NIK SHAH: Visionary leadership for me, personally, has been to continually look at my business and be the disruption within my own business. Because the world is changing so fast, because of speed of communication and the pace in the velocity of change, we need to be our own disruptive forces. So for me to continually look at not just what are we doing in the next six months, in the next year, next three years, next five years-- what worked before is not going to be what works in the future. And our markets, whether they are limited or regional in nature, we need to expand those markets.

So for me, the visionary is to continue look at disrupting my own business. Disrupting it in the way we do things, disrupting it in the type of people that we have on our team, disrupting it in challenging the team to think about new markets and new frontiers.

As well as doing more work globally. What used to be a very US centric business model for my business has now turned into much more of a global model. How do you create an environment, how do you train people to work with folks in every time zone throughout the globe? How do you move work from one region to the next and ensure the quality and the durability of the deliverable?

So visionary leaders, I believe, tend to need to focus in on a couple of things. One, recognize that you need to be your own disruptive force. Two, create the environment where people continue to recognize that change is a constant, and that we need to continually look at breaking down how we do things. Can we do it better, faster, cheaper? Can we deliver a better quality product that's more durable to our clients? And how do you continue to create a team that's comfortable with almost a constant change, as well as a pace that's continuing to accelerate?

The concept of technology being a disruptive force is requiring leaders to continue to drive new innovation in whatever it might be. Whatever industry-- automotive, healthcare, energy-- innovation is at the core of everything that we see in every marketplace in every client interaction that we have. So our workplace, our industries, are demanding more innovation. So as a leader, it's consistently challenging to come up with new and innovative ways without being able to generate some type of return on investment on the previous version of innovation that's occurred. How quickly do we want to disrupt the business?

These are the challenges and the nuance. It's easy to say we need to be more agile. It's easy to say we need to be more innovative. But what is the half-life of the innovation that we have? How quickly do we replace and how quickly do we change? And that's the street sense and the ground level sense that leaders need to have to really be effective.

Part of the nature of a leader's role is to recognize, hey, do you have the right people on your team? Are they in the right positions? Is there room for people that may be more comfortable with less amount of change, and is there a spot for them to be successful in? So a leader's role is always going to be to find the right balancing act of people that are very innovative in nature, people that are very aggressive and assertive and be able to deal with a lot of change, and recognizing that not all people are cut from the same cloth, and create that environment, create that relationship, to say, you can be successful within this environment. You're going to be playing a different role, but over time, perhaps people can grow and matriculate into that. Because I truly believe that the world is changing, that leaders need to recognize that the world is changing, and prepare their teams, prepare their people, to be competitive in a changing world and in a changing environment.

When you have the right people on your team, especially when you're a visionary leader and you're trying to drive a level of innovation and set some standards for folks to say, here's where we're going to. And you establish that benchmark, you establish that standard. When people rally towards that objective, there's an incredible amount of enthusiasm, an incredible amount of excitement. And you see the exact opposite when people don't rally towards the goal.

Having experienced a number of different work environments, a number of different settings, the difference between a strong visionary leader and a poor visionary leader is a direct 180. You see the breakdown in trust. You see the breakdown in productivity. You see the breakdown in efficiency. You typically find a greater turnover level, more grievances that come from this. In the sporting world, it is very evidenced. You see strong leadership tend to perform better in terms of wins and losses as compared to the poor leadership, poor visionary leadership.

It comes down to recognizing what type of leader you need to be when, establishing the right foundation, and establishing the right goals, and then surrounding yourself with people that believe in the goals as strongly as you do, and you're not measuring time, you're measuring commitment. You're measuring engagement.

How do you measure discretionary effort? How do you measure if people are passionate about what they're doing? The good leaders are able to figure out how do I get at that fundamental level of engagement, and how do I get and tap into someone's passion. If you can do that, the visionary leader wins more times than they lose.

JACKIE BROVA: Coaching is a little unique. And the way I see it is the coach is a more-- gets the best out of the person, and so you might have to use a little different language. You might need to use broader terminology when you're working through a coaching situation with someone.

You're not supervising them. You're not directing them. But what you're trying to do is find the essence in that individual that really motivates them. So I think the work for a coach is as difficult as the person being coached because it really requires of you to try and find out what is really unique about the individual you're coaching and how do you bring the best out in that person.

