If you are new to leadership one of the difficult areas to develop is your own leadership style. There are 4 situations when leading others where you will need to tell, sell, consult, and delegate. For each of these situations you will bring your own personal preferences about how you will behave.
The 4 situations are dependent on the people you are leading.
1) Tell
A tell approach is appropriate for people new in their job, where they have to be given direction and specific information. It is also a style that is appropriate in an emergency. You wouldn't invite a 20 minute consultation if the building was on fire!
2) Sell
Sell is more likely where your staff are reasonably experienced and you want them to "own" a task or job. Here the aim is to present your views and opinions as to why you want something doing. Once they understand they are capable of doing the job.
3) Consult.
You may have experienced people in your team and you want to make some changes, or alter the performance in some way. Getting them to bring their experience to the decision is important as you may not have all the detail. Even in consult mode, you will still be making the decisions.
4) Delegate.
Here, your will be asking very experienced and trusted staff to get a job done. Typically you will describe the outcomes you want and it is up to them how they do it. Giving them the boundaries here is important, and letting them know how much autonomy they have. You may well specify budgets and time frames as part of the brief.
If you are new in a role as a leader, then rushing in to tell experienced people what to do may not be the best tactic. You might want to consult for a while until your knowledge is built up, and then you may switch to sell.
No one style is appropriate for all occasions. You must stop and thing about which is best and practice using it.
