The Five Voices of Leadership

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

An organization I am working with uses The Five Voices of Leadership as part of their leadership development to help their managers find their leadership voice and understand how others hear them. It was new to me but is proving to be a great foundational framework to use to coach these new leaders in areas like conflict management, giving constructive feedback, and promoting great teamwork.

The co-founders of Giant Worldwide developed the five voices using Jungian typology, making it more accessible to leaders. The underlying belief is that every voice is equally important to the group dynamic, yet as leaders, certain voices tend to get the most airtime. The most charismatic can inspire everyone to follow their vision. Still, they can also become overbearing and unintentionally aggressive, often drowning out the quieter voices at the expense of relationships and great ideas. Each of us has a foundational leadership voice that comes naturally to us and will usually be our default voice when under stress. The nurse leaders in this program identified their foundational voice and sought input from others about whether they accurately viewed their leadership behaviors. They have also learned in what situations they may need to flex their natural voice.

Below is a short overview of each leadership voice and its unique strengths.

Nurturer

Nurturers account for almost half the population, and this includes nurse leaders. They shy away from conflict but can provide invaluable benefits to the team:

• They intuitively feel how an organization will react to a new idea.
• They defend values; people will always come before profit.
• They function as the relational oil inside teams and organizations.
• They are realists who ask — “has this been thought through?”
• They take genuine delight in celebrating the achievements of others and are natural team players.

Creative

Creatives often go unheard because they can’t fully communicate their ideas. But when given the opportunity, they can dramatically alter the shape of a discussion:

• They are Conceptual Architects and love to think outside the box
• They function as an ‘early warning radar system’ for teams, often seeing opportunities and dangers long before everyone else.
• They are never satisfied with the status quo — they inherently believe things can always be better.
• If the vision is compelling, the word ‘can’t’ is not in their vocabulary.
• They exhibit a strong social conscience and desire for personal and organizational integrity.

Guardian

Guardians interrogate the dreamers and bring everyone back down to earth. Their focus is on ensuring every solution is workable:

• They have a relentless commitment to asking the difficult questions
• They will always seek to honor the past as teams look toward the future
• They take personally the commitment to deliver projects on time and budget
• They can detach decision-making from personal sentiments
• They respect and value logic, order, systems, and repeatable processes.

Connector

Natural people pleasers (who often need constant reassurance in return), their passion and charisma are powerful tools:

• They are persuasive and inspirational communicators — rallying people to causes and things they believe in.
• They are incredibly resourceful — ‘Whatever we need, I can get it or know someone who can.’
• They can maintain a large number of relationships.
• They know how to connect with people and their aspirations.

Pioneer

Natural leaders who can be inspirational or overbearing… It’s the Pioneers’ challenge to sit back and let their team contribute first:

• They approach life with an ‘anything is possible!’ attitude.
• Visioning and shaping a scaleable future is always the highest priority.
• Their strategic military thinking makes them incredibly effective at aligning people, systems, and resources.
• Winning is a massive driver; they hate to give up and will drive their team long after others would have backed away.
• They are powerful communicators, using logic and rationality to provide an attractive and compelling vision of the future.

Navigating conflict is an excellent example of where knowing your foundational leadership voice can help you manage team conflict. Why does this matter? Well, in a recent study by AONL and the Joslin Group, findings indicate that 63% of Managers reported that conflict resolution was one of their five major activities the previous week.  38% of Managers reported that conflict navigation was one of their work’s five most frustrating parts.

Having insight into your preferred voice can help managers avoid the pitfalls of their default style. If your foundational voice is that of a nurturer, you are probably far less likely to want to engage in conflict. If you do – you will probably be accommodating to the needs of others, whether or not it is the right strategy in the situation. If your foundational voice is either the pioneer or guardian, you might take a competing stance in a conflict making it difficult to come to any resolution. Creatives, connectors, and nurturers may naturally default to compromise versus collaboration.

In leadership, the toughest person you will ever lead is you. Great leadership starts with self-leadership, so if you are looking for a way to help your leaders to understand themselves better – the Five Voices of Leadership might be a good choice.

Reference

Kubicek J. & Cockram S. (2016). 5 Voices: How to communicate effectively with everyone you lead. Hoboken NJ: Wiley.