What they can get into is what motivates you? What would keep you interested in this? What would success look like? How can I help you? What barriers can I get out of the way for you? That's what a really good coach would do. And I think those are things that make it distinctive from mentoring, supervising, and leading.

I assume everybody comes to work because they want to make a difference and they want to be engaged. So quickly, if that's not really in their DNA, that's a different kind of conversation to have. But I walk into a situation assuming that.

But what I do know is that people think differently. They have good days and bad days, but they think differently. And over time, they have a point of view. And to me as a leader, bringing that point of view into a conversation and helping them know and understand and identify with what it is that they can bring to the problem-solving event that we're at that's unique, that they can own, is one of the most important things you can do. And it seems like that's going to require a lot of time, but I don't think that that's necessarily the case. I think that you can get to know somebody pretty quickly by giving them the form to describe what it is that excites them about their work and then say, how can we use that to move this project along?

We just recently implemented a new human resources information system, and the leader of that project was not who I went in thinking would be assigned to that project. Someone just came forward, and you could see that they just had a viewpoint about it, and they had an excitement about it. And so what I was able to do was say, if I could get you more involved in this project, would you be willing to collaborate with the current leader of the project who we had assigned and announced to the organization?

And what that did was actually ended up relieving the pressure of the current person that we assigned to it because they weren't necessarily as tech savvy as the person who moved forward. And bringing those two people together and co-managing the project ended up being one of those win-wins. But it's just finding that if there is that person who has that skill set, how do you bring him in in a non-threatening way? Looking at that person who probably wouldn't admit to being threatened but saying to them, are you going to be comfortable if we give you this resource?

And there's no magic to being able to assess that in an individual. Maybe, again, it's that conversation. And I don't want to sound like these are conversations that are hour-long conversations. I think they can be handled very quickly. And one of the reasons they could be handled quickly is if you, as a leader, are very specific and say to that individual, what would make you excited about this? What would make you want to make a contribution at a higher level? What do you see your role in this as being?

STEVE VETTER: The affiliative style is one that promotes harmony within the group. They're great at solving conflict. I would say they're great at times of emergency, when organizations are going through restructuring. I think they're big on, kind of, bringing the team together and providing direction, and they're collaborative as well. They're making sure communication is flowing so people are informed, and they're not questioning what's going on.

So I think they're big on harmony. Followers of that leadership style, the team of that leadership style, I would say they get great praise. They know where the department is going, that sort of thing.

I think I would use that in cases where, you know, it's very frequent in corporate America today that companies are restructuring. They're cutting excess, creating efficiencies, people are taking on much more than they have in the past. And there's so much change going on that it's really important that they understand where the company is going, but also that they're part of a team, and that they're respected, and that they're valued. And they have a leader that can just deliver that message correctly.

DOUG ALLEN: You need different styles of leadership depending on what challenges you're facing. But one of them that you should have the capacity to exhibit is democratic or participatory leadership. And an example of that in my career was at the Screen Actors Guild when I was the National Executive Director.

When we prepared for bargaining with management, the collective bargaining of a collective bargaining agreement, there was in the constitution at the union a requirement that the membership be involved in that process in a very direct way. It's called Wages And Working Conditions Committee Meetings. And it meant that all over the country and all over the union, every member was invited to participate in a process where they brought their concerns about what was in the collective bargaining agreement and should be in it in the future to the table.

And it wasn't a process that had an agenda to begin with. Members could bring any issue they wanted to that process. So it had to be, by definition, very democratic and very participatory.

The challenge for leadership led by me, the leadership team was to facilitate that discussion so it wasn't chaotic, so everybody had a chance to have their voice heard. Because what we were trying to do by that constitutionally required process is winnow down the demands to a manageable list that we could take to the table. Because we couldn't take every member's every wish list, and put it on the table. We had to have something that was the smallest number of demands that would accomplish what we needed to accomplish for the members.

So part of the process of facilitation by the leadership team was to manage the discussion to try to reach consensus about what issues the most people cared about. And when there were issues that didn't rise to that level, that didn't meet that standard, then we set them aside. But it was important that people were heard on those issues. Because at the end of the day, you wanted everyone, even if their issue didn't make the list, to own the process because that's how you get them to own the results. They own the results if they feel like they've been listened to, if they've had a chance to be heard, not just by the leadership in the front of the room, but by the other members.

