Imagine a leader who inspires you. Every leader is unique and has different leadership styles that they use to achieve, motivate and inspire.
To help you understand the impact each leadership styles has on your company, this post explains what leadership styles are. Learn about the most common types of leadership and their impact on organizations and teams.
Then get some tools to help you decide which style is best for you. Start reading or jump to the section you are looking for.
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to “lead”, influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word “leadership” often gets viewed as a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the concept, sometimes contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to leadership, and also (within the West) North American versus European approaches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership
What is leadership style?
Leadership style refers to a leader’s methods and behaviors in directing, motivating, and leading others. Your leadership style also determines how you plan and execute, considering stakeholder expectations and team well-being.
Why it’s important to know your leadership style
Knowing your leadership styles are very important because it helps you determine how you influence those under your direct influence. How do you view your direct reports? Do they feel you are an effective leader?
It’s always important to ask for feedback to understand how you’re doing, but knowing your leadership styles before asking for feedback can be a useful starting point. This way, you can automatically determine which leadership style works best when thinking about junior staff and incorporate that trait into your daily leadership.
Free Guide to Leadership Lessons
Knowing your leadership styles allows you to improve with limited feedback. Every leadership style has its pitfalls, so you can be proactive about areas that need improvement. This is important because some employees may be reluctant to speak up, even in an anonymous survey. Ready to find out your leadership style? Check out the most popular styles below. types of leadership styles:
- Democratic leadership
- Autocratic leadership
- Laissez-faire leadership
- Strategic leadership
- innovative leadership
- Transaction Leadership
- Leadership Coaching
- Bureaucratic leadership
- Visionary leadership
- pacemaker leadership
- Situational leadership
Leadership styles: Democratic leadership
Also Known As Participatory or Facilitative Leadership
Democratic leadership is, as the name suggests, a leader making decisions based on the opinions of her members on each team. The leader makes the final decisions, but each employee has an equal say in the project’s direction.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
This is similar to how executives often make decisions on corporate boards. For example, a Democratic leader might give his team some key choices on the company’s board of directors. Then you can open a discussion for each option. After discussion, this leader can consider the Board’s thoughts and feedback or put this decision to a vote.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
Democratic leadership is one of the most effective leadership styles he has. This is because lower-level employees can exercise the powers they need to use them wisely in future positions. Potential challenges for democratic-style leaders.
The consensus-building process requires a lot of time, resources, and communication. Decision-making can also be affected as some team members may not have the appropriate expertise to make important decisions.
Leadership styles: Autocratic leadership
Also known as authoritarian, coercive, or imperative leadership
Authoritarian leadership is the opposite of democratic leadership. In this leadership style, the leader makes decisions without seeking input from his subordinates.
This style is most useful when a company needs to control a particular situation, but not as a management style in and of itself.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
Autocratic leaders implement strategies and policies with absolute focus. That drive and clarity can lead to better performance.
Efficient because you don’t consult with employees before changing direction. Instead, you are expected to follow decisions at a time and pace set by your leader.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
This type of leadership is most effective when a company is faced with difficult decisions. This management style gives employees a clear direction. It can also compensate for the team’s inexperience.
Potential challenges for autocratic style leaders:
Most organizations today cannot sustain such a hegemonic culture without losing their employees. It can affect morale and creative problem-solving.
An example of this is when a manager changes an employee’s working hours without consulting anyone. Other challenges of authoritarian leaders include:
- Intimidation
- Micromanagement
- Over-reliance on one leader
Leadership styles: laissez-faire leadership
Also known as delegation or hands-off leadership
If you remember your school French, you would think that laissez-faire leadership is the least intrusive form of leadership. “Laissez-faire” in French means “let them do it.” Leaders who accept it give their employees almost all power.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
Laissez-faire leaders hold employees accountable for their work. This gives many employees an incentive to do their best.
