leadership for the future (McKinsey Global Survey Results)

Executives around the world share some clear preferences about how to lead employees, according to a recent McKinsey Global Survey, but there are notable differences between the preferences of male and female leaders. The survey asked executives how they lead others, whether their leadership styles reflect their own preferences, and what styles of leadership they think their companies will need to meet future challenges.

Overall, the results show that participative decision making and mentoring are the most common leadership styles and that individualistic decision-making is the least common, for both male and female executives. However, female leaders are much more likelier to define expectations and rewards and to serve as role models, while men are likelier to challenge and encourage risk taking.

The most important leadership styles for meeting future challenges, respondents say, are challenging assumptions and encouraging risk taking, inspiring employees, clearly defining expectations and rewarding achievement, and participative decision making.

How leaders lead

Overall, a strong majority of the respondents say that the leadership styles they use reflect their personal preferences. However, corporate training clearly plays a role in shaping leaders: nearly two-thirds of the respondents say that their companies encourage executives to adopt specific leadership styles, and nearly as many report that their training has encouraged them to adopt some forms of leadership behavior that differ from their personal preferences. More than three-quarters credit training and encouragement from their companies with making them more effective leaders.

Future needs

Most executives say their companies encourage them to think of leadership behaviour as a contributor to overall corporate performance. To meet challenges presented by global trends that executives around the world regard as significant, they agree that the key leadership styles are challenging assumptions and encouraging risk taking, inspiring employees, clearly defining expectations and rewarding achievement, and participative decision making. The results are markedly consistent across regions.

How leaders can get there

Leadership styles are what others see, and these styles are in part shaped by executives’ individual mind-sets. Given the importance the respondents place on inspiration, it is consistent that the individual mind-sets they say are likely to promote effective leadership are also that can encourage inspiration. Here, too, make and female executives aren’t notably different, and executives in the various regions have very similar views as well.

Looking ahead

• Corporate training and encouragement can influence leadership styles, so companies that focus on developing inspirational leaders may be able to give themselves an edge.
• Some of the leadership styles more frequently used by women, particularly in Europe and North America, are seen as important in helping companies to meet the challenges they face. They could therefore do well to focus not only on training all corporate leaders but also on hiring and retaining female executives.