Leadership inconsistency isn't just a minor workplace grievance—it's a silent productivity killer with real costs to organizations, teams, and individual well-being.

Think about that manager who was attentive and supportive one week but completely disappeared the next. Remember how the uncertainty affected your motivation and confidence? As leaders, we often focus on strategic decisions and driving results, but consistency in our leadership approach can be the difference between a thriving team and one that merely survives.

Where to Focus Your Consistency Efforts

The most impactful areas to establish consistency begin with regular, meaningful one-on-one interactions with direct reports. Consider the supervisor who always canceled your meetings at the last minute—how valued did that make you feel? These touchpoints shouldn't be mere calendar obligations but opportunities to set direction, create alignment, and secure commitment. Come prepared with specific discussion points rather than vague check-ins.

Strong leaders recognize that consistency in communication extends beyond frequency—it's about quality. Recall the leader who praised generic work yet criticized your best efforts without explanation. Intentionally giving genuine feedback using frameworks creates clarity and builds trust. Even if feedback doesn't come naturally, practicing this discipline transforms casual conversations into developmental opportunities.

What Threatens Consistency

Time constraints pose the most significant threat to leadership consistency. Remember the otherwise excellent manager who was always "putting out fires" and never had time for your questions? When juggling multiple projects and responsibilities, one-on-ones are often the first casualty. The tyranny of the urgent frequently overshadows important relationship-building activities that don't provide immediate payoff.

Our personality tendencies can also undermine consistency efforts. However, self-awareness about how your natural tendencies impact others is crucial for consistent leadership. This self-awareness empowers you to understand and manage your leadership style, ensuring that your team feels secure and confident in your leadership.

The Power of Self-Awareness

A pause for self-awareness goes a long way toward evaluating consistency. Consider how personality preferences shape leadership approaches, especially in industries like construction. Based on my work for the last decade using assessments like Hogan, Birkman, Workplace Big5, and MBTI, the results of personality and job-fit have consistent predictive patterns where individuals tend to thrive. Using MBTI in coaching, construction leaders predominantly identify as ISTJs—thoughtful, concrete, clear individuals who work best with a plan. They get stuff done like a train on tracks; their world operates on time, on schedule, and on budget. To practice self-awareness, an ISTJ leader could regularly reflect on how their structured approach impacts their team's morale and adaptability.

Yet even for the most diligent personality, competing priorities emerge. People's challenges are the norm, and the rest of the world doesn't operate on their schedule. Thus, progress suffers, with high execution but low agility.

Conversely, a personality profile like an ENTP—socially engaged, intuitive, critical thinker, and spontaneous—allows for in-the-moment decision-making, seizing the day, and entrepreneurial thinking. Commitment runs high in these types, but consistency can be at risk; they tend to operate on high inspiration, while execution can become a grind.

Self-awareness of your natural tendencies gives you another pause to consider who in your life can help prioritize your commitments. The ISTJ construction superintendent may need team members with flexibility and people skills to balance their drive for completion. The ENTP leader might need detail-oriented team members who ensure follow-through and implementation.

Consistency is essential for any leadership style to succeed. We need others on our team to balance our strengths so they don't threaten our work and relationships. Recognizing and appreciating the role of team members in this balance fosters a sense of inclusivity and appreciation within the team.

The Impact of Consistency

Consistent leadership creates psychological safety, where team members know what to expect. This predictability builds trust, which drives engagement and retention, especially in high-stress fields. It also instills a sense of security and confidence in your team members, allowing them to perform at their best.

Leaders who prioritize consistent touchpoints find their teams more aligned and self-directed. Projects run more smoothly because expectations are clear, and team members develop confidence in their decision-making. Think about how differently you performed for the leader who consistently invested in your growth versus the one who engaged only when problems arose.

Your Consistency Challenge

Here's my challenge: For the next 30 days, identify one consistent behavior you'll make non-negotiable. It could be weekly one-on-ones that never get canceled or delivering one piece of specific feedback to each team member monthly. Whatever you choose, protect this commitment fiercely.

Then, take it a step further—identify a trusted colleague with complementary strengths who can help hold you accountable to this commitment. Suppose you're an ISTJ who excels at execution but struggles with adaptability. Partner with someone who brings flexibility to the table. If you're an ENTP bursting with ideas but challenged by follow-through, find someone detail-oriented to help you stay on track.

Create accountability by sharing your intention not just with this partner, but with your team. Remember—consistency isn't about perfection. It's about establishing patterns your team can count on, even when—especially when—everything else feels uncertain. Your team doesn't need a superhero; they need a leader who shows up consistently and authentically. Will you be that leader?

Reflection:

When have you felt most unsettled at work, and was a leader's inconsistency contributing to that feeling?
What consistency pattern would your team members say you're known for—and what pattern might they wish you would establish?
What factors most often derail your best intentions for leadership consistency?
How does your personality type influence your consistency challenges, and who on your team complements those tendencies?
What tangible benefits have you witnessed in environments where leadership consistency was the norm?