And the best teaching that goes on in those constitutionally required meetings is peer to peer. If somebody stands up and says something that really isn't important enough or serious enough, generally the best comment that can illustrate that comes from somebody else on the floor, not from the front of the room. So more of that part of the leadership responsibility is to facilitate that discussion and make sure it's orderly, and that it is a process that leads to a conclusion.

So you have to develop trust. They have to trust in your shared vision and in the process that leads to those demands. Because you have to be able to react at the table as a leader. Coming from that process where we develop those bargaining demands, they had to have confidence that their voice was heard and that you shared their values when you took the demands that resulted from that process to the table.

The time when democratic leadership is most important is when there's going to be a point in time when a leader is not with the folks who participated in the process and in the decision making, but has to be able to respond based on that process. And that's where you get the trust. In my experience where that happens is in negotiations because members of unions develop bargaining demands from the bottom up. And leaders take those demands to the table, but all of the members don't follow them to the table.

And the reason it's important to have that be a democratic participatory process is so that when they get to the table, they can make decisions about what to do and how to respond to management in ways that the membership will respect and trust because they know they participated in a process and their voice was heard. And there's a shared vision between the leadership and the membership, and that's represented at the table. So they feel they're represented, even though they're not there.

To the extent that you can use a democratic leadership, you get strong consensus. But it's important to remember that in many organizations, whether it's a company board, or a union membership, or an advocacy organization, chapters that get together and make decisions in convention, it's important to remember that those decisions ultimately have to be made by a majority. The minority view has to be respected, has to be heard. They have to feel like they're part of the process, not outside the process, that they really had a chance to affect the decision. But at the end of the day, if the decision goes in another direction, if it goes in a way that they didn't initially support, the reason participatory democratic leadership is important is to make sure that they feel like they own the result.

BETH ALBRIGHT: When I'm in the pace-setting style, I'm trying to lead by example. I'm moving the organization towards a vision at a certain rate. So it's kind of like being out in front. It's like being the pace dog of an Iditarod team.

But the pace setting means that I am actively engaged in the process. And what I want is for people to see me doing, and being, and achieving, and moving at the same pace, at the same rate, that I'm asking of them.

So an example of this is I came into an organization that had gotten a bit complacent. And I came in. I was like, wow, we could do so much more. And I actually had someone tell me, well, I think we should choose like one or two of those. And let's just work on those.

And I went, oh my gosh, look at all of the things we have to do. So I said, no, we're going to focus on four of them. And then everyone's eyes got really big. And they said, well, I don't think we can do that. I said, of course we can. We can run parallel paths.

And so I set the expectations of the pace of work, the quantity of work, the quality of work-- what I expected to be accomplished. And how we were going to get there. So everybody wasn't going to do the same thing altogether. We were going to run some parallel paths.

And then we were going to come together at certain touch points. Because at the end of the day, we were going to move it all. And we were going to move it all at an appropriate pace.

The challenge with being in a pace-setting style is that you overburden the organization. And you push it too far. And it becomes not prudent to take the steps and take on as much. I mean, sometimes you do have to say no.

So as a leader, part of my job is to moderate that and say, how much do I think the organization can manage, and how much don't I think it? But I tell my team all the time, I will push you. And I make no apologies for it. I will push you. But I will also recognize when we've reached what I think is maximum.

So there's a lot of people who have what's called discretionary effort. And all of the employee engagement surveys are out. How do you get more discretionary effort out of your employees? Doing a pace-setting style helps draw that discretionary effort into more productivity at work.

ERNEST SALVINO: Upon my graduation, I received a commission in the United States Navy as an ensign. And as the mere fact that we are officers, built into the military system, is the authority. So we have the authority, as young officers, to bring forth the commands from the chain of command, the head of the ship, the captain, down through to the sailors.

And I was selected as an engineering officer to go aboard a brand new ship, meet my division, and develop the damage control system. So here I am coming to a new ship, not knowing anyone, but I have the authority. Now what do I do with that authority, and how do I utilize it to make my division the best division?

As an officer in the chain of command, one who has spent time in the military understands that my decision goes to my chiefs. If you're a naval person, the chief is the middle manager. And the chief then takes that information and relays those commands to the sailors.

There's many ways that one can do this. And I noticed that my first two years in the Navy that young officers took this authority as, I know everything. I can do everything. I give the command. You do what I say.

