What's your leadership style? There's a chat for that

Negative self-talk can become a defeatist feedback loop that impacts "our confidence and [limits] our development," leadership author and educator Paul Thornton writes. Learning to become aware of each thought and dissect them for accuracy can get you closer to positive self-talk, Thornton says.

Put it into practice: Reframing negative thoughts and keeping a journal of positive things others have said about you can help you break the bonds of negativity, Thornton writes. For stubborn negative self-talk, you may need to explore whether a difficult experience has been resolved.

Sentences using passive voice "just sit there" and let life happen to them, while active voice gets things done, writes Allison Carter, editor-in-chief of PR Daily, who explains why using a passive voice can be bad for business. For example, sentences like "layoffs are being carried out" or "a wheelchair was broken in transit" are clunky and avoid responsibility, Carter asserts.

Put it into practice: It's not nerdy to want to speak more clearly and concisely, and active voice tends to use fewer words and sound less clunky or pedantic. "[W]henever possible, stop and ask yourself: can this sentence be active? What would that mean, not just for the quality of my writing, but for the people reading it?" Carter writes.

Patience… to a point. Seeing the big picture is important for team members so they know where their efforts fit into the larger organization. Sometimes it's hard to understand that bigger picture. It's easy to get mired in day-to-day activities and the big picture requires team members to stretch their thinking and engage in concepts, departments and with people they're unfamiliar with.

The majority of you report being willing to help them fully understand that bigger picture no matter how much effort it takes. Another large group of respondents, though, do have a point where they say enough is enough and leave it up to the team member after they've tried explaining things in sufficient detail.

If you're getting tired of explaining the big picture to team members who don't get it, consider having one of their peers explain it to them. It might feel less intimidating and that peer knows the details of the day-to-day and they may have an easier time explaining how it connects to the big picture.

-- Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, which includes TITAN -- the firm's e-learning platform. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a West Point graduate and author of three leadership books: "One Piece of Paper," "Lead Inside the Box" and "The Elegant Pitch."

Former Amazon executive and author John Rossman says his leadership style is to solve problems "in a durable manner, not just putting a Band-Aid on," which requires understanding the root cause of problems to build lasting solutions. "That's the mindset and technique that is appropriate in most cases in established companies of any size: Think big, but figure out how to de-risk it, how to bet small, until it's no longer a bet," Rossman says.

Separate studies show bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills by watching peers, and, in the case of the bees, it's the first time invertebrates have shown cumulative culture. Neither the bees nor the chimps could figure out how to get hidden treats on their own, but once researchers trained some animals, others watched and learned to open the boxes, according to two separate studies in Nature and Nature Human Behaviour.

I played around with some of Rachel Wells' suggested prompts for ChatGPT about leadership styles. It's a good way to start thinking about some of the questions and ideas she suggests, but as the ChatGPT disclaimer says, "ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information."

Your leadership style is "important information" to have, and while AI can make mistakes, humans can as well. Don't just adopt a style out of the box -- or out of the AI. Everything is subject to the context in which it occurs. AI -- and even some human coaches -- can give us advice that might not work in a given situation.

Taking advice from AI is tricky at best. Even if its advice sounds good, measure it against the natural human emotions, needs and challenges at hand. You can never go wrong whenever you're taking another's feelings and values into consideration.

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