Leadership can be described as a skill through which people can guide, direct, and influence the work and behavior of others. Leaders design the organization, encourage and motivate their employees, and monitor activities to ensure that the team is on target for reaching goals. Leadership is about offering your best and bringing out the best in your employees. Each leader expresses a dominant leadership style. Leadership style is a pattern of behaviors that leaders use in different situations. It is easy to identify that leaders today must be versatile in their approach to be able to lead successfully. (Gulati et al., 2017; Kaiser, 2021)
Versatility is the ability to foresee change and respond to it with a wide range of skills and behaviors. The challenges that businesses and leaders face today has amplified the need for leaders to be able to adapt to change easily. They need to have the ability to cope with changes quickly and the ability to resolve issues. This leadership style helps leaders gain more knowledge as they get the chance to handle multiple projects from start to completion. Versatile leaders have more engaged employees and their teams perform at higher rates. A versatile leader never stops learning in the areas where he or she works. (Gulati et al., 2017; Kaiser, 2021)
Another benefit to being a versatile leader is that you are always discovering new ways for improvement because of your varied work experiences. When you are offered a variety of work experiences that challenge you and give you a wide range of skills and knowledge, you are able to better understand how things are connected and better able to respond to issues. You are more open to opposing ideas and are able to step beyond where you are comfortable to stretch yourself. When a leader can look at the whole idea, have a broad range of skills and knowledge to identify what is happening, and are open to new ideas, they have a better chance at leading a successful team in a rapidly changing world. (Gulati et al., 2017; Kaiser, 2021)
Resources
Gulati, R., Mayo, A., & Nohria, N. (2017). MindTap – Cengage Learning. Cengage.Com. https://ng.cengage.com/static/nb/ui/evo/index.html?deploymentId=557615113112872025758405199&eISBN=9781305643673&nbId=2485825&snapshotId=2485825&dockAppUid=16&
Kaiser, B. (2021, August 30). The Best Leaders Are Versatile Ones. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-best-leaders-are-versatile-ones?registration=success
