Leadership is hard to define and there are many leadership styles. Whatever your style, the best results are achieved by having clear objectives, a sense of purpose and a desire to achieve good outcomes.

Leading by telling and being authoritative may work in certain circumstances, such as in the military.  However, in everyday life, good outcomes are best achieved when consensus is built, and decision making is shared.  Leaders who can describe a clear path to the desired result, and who wish to contribute to the collective good of the organisation generally do well.  

Some people seem like natural leaders. However most people have the potential to develop leadership skills such as:

• Organising, planning and scheduling;
• Problem solving;
• Negotiating;
• Communicating;
• Supervising; and
• Making decisions.

Attributes of leaders include:

• Enthusiasm;
• Ability to communicate important issues;
• Integrity;
• Sense of purpose; and
• Focus.

In my experience, many return to work coordinators naturally have these attributes, although communicating with confidence can sometimes be difficult.

Leadership works best when one is leading from the front rather than pushing from behind.  Create a vision and engage people in the sense of a team working with you, sharing in achieving successful outcomes.  People are more likely to play their role if they have the 'big picture' sense of purpose.  

It is useful to be flexible in your leadership style. In some circumstances, being authoritative can help, but in most situations more will be achieved by engaging people in decision making.  It’s no good trying to push a round peg into a square hole. You need to fit the approach to the situation. Having options allows one to deal with different situations according to need.  

Now you know the basics, get ready to take the wheel...

Choose your own adventure leadership challenge

Decision one
An injured worker is returning to work but has medical restrictions and will be unable to perform regular duties for a time. What leadership approach is most appropriate?
Your options are:

• Make a decision on what work duties are appropriate and inform the employee and their supervisor of your decision;
• Talk to the supervisor and employee about the specific duties that you think are best undertaken upon return to work, and through the conversation gain acceptance from them;
• Inform a supervisor and the employee about your suggestions for return to work duties, get their input too and make a collectively decision; or
• Define the parameters and boundaries for return to work duties, and then request they decide on the return to work tasks.

Outcome
Each of these approaches may be appropriate, depending on who you’re dealing with, and what the situation is. In general it is better to have input and buy in. However, in some circumstances informing people of your decision may be more appropriate, for example when there has been a repeated breakdown in communication.

Decision two
A 32 year old high performing admin worker develops arm pain.  Her supervisor wants her back doing a specific task, which she is medically able to do.

Do you:

1. Set up the return to work program so that she is allocated those duties; or
2. Sit down with the admin worker and her supervisor and collaboratively outline duties?

Outcome
If you chose option A:
Unbeknownst to you and the supervisor, the worker has issues with the person she needs interface with to do those duties.  Return to work occurs—but the hours of work go down rather than up. Ba-bow.

If you chose option B:
After you let them know about the importance of duties being productive and fitting the restrictions, the supervisor suggests X duties. You can see that the employee is not keen and ask her what she thinks she could do. She suggests Y. The supervisor needs X done within two months, so you settle on part time X and part time Y. You let them know there is going to need to be good communication to make this work and they set up a weekly meeting to discuss. For now at least, everybody is happy.

Leadership wrap-up

Just like in a Choose Your Own Adventure book, you will get better at predicting where your leadership decisions are likely to lead you. Not every leadership approach will feel natural to you, but this shouldn't stop you from experimenting if the situation calls for it. Remember, fortune favours the bold: be a leader!