Defining and Adapting Your Leadership Style | HBR IdeaCast | Podcast

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Curt Nikesh** (1:10)
Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review.
There's a roadblock many people run into at work. They get the feedback that they're not ready for a promotion or a new project. And when they ask why, no one puts a finger on it. They're missing a certain something, something intangible, which to be honest, is not very helpful. But it's common that when it comes to leadership to identify leaders, that it's a bit squishy. For too many superiors, leadership is a vibe that someone gives off, and some people show it much better than others.
Our guest today has some advice for this situation. How to know your own leadership style, how to understand how others see it or don't, and then how to change your behavior so that you can break through to the next level. Suzanne Peterson is an Associate Professor of Leadership at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. She's also a partner at the consultancy CRA, and she's the co-author with Robin Abramson and RK Stuttman of the HBR article, How to Develop Your Leadership Style, Concrete Advice for a Squishy Challenge. Suzanne, thanks for coming on the show.

**Suzanne Peterson** (2:28)
Thanks so much for having me, Kurt. Happy to be here.

**Curt Nikesh** (2:32)
Does that situation I just described sound familiar?

**Suzanne Peterson** (2:36)
It absolutely does. And it truly is a squishy challenge. And I have to tell you, as much as this applies to people at work, what we find is this is relevant to anybody. I mean, whether you are trying to be more collaborative with a team, whether you want to impress that new father-in-law, whether you're trying to influence your spouse, be more authoritative with your kids, be a trusted friend, style matters. And it tends to be something that we find people are constantly trying to navigate. But it isn't always at the level of awareness of what am I doing or not doing that really makes a difference in how I'm perceived.

**Curt Nikesh** (3:12)
It sounds like it's not only your own awareness, but also the awareness of managers above you is part of the problem.

**Suzanne Peterson** (3:19)
It absolutely is. And all too often when we were talking to managers of people we coach, and we simply say, what's the biggest challenge here? Usually we'll hear something like, they're just not really ready yet to sit at the table. They just don't quite have the gravitas. They're not engaging enough. They're not charismatic enough. They're not dynamic. Or it can be another version of, they're a little off putting, they haven't really figured out how to manage the relationships. They're not politically savvy. There's something that comes up, but when it comes to actually delivering, say, a performance review, they're not very good at actually saying, let me tell you what it would look like for you to be more influential.

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