This type of leadership often creates a more relaxed corporate culture. This makes it a great model for creative businesses such as advertising agencies and product designers. It is also suitable for companies with highly skilled teams.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
For example, in fledgling startups, we see laissez-faire entrepreneurs who don’t create big office policies around working hours and deadlines. You can have complete confidence in your employees while focusing on the overall functioning of your company.
This high level of trust makes laissez-faire employees feel valued. Get the information you need and leverage our resources and experience to achieve your business goals.
Potential challenges for laissez-faire leaders:
Laissez-faire leadership can empower employees by trusting them to work the way they want, but it also has its drawbacks. This leadership style can limit team development. It can also be a problem if your employees are new or inexperienced. This can cause important business growth opportunities to be overlooked. Therefore, it is essential to maintain this leadership style.
Leadership styles: Strategic leadership
Strategic leaders sit between a company’s core business and its growth opportunities. This form of leadership requires vision, competitiveness, and adaptability. They accept the burden of executive interests. At the same time, they ensure that the current working conditions are stable for everyone else.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
Strategic leaders connect growth and strategic planning to how they lead their teams. They ask questions, execute strategies, and consider future growth. This approach supports common business goals such as:
- Accountability
- Productivity
- Cooperation
- Transparency
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
This is a desirable leadership style in many organizations because strategic thinking supports many types of employees at once. Facilitate visualization, planning, and use of existing resources. This approach can motivate employees.
Potential challenges for executives with a strategic leadership style:
Strategic managers can take on many things at times. There is also the risk of looking too far ahead while missing critical current issues.
Learning how to delegate and share the importance of decision-making is key. A willingness to compromise, communication skills, and consistent contacts are also important.
Leadership styles: Transformational leadership
Transformational leadership constantly “changes” and improves organizational practices. Employees may have a set of basic tasks and goals to complete each week or month, but leaders are constantly pushing them out of their comfort zones.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
Transformational leaders can inspire new ways of thinking in their teams. This allows companies to update their business processes to improve productivity and profitability. It helps improve employee satisfaction, morale, and motivation.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
Starting a job with this type of leader may give every employee a list of goals.
When you start working with this type of manager, every employee may be given a list of goals to achieve and deadlines to meet them.
The goal may seem simple at first glance. However, this manager may speed up the pace of deadlines or give you more challenging goals as you grow with the company.
This is a form of leadership strongly recommended by growth-oriented companies. This encourages employees to see what they can do. Potential challenges for leaders with transformative styles:
Transformational leaders risk losing sight of each individual’s unique learning curve. It’s important to ensure that your direct reports receive the right coaching for their new responsibilities. Employee burnout can also be an issue, so it’s important to work with your team to update your benchmarks.
Leadership styles: Transaction Leadership
Today, a transaction with his leader is quite common. These managers reward their employees for a job well done.
For example, the marketing team receives scheduled bonuses when they help generate a certain number of leads each quarter.
This leadership style also assumes that teams need structure and oversight to achieve business goals.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
This style is popular in large companies. It focuses on outcomes, existing structures, and established reward or penalty systems. This leadership style also recognizes and rewards commitment.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
Transaction readers provide clarity and structure. Employees are reassured because they have a clear understanding of their expectations. We also understand what you get in exchange for achieving your business goals.
Potential challenges for transactional style leaders:
This leadership style focuses less on relationships and more on using rewards to motivate. This makes it difficult to keep diverse teams engaged. Exclusive use of this leadership style can lead to decreased creativity and fear of punishment.
Leadership styles: Leadership Coaching
Also Known As Conscious Leadership
Like a sports team coach, this leader focuses on identifying and developing the individual strengths of each team and its members. He also focuses on strategies to help teams work together better. This style is very similar to strategic and democratic leadership. However, we place more emphasis on the growth and success of each employee.