I didn't find that that was necessarily an appropriate way to run a division. So I had the opportunity with this new job to employ what I believe was the appropriate way to become more efficient, to have the best division on the Destroyer.

So when I went to the ship as it was being built, I had the opportunity to be the authority, my decision, my command. No one could question it. But would that get the best response out of 50 sailors?

And I found that there's a combination of being firm and being fair, building trust, and being truthful. And what I would often do is follow the chain of command, but then sometimes break away from that. And utilizing in that authority and becoming more somewhat democratic. And it's a very difficult situation, because the military is not democratic.

But there were times when I would then employ democracy. Let's get everyone together. Let's talk about how we can make this the best division on this ship. It was amazing to see young sailors brighten up. You mean you want to hear about what I think we can do? It's not normally that way.

And that piece of democracy found that, or at least I found, that that group ran better. I was in charge of damage control, so I had a number of people that had to learn how to be firemen, to be ship fitters, to deal with the emergency situations, quick to situation when you're out to sea or where you're in port.

Also, the third piece of that to me, that part of leadership, was building a trust in these young people. Can they trust you? When you're a young sailor and you look up the chain of command, and there are officers all the way up, you don't feel part of that. So how do we be authoritative, build some democracy, and also then have the trust, the harmony within the group?

When you're taking young people from all over the United States, all over sometimes the world, putting them together, and trying to build a cohesive group of people that are going to do what you need, at the last minute when you must deal with damage control. What is damage control? You're out to sea. There's a fire. You're out to sea and your ship is hit with a torpedo. How do you prepare them to act in those emergencies?

So I found that having the authority was even more difficult than building authority. Because we have that as a nature of the military. But what do you do with it?

And watching young officers make mistakes, I was able to take all that information and build, with authority, the chain of command, my direction to my chiefs, their direction to the sailors, democracy to a certain extent. What do they think about how we can make this the best division on the ship? And thirdly, that they felt included.

I will say, and I'm proud of this, that the day that I left the Navy, that division was the top division on the ship. And the captain recognized that in our separation papers. And how proud he was of watching us develop our program on a brand new ship-- I was able to develop it-- have the working group of young people all together with one goal, to make us the best division, and we were able to do that.

There is the authority part, which some people find difficult to do, where you have to make hard decisions, mostly in discipline. And one can take that authority as, well, he's my friend. Therefore he will not discipline me. And it's very difficult for the person with authority to, when it's time to be firm but fair, to then do that.

NIK SHAH: I tend to find that leadership styles evolve for people at different times in their career. I think that one size fits all from a leadership mindset is perhaps not realistic. And so I look at my own career for many years as a senior director.

I was leading-- if I can use a military example-- I was leading the troops from the front. And we would go into battle. We would do things where I was integrally involved with the day-to-day activities.

As my role has changed, and it's been elevated, I'm leading the troops from the rear. And so historically, when I was leading from the front, I was in the mix in a very detailed way-- in a very tactical level. And so as a leader there, it was to set very short-term oriented goals, objectives, near-term goals and objectives.

And now as my role has evolved as a leader, I'm leading from the rear. I'm setting more about culture, setting more about environment, saying more about, do the troops have the right tools, equipment, training, skill set? Do I have the right people leading the troops? Do I have the right people in the unit?

So for me, the leadership style needs to evolve over a period of time, at the different levels of leadership. But when you evolve, you have to look at, well, what hand am I dealt as well? What environment am I in? And what type of leader do I need to be in this particular situation and environment?

BETH ALBRIGHT: A good leader has the wherewithal to evaluate and say what makes sense. I also don't think that they are independent of each other. I believe that if I'm using a pace-setting style, at some point in time, there might be authoritarian elements to it. There might be some democratic elements to it.

But at the end of the day, one would be-- the characteristics would be-- more prominent. It doesn't mean it's exclusive of some of the other styles, because leadership is about reading situations and being able to adjust appropriately.

I definitely have a default style. I have a stress style too, that when I get stressed, I actually hunker back into authoritative, because it's the easiest-- just do what I say, and we'll be fine. So that's my stress style.

When I stress, that's where I default. Sometimes, like being a parent, is you try and influence your children, and show them examples, and get them to learn. But at some point in time when you get stressed, when I get stressed, it's like, just do it because I said so.

I'm mom. That's my right. You're the kid. Let's go. So sometimes, leadership is analogous to parenting.