Rules and authority matter a great deal to some leaders.
Rules-based leaders find security in strictly following rules and comfort by deferring to authority.
Because they deeply prize efficiency and respect authority, they allow established rules, policies, and hierarchy to guide their decision-making.
This makes them highly consistent and predictable. But also somewhat rigid and inflexible in their approach to situations and people.
For those colleagues with an appetite for risk-taking, a preference for creative solutions to problems, and a natural resistance to convention and authority, a rules-based leader can be maddening at times.
Learning how to deal with a rules-based leader can be a real challenge. For those facing this test, the first step is not to mistake value-driven leadership with a rules-based approach. These are very different leadership styles.
A value-driven leader depends upon bedrock principles and values to guide their actions and decisions.
The flexibility of values allows them to navigate complex situations without glossing over the nuances or subtleties involved.
By applying their values to a problem or situation, they elevate what is important to explore without pre-determining a specified course of action.
In contrast, rules-based leadership insists on strict codes of workplace conduct, inflexible adherence to procedures and processes for tasks, and wide acceptance of whatever those with more authority or status have to say.
This brand of leadership style can be off-putting for those who want to work through issues and grapple with the complexity of situations without such a black-and-white lens.
For those team members who work with a rules-based leader, negotiating anything outside the parameters of what is conventional or accepted is often met with resistance. This discourages open and candid communication and sometimes stifles innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.
If you work with a rules-based leader, it is important to remember that this style also offers some unique advantages.
Beyond efficiency, rules can provide a sense of fairness as they apply uniformly to everyone. Clarity of mission and task is rarely an issue with a rules-based leader. Everyone usually knows exactly where they stand with such a leader.
But this doesn’t always make working with them any easier. The key to accepting their approach is to use their fixation on rules and authority against them.
Because they hold status, authority, and hierarchy in such high regard, rules-based leaders also defer to expertise. In addition to investing in your own knowledge, bringing outside voices with deep subject-matter expertise on any topic or issue is a surefire way to influence a rules-based leader.
Think also about building advocacy with those more senior to them before introducing ideas or proposing solutions.
Reminding such a leader about a superseding rule is another way to influence their thinking.
Unless you too are highly rules-based, working with a leader who is preoccupied with policies, procedures, and authority is never a cakewalk. But you can learn to make the best of it by using their devotion to rules and authority to persuade them.
The number one rule is not to forget that.
