From Styles to Modes: The Missing Skill in Modern Leadership

Why your leadership style isn’t working in every situation

“Should we take another vote?”

Chris looked around the project room. Twelve people. Fourteen opinions. They had been discussing the same decision for a week.

“I just want everyone to feel heard,”

she said, smiling tightly.

Her team nodded, politely exhausted. The deadline was tomorrow.

Chris prided herself on being collaborative. She was the kind of leader who asked, listened, and built consensus. It worked beautifully until the moment everyone started waiting for someone else to decide.

Two floors down, Jordan was in a client meeting of a different kind. He worked for a marketing agency that helped organisations bring new products to market. The client team had come in to test a campaign concept.

The presentation started strong but soon stalled. The client’s lead looked at Jordan, unsure.

“What do you think?”

she asked.

Jordan smiled.

“Let’s test it out. I’ll play the customer, you convince me to buy.”

The room burst into laughter, then energy. Within minutes, sticky notes covered the wall. Ideas sharpened, language shifted, and by the end the concept felt alive again.

As they walked out, his colleague said quietly,

“You’ve got a knack for switching gears.”

Jordan grinned.

“Just reading the room.”

Both leaders were capable. But one was trapped in her style. The other had learned how to switch modes.

When “Style” Gets in the Way

We have all been told we have a style. A leadership style. A communication style. A learning style. It sounds reassuring, like a compass that never changes direction.

But having a style does not mean you should use it everywhere. Being a surfie does not mean you can wear board shorts to a board meeting. Yet that is what we often do when we bring the same tone, pace, or mindset to every situation.

Chris’s collaborative style made her popular, but in a crisis it slowed her down. Sam, one of her team members, often said,

“I’m an auditory learner. I need to talk things through.”

So when the company rolled out new software, he sat in on every briefing but never actually clicked anything.

After three weeks, his colleague teased him,

“Mate, you can’t learn to use a system by listening about it.”

Sam laughed.

“Tell that to my learning style.”

The more tightly we cling to a style, the less we see what the situation needs. Rigid styles limit adaptability. Modes invite movement.

Shifting from Styles to Modes

1. Leadership Modes: Matching Response to Situation

Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership identifies multiple leadership styles, from visionary to commanding. The best leaders treat them like gears, not labels.

Take Melissa, a construction project lead. When a scaffolding issue threatened to delay the entire site, she shifted instantly into commanding mode.

“Everyone stop. No guesses. Let’s get the engineer here now.”

Once safety was secured and the plan was back on track, she switched to a coaching mode.

“Alright, what can we learn from that moment? What needs to change before next time?”

The same leader, two very different modes. One for action. One for growth.

As Melissa said later,

“If I’d stayed in command mode after the crisis, no one would have learned a thing.”

When a fire breaks out, literal or metaphorical, you need the commanding mode: clear, calm direction with no time for debate. But use that same tone in a planning workshop and you will watch creativity evaporate faster than enthusiasm on a Friday afternoon. In that space, the coaching or democratic mode helps ideas flow.

As one leader put it,

“My job isn’t to have a consistent tone. It’s to have a consistent purpose.”

Reflect: When was the last time you used the wrong leadership mode for the situation? What was the impact?

2. Learning Modes: Matching Approach to Content

The VARK model describes learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, and Kinaesthetic. But research increasingly shows that designing for different styles is not increasing the effectiveness.

Think of Amira. When she is learning to paint, she is pure visual mode, watching, imitating, layering colour. But imagine her trying to learn painting from a podcast.

“Now, gently mix a warm hue of ochre,”

the host says. Amira squints at the air.

“What even is ochre?”

Or picture her trying to learn to dance with only a textbook. She reads aloud,

“Box step forward on beat one,”

then mutters,

“What is a box step?”

When she learns guitar, she is in auditory mode. When she studies leadership theory, she shifts to reading and writing. Different content, different mode.

As Amira jokes,

“It’s not that I am a visual learner. It’s that painting needs to be learned visually.”

Reflect: How do you naturally prefer to learn? Which mode do you rely on least, and what might you gain by using it more?

3. Personality Modes: Communicating Across Contexts

The DiSC model describes personality styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. These styles explain preferences, not fixed identities. Great communicators move between them to suit the moment.

Jordan’s team jokes that he has “meeting personas.” With clients, he’s all Influence mode, funny, curious, full of ideas. In one-on-ones, he’s Steadiness mode, calm, grounded, checking in. And when deadlines loom, he shifts into Dominance mode, focused, firm, and clear about priorities.

None of these are fake. They are versions of him, applied intentionally. As Jordan puts it,

“Same person, different frequency.”

Reflect: Which personality mode do you use most at work? Where might another mode serve you and your team better?

The Learnable Skill: Situational Flexibility

Switching between modes is not instinct. It is awareness and practice. It starts with four simple questions:

1. What is happening right now?

2. What does success look like?

3. What do people need from me?

4. What tone, pace, or approach fits this moment?

   
   

Get it wrong and the mismatch is obvious. Get it right and no one even notices. Things just flow.

With reflection and feedback, flexibility becomes intuition. You start reading rooms the way musicians read rhythm.

As one senior leader said,

“It’s not about being more flexible. It’s about being more on purpose.”

The Leadership Edge

In complex, fast-moving workplaces, fixed styles are a liability. The leaders who thrive and the teams who flourish under them are those who shift modes deliberately, leading, learning, and communicating with agility.

Next time you catch yourself saying,

“That’s just my style,”

pause. Ask instead,

“What mode does this moment demand?”

Then watch how quickly people follow.