Leadership Style
What Are The Types Of Leadership Styles? – Mashum Mollah
Organizations and businesses incorporate different types of leadership styles to run their operations. Most of their success, structure, hierarchy, day-to-day work, and behavioral approach is associated with leadership styles.
There are some shocking statistics confirming why a leadership style and the development of expert leaders is important for different businesses. According to data, 79% of employees quit the workspace due to a lack of appreciation. Only 48% of employees view their leaders as having high-quality leadership skills. Also, 69% of the employees feel a better intention to work harder when their work gets recognized.
So, it is evident why and how much leadership skills are important for team leads from different levels of an organization’s hierarchy. There are different types of leadership skills an organization can follow. Here is a brief overview of them.
What Is Leadership Style?
First things first. Before we get into the different types of leadership skills, here is a little about leadership style in general.
Leadership styles are the approach a leader/organization takes to influence, motivate, and direct their followers. This approach determines how someone implements plans and strategies and executes the organization’s objectives with the help of their team while also keeping the well-being of their teammates in check.
The main objective of an effective leadership style is to help accomplish a goal that was set while also earning the trust and support of the followers in the process.
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Different Types Of Leadership Styles
There are different leadership styles followed by different businesses, organizations, and political leaders throughout the centuries. Here are some of the most common types of leadership styles that you need to know about.
1. Democratic Leadership
Democratic leadership style is one of the most common types of leadership styles where the organization/team head encourages and incorporates the inputs given by their team members. But the leader, after all, has the final say in terms of making a decision. But the team members hold certain rights and comfort to share their opinion and contribute to the goal they are heading towards.
It is one of the most common and effective ways of leading an organization. Democratic leadership offers the team members a feeling of being important and heard. Sometimes, a democratic leadership can incorporate a voting process to come to a decision about anything.
- Team members under this leadership style are encouraged to be creative.
- Team members show a better intention for engagement with the activities taking place in the organization.
- Teams show an increased level of productivity.
- Workers have high job satisfaction working under such leadership styles.
However, building a consensus with a democratic leadership style might be time-consuming, hence difficult during any dire situation.
2. Autocratic Leadership Style
Autocratic leadership is completely opposite to what democratic leadership stands for. In this type of leadership style, the leaders can dictate over the team and make all the decisions on behalf of their teams, irrespective of their followers’ opinions. They can exercise absolute power over their teams and don’t have any obligation to consult with their teammates before finalizing any decision. Also, the teammates have some levels of fear towards their leaders.
- Followers working under an autocratic leader often have to work for increased working hours.
- High employee turnover and absenteeism are the effects of this type of leadership style.
- It is an effective leadership style for more knowledgeable and experienced leaders.
- This is among the best types of leadership styles in terms of making fast and swift decision making.
3. Laissez-Faire Leadership
Laissez-faire or “let them be” type of leadership style is a carefree leadership style where the leaders take a passive or hands-off approach to handle their employees. Instead of always keeping a watchful eye over their employees, employers offer the followers with necessary resources, tools, and information and expect them to carry out the task.
- Laissez-faire leaders can empower creative and self-motivated employees.
- The level of trust and independence in a team managed by laissez-faire leaders can be enthusiastic and uplifting for the employees.
However, different researches show that it is the least effective and least satisfying leadership style.
4. Transformational Leadership Style
Transformational leadership style is one of the most exercised types of leadership styles across different business platforms. Leaders leading their teams through this type of leadership style inspire their teammates to increase their bar and their potential.
They keep encouraging their followers to achieve what they never thought was possible. The goal is for the employees and the teammates to push until the organization or the business faces tremendous success.
- This type of leadership skill involves building strong emotional intelligence, integrity, and empathy and having a shared vision of the future.
- Organizations following this leadership styles often have high growth and productivity, and innovation rates.
- It’s all about increasing the bar of the employees and transforming a business through the process.
However, the deadline and the difficulty of work get harder under the transformational leadership style.
5. Transactional Leadership Style
The transactional leadership style works like more of a short term leadership. In this type of leadership model, a leader follows a ‘give and take’ model. The process involves transactions about payment for the services that are rendered. Employees get a reward for the tasks they complete. However, if they outperform the given task, they receive a bonus as promised.
- Employees under a transactional leader take responsibility and are encouraged to finish their tasks on time.
- Incentive programs inspire employees to work harder.
- This type of leadership style eliminates any confusion between the leader and the subordinates.
- However, direct expectations set through transactional leadership may curb creativity in the long term.
6. Bureaucratic Leadership Style
Bureaucratic leadership involves rules, structures, and regulations that the subordinates must follow. This leadership style leaves no space for flexibility. This leadership style is common in large century-old organizations; hence it creates such an environment to rule out any possibilities for new ideas and strategies.
Although this leadership style is pretty rigid, it has more freedom and less control from the leaders compared to the autocratic leadership style.
Bottom Line
Aside from the different leadership styles mentioned in this article, there are many other leadership styles that different organizations follow. For instance, servant leadership style, coaching leadership style, charismatic leadership style, strategic leadership style, and more.
As a leader or the manager of an organization, a leader must choose an effective leadership style that helps them properly regulate the operations and the behavioral approach within the business. I hope that this article was helpful. Comment below to let us know about any queries you might have about the same.
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