How Action-Centred Leadership has helped me recognise my management style biases and become a crucial tool in my approach to coaching.
During the first management leadership training session at Hargreaves Lansdown, we explored a wide range of topics, from understanding what it means to be a manager to defining effective coaching. For me, the most valuable takeaway was Action-Centred Leadership. In the weeks that followed, I found myself applying it daily.
In this post, I’d like to share my thoughts on this leadership model and how it has been beneficial in my role.
Jump to heading What is Actioned Centred Leadership?
Action Centred Leadership (ACL), developed by John Adair, who was notably influenced by his experiences at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
This leadership model emphasises a balance between three core responsibilities:
Task: Ensuring that the team accomplishes the tasks and objectives effectively.
Team: Fostering team cohesion and ensuring effective collaboration.
Individual: Supporting and developing individuals within the team.
Adair’s model highlights that a good leader must balance these three elements to ensure overall team success, acknowledging that prioritising only one aspect (such as focusing solely on individuals) can lead to poor outcomes for the team as a whole.
Jump to heading What does Action Centred Leadership mean in practice?
As with many things in life, it's all about seeking balance. Too much focus on one area means the others suffer, which often leads to the initial focus area suffering as well. If you're only concentrating on the task, individuals won’t progress as they need to. Over time, this results in the task itself suffering due to the lack of individual development. When both the task and individual growth are neglected, the team as a whole will ultimately suffer.
In engineering, I’ve often seen this with technical debt. Focusing on delivery is commercially beneficial, but if it's at the expense of cutting corners, it will eventually catch up with you as you scale. I believe engineers are often happiest when their work is a balanced mix of product tasks and technical tasks. Technical tasks frequently lead to learning, resulting in individual growth. When the team is involved in both technical and product work, they’re likely also engaged in task planning and contributing to how the team functions, which benefits the team as a whole.
Jump to heading How I scored for Action Centred Leadership
We were given a questionnaire to complete, which provided us with scores in each of the categories. It’s similar to a Myers-Briggs questionnaire I’ve done before. Some of the questions were very similar, with slight variations, aiming to identify someone who has a relatively even score across all categories.
I scored 34 for task, 40 for individual, and 76 for team. I wasn’t surprised that my bias was towards the team, but I was a bit shocked by how much. I feel this is partly due to my current focus on my new team, which has been largely on team dynamics. At the moment, I’m less task-focused, as they are successfully delivering on tasks.
I don’t see this as a bad thing. It’s been really helpful to gain a fresh perspective on how I manage. I believe any test like this shouldn’t be seen as absolute truth, but rather as a useful indication.
Jump to heading How I apply Action Centred Leadership to my management style
It’s made me aware that I tend to prioritise the best outcome for the team over the task. I can see this in how I avoid making tactical decisions at the moment. When there’s a commercial requirement to get something done, I make a conscious effort to balance the need for delivery with doing it properly.
I wouldn’t say it’s had a huge impact on how I manage, but it has given me greater awareness of my biases.
Jump to heading How I use Action Centred Leadership in coaching
Coaching is where Action Centred Leadership has had the biggest impact on me. I often find myself saying things like, "What would the impact be on the team as a result of that solution?" If I sense someone is overly focused on one area, especially the task during periods of commercial pressure, it can be difficult for them to step back and consider the broader consequences of their decisions.
In the past, I found it challenging to coach in these situations because I lacked a simple framework to structure these discussions. Now, I find it much easier! Like with any good process, I no longer have to think about how to coach through these scenarios and can instead focus on what to address.
Jump to heading Conclusion
I'm a big fan of Action Centred Leadership. Like most good ideas, it's simple. In engineering, balancing the need to deliver commercial value quickly with delivering robust solutions is challenging. I now feel that, as a coach, I have a framework to facilitate better conversations.
A shout out to Ade Priddle from Results Catalyst, who led the training session. It was my first formal training, and Ade ran the day exceptionally well. Aside from Action-Centred Leadership, the other major takeaway was how effectively Ade facilitated the workshop.
If you have any comments, feedback, or questions about this article please get in touch! I’d love to hear how you recognise your own management style biases and how you coach others to reflect on theirs.