Managers with this leadership style can improve the strengths of their employees by:
- Try new tasks
- Provide guidance
- Discuss constructive feedback
You can also encourage one or more team members to develop their strengths by learning new skills from other team members.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
Coaching leaders actively support skill development and independent problem-solving. Achieve ambitious business goals by building a strong company culture. They are valuable mentors who contribute to the company’s long-term vision long after they leave the company.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
This style recognizes that each employee is unique. They form a diverse and exciting team, with each employee offering something different.
This leader focuses on high performance with employees who can use their excellent communication skills and unique skills to get the job done.
Potential challenges for coaching style executives:
Developing employees with a coaching style can take a long time, and mentoring is ineffective for all employees. This leadership style requires time and patience and is compatible with all corporate cultures. It is not possible to correspond to
Leadership styles: bureaucratic leadership
Bureaucratic leaders follow the rules. This leadership style is different from autocratic leadership, allowing employees to be heard and considered. However, managers tend to dismiss an employee’s contribution if it goes against company policy or previous practices.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
You may come across bureaucratic leaders in large, old, or traditional companies. They may reject new or non-traditional ideas to maintain existing business models and processes. Their resistance may be because the company is successful with its current process. Also, you might be wasting your time and resources if you try something new that doesn’t work.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
This leadership style can be difficult for some, but it also has many benefits. Reduce the risk of favoritism and replace it with core tasks, job stability, and predictability.
This management style is clear and efficient, and may even lead to high levels of creativity in some employees.
Potential challenges for executives with bureaucratic leadership styles:
Employees under this leadership style may not feel as controlled as under autocratic leadership. Sometimes there is no freedom in how much a person can do in their role.
This leadership approach can quickly stall innovation. It may not be suitable for companies with ambitious goals and rapid growth.
Leadership styles: Visionary leadership
Alias: Affiliate Leadership
Visionary leadership looks to the future. This type of leader fosters collaboration, emotional intelligence, and teamwork.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
Visionary leaders create a clear plan that motivated employees can follow and execute. They are also powerful and persuasive communicators. This allows you to motivate your team for effective business growth.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
Teams can achieve more and enjoy their work more when they have the vision to work towards. This type of leader provides vision statements and other tools to engage and motivate the team.
Potential challenges for leaders with a visionary style:
Inspiration can be difficult to structure, so this type of reader can miss important details. You can also skip mundane problems and focus on long-term ideas. Another common challenge is to focus too much on one goal when others are equally valuable to the business.
Leadership styles: Pacing Leadership
Pioneering management sets ambitious standards. They are often perfectionists, and this leader can also expect employees to exceed their goals with limited guidance.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
This type of leader is motivated by working with the team to improve performance. You expect to exceed expectations, and you often achieve ambitious goals through clear, focused effort.
For example, a visionary sales leader sets her cadence for ambitious quarterly sales and beats it.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
Skilled and experienced teams often thrive under this type of leader. Leverage the skills of motivated and capable team members to make goal achievement urgent and exciting.
It is also a pleasure for his team members to see the manager working hard together.
Potential challenges for pacemaker-style readers:
Pacemaker leaders can create a stressful work environment. If the goals are unrealistic, the team can become overwhelmed and demotivated. This combination can discourage engagement and lead to burnout.
Leadership styles: Situational leadership
Situational leaders change their leadership style to suit the situation and the needs of their team. This leadership style is proactive and recognizes that change is the only constant.
Why this leadership style works for companies:
This leadership approach can motivate employees. It helps you be more proactive and anticipate business problems before they arise. It’s also useful for start-ups and businesses that make frequent changes and need flexible staffing and support.
Why this leadership style is right for your team:
This type of leader is a good communicator and always uses feedback from the team to make decisions. They quickly assess and update processes to enable success. We also build strong relationships and help employees understand and feel their value to the company.
Potential challenges for situational style leaders:
Managers require a high degree of expertise in all business processes and functions to make decisions. Also, teams can be confused and stressed when a leader’s approach changes frequently. Remembering long-term goals and meeting immediate needs is important, but not all leaders do this effectively.
