Workplace

He's decisive, demanding and confrontational. His voice is powerful, loud and aggressive. Tension rises when he enters a room.

A tough-minded boss can run his company with great success and attribute his successes to his leadership style. However, a tough-minded boss often manages employees by creating a business environment laden with tension or even fear. Far from optimizing his business potential, he operates just shy of excellence and wants everyone to simply step up and do the right thing. He believes if he does not push others, the business will fail. He may be right but for the wrong reasons.

If you see yourself as a tough-minded boss, following are some ideas to keep in mind.

Benefits and pitfalls

A tremendous amount of energy goes into being a tough-minded boss. You are at the top of the pyramid, analyzing the environment, developing action plans and anticipating challenges. You gain control. You call the shots and understand what actions to take. You also gain compliance.

In addition, tough-minded leadership can be successful in a crisis.

Although clear positives emerge from a tough-minded boss' style, following instructions and putting out fires do not encourage creativity and growth. At best, they maintain the status quo, which can be dangerous when external factors—such as competition—require change. If you rely solely on tough-minded leadership, you run the risk of doing the following:

• Decreasing organizational communication. Employees often communicate to tough-minded leaders only what is necessary or positive. Who wants to give a demanding boss bad news?
• Decreasing innovation. Failure is not an option for a tough-minded leader. Therefore, employees are likely to take fewer risks—such as suggesting new services—to avoid negative results.
• Encouraging microcultures. Microcultures are oases for productivity and trust set up by middle management to protect employees from aggressive leadership. Although your values about quality and service may be maintained, middle managers may carry them out in ways that run counter to your style. The result is an environment where strategic efforts move from pleasing the customer to dealing with you.

Looking beyond

There is a place in business for tough-minded bosses, but the approach should be part of a larger, more versatile set of leadership behaviors. Being a different kind of boss means a change of perspective. The following suggestions can help alter your perspective.

• Set expectations, and let your employees run with them. Ask for their input; develop action plans together; and set up milestones where they can report progress, successes and unanticipated problems.
• Recognize and reward desired performance, and diagnose nonperformance. If corrections can be made with renewed effort, reward subsequent successes. If there is no improvement, consider helping nonperformers find employment in environments better suited to their skills.
• Hire can-do employees. Move beyond yea-sayers to those who make substantial contributions. Strong players already may exist in your organization; the trick is to convince them to step forward.

Strong leaders maintain various skills that allow them to adapt to situations. Consistency is desirable, but it emerges at the vision and values level so leaders can maintain flexibility in their approaches to challenges. In this way, they can be true to their goals and the lengths to which they are willing to go to achieve them. But they also are open to considering new ideas, seeking input and partnering with rising leaders in the organization. What kind of boss are you?

Karen L. Cates is a professor of management at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Ill., and teaches executive courses for Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.