do to help?' Monitor recurring struggles and offer 'proactive compassion.' The more you start to see others, the more you'll learn about what people struggle with. One way to build the skill of compassion is to regularly reflect on the difficulties you notice. Are they tied to certain season? A particular project or objective? Then, think about the signs you may look for to anticipate that struggle. Finally, identify the resources you have or actions you can take to alleviate that struggle. This type of 'proactive compassion' signals to someone that you see them and are there to support them. Leadership Happens in Your Next Interaction 'Relationships are my job,' Tanya told me at the end of the day. 'Everything else, including quality, follows.' For leaders at all levels, the quality of the outcomes you get from people is usually determined by the quality of your relationships with them. Quality relationships start with quality interactions, and feeling seen in these interactions can predict feelings of trust, the foundation of high-performing teams. Take the time to ensure every interaction you have begins and ends with noticing the people around you.
