A Coherent Vision of Leadership in Media
- Kin Wong
- Jun 13, 2022
- 4 min read
To me great leadership is like a bespoke suit, tailored to perfection with just the owner in mind. This post seeks to explore the intricacies of leadership and how to find your own unique blend.
Using the Coaching Leadership Model in building High Performing Teams
Leadership often involves building highly effective teams. Using the Coaching Leadership approach, Hawkins (2011, p. 65-70) charts out the advantages of this model in creating transformational teams because of a structured approach in engaging the team, understanding strengths, command-control and mentoring. It also incorporates elements of Belbin’s Team roles (Hawkins, 2011, p. 71) and LMX leadership approach mentioned in my earlier blogs.
The limitation lies in that it takes time to build trust in the coaching model and is not suited for short term or ad hoc projects.
Profile of Leadership: Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a prolific director with many successful films under his belt. According to Lyer (2013), Ang comes across as a soft spoken, focused, introspective leader with a silent energy about him. He is able to engage his cast and crew to understand and bring the best out of them for the project. He displays a coaching style of leadership that is able to attract the best people and guide them to success.
In retrospect, I aspire to be a leader like Ang as I believe that introverts like him and myself can make great leaders as well. We need not be extroverted like Richard Branson or be a great visionary like Steve Jobs. In my current capacity as a Program Lead for my team of media professionals, I strive to understand each of their potential and bring the best out of them so that they can in turn give their best to those they mentor, while being enriched by the experience. I believe that the coaching style works best for my personality and position.
An Exploration of Value-based Leadership with Michael Moore
Michael Moore is a successful and controversial documentary filmmaker known for works like Fahrenheit 9/11. His team that works with him understands the nature of the projects they are working on as well as the strong ethics and values that he stands for. According to an article by McClennen (2017), Michael’s leadership shows characteristics of value-based principles, character, environment of trust, engagement and performance. Which are traits of value-based leadership (Gamb, 2018, p. 20).
People intuitively follow leaders with a clear vision and values. This is more apparent when leading a team who falls in the upper tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Mullins, 2010, p. 261). To me a leader with no clear value system will lose valued team members in the long run. Communication of these values is also key, whether implied or stated.
The limitation comes when values stated are not lived out by the leader in reality. This will cause confusion and backfire.
When leading my team of media professionals, I always ensure that I communicate not only the KPIs that the organisation expects from them but also that their professional needs are supported and taken care of. That represents my value system for them, to provide a safe, well supported environment to work and grow. I make it a point to catch up with them regularly and support them with various challenges especially during COVID. This has helped my team and me immensely.
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