It seems that I’ve talking a lot about leadership lately.

In Monday night’s Applied Social Psychology class, we spent most of the night discussing leadership styles as we discussed correlational research in that topic. A topic like this makes the class come alive – especially the older, returning students, who have experienced workplaces in the real world. We spent most of the class talking about the task-oriented leaders compared to the relationship-oriented styles. Much like many of these students, I too have experienced both styles in my work history, and have long preferred the latter style to the former.

It was a similar conversation last week, when I got to spend a good part of an afternoon with noted photojournalist David Alan Harvey. We had a great discussion while I was on assignment at his home in the Outer Banks, where he edits the exceptional burn magazine. Both David and I have benefitted from important people who’ve influenced us early in our careers, and we each know and have worked for leaders that embody both task and relationship oriented styles.

I have had both task and relationship oriented leaders throughout my career, and I can’t stress enough that finding the right boss is critical. In my last two markets, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have had benefitted from relationship-oriented, leaders, whereas in my entry-level experience, the leadership there was decidedly (and unapologetically) task-oriented.

Most notably, I was recruited to The Virginian-Pilot by Bob Lynn in 1986. Bob was the distinguished Assistant Managing Editor for Photography and Graphics here. Bob was a nurturing, facilitating leader, who emphasized inclusive, motivational and coaching approach – what in organizational psychology is called an authoritative leadership style. Bob leveraged this style to a degree that wound up influencing the culture and reputation of The Pilot as a photojournalism power-house. In using these dynamic skills to change a culture, and orient all within it to a unified “vision” – Bob can also be called a transformational leader.

David made very good observations about the task-oriented style, especially those that he met early in his career. These were the advocates of what people might call “old school” or “tough love” approach. It’s an approach that organizational psychologists call authoritarian – task-oriented, top-down, and blunt.

Both styles brought undeniable positive results, and commanded loyalty... and most importantly, to this psychologist, trust. As we discussed in class – and also discussed as we recounted our experiences on Harvey’s front porch – is that they can be tremendously powerful approaches, depending upon the situation. Under a higher load of stress and situational demand the task-oriented leader seems to do a little better – where during a different and less stressful dynamic, the relationship-oriented leader delivers better results. Research also shows that leaders who hold their subordinates higher esteem and in a less-stratified group, will also deliver better results.

Although practitioners of the task-oriented style clearly deserves their due respect, I’ve long believed that an authoritative and facilitative approach is the best for talented and driven professionals like photojournalists – following Bob Lynn’s example. He outlines his approach in a recent book called Courage Vision and Heart – which I highly recommend reading.

As a photo editor and team leader, I’ve endorsed what people call the servant leadership approach – which is a type of authoritative style that places the people who work for the team leader as his or her most important customers.

These non-task oriented styles, despite all the supporting research and evidence, still seem to be a hard sell in the culture of news organizations, which favors authoritarian and more traditional management structures. Further, as staffs continue to be cut, organizations continue their contractions, and workload becomes more challenging, it remains to be seen if servant leadership is a sustainable style in the rapidly changing newsroom environments. I’d like to think so, however I’m speaking more as an optimist there rather than a professional or a psychologist. Perhaps this is a topic for another blog entry…

Here are a few images from my shoot and visit with David… Enjoy!