Picture three or four of the best leaders you know.
Are they all the same? Do they all take the same tactics and approaches? Have the personality and charisma to inspire thousands to follow them?
No, not at all.
There’s great variety among great leaders, both in society as a whole and in a business context. That’s because there is no one way to lead or one successful leadership style. There are numerous leadership styles and techniques of varying efficacy. Finding the one (or ones) that work for you is a crucial step in your development as a leader.
What Are Leadership Styles?
A leadership style is a set of philosophies and methods that a person uses to manage, guide, and motivate others. It can include an individual’s personality traits, their set of management tools, and their methods and tactics. It can also include how a leader approaches big-picture strategies, like company objectives, as well as how attentive the leader is to those things.
A leader’s personality typically dictates which leadership style the person naturally gravitates toward. Leadership styles are similar to personality types, but with additional hard and soft skills and philosophical decisions mixed in.
Most Effective Leadership Styles
There are many styles of leadership common in the world today. Many different leadership styles can be effective in various situations and scenarios. Below is a list of some of the most effective leadership styles. Choosing the right one (or ones) can make a massive difference in employee motivation & engagement, not to mention results.
Democratic Leadership
A democratic leader solicits feedback and advice from all team members, allowing equal input from everyone on decision-making and initiatives.
Democratic leadership doesn’t mean majority rule, exactly: the leader still makes — and is accountable for — the final decision. But a democratic leader creates a workplace culture where all employees feel welcome to share their ideas.
This can be a highly effective leadership style. A great idea could come from anyone, so creating an atmosphere where your staff feel they can share with and be respected by you will deepen and diversify your pool of available ideas. You can also begin to nurture and coach prospective future leaders by providing constructive feedback to their suggestions.
Laissez-Faire Leadership
The most laid-back leadership style, laissez-faire leadership is as unintrusive as possible, giving employees as much autonomy as is practical.
Done well and in the right contexts, this leadership style can be effective. It can empower strong employees to work independently and find their own best outcomes. However, there are downsides to this approach, too.
When a leader is too hands-off, communication can suffer. New or unconfident employees may feel like they don’t know what to do, and like you aren’t willing to tell them. Employees looking to progress through the ranks may also feel left out, as they don’t get the valuable feedback they need to improve.
This leadership style works best on small, talented, highly motivated teams, like what you often see at startups. The larger and more complex the organization grows, the worse this approach tends to work.
Strategic Leadership
Strategic leadership focuses less on the day-to-day decision-making and more on the long-term health of the company. Strategic leaders consider simultaneously the company’s growth, ongoing executive initiatives, and the wellbeing of the individual employees they lead.
Employee morale and job satisfaction are important to a strategic leader because they directly contribute to the company’s success. You can’t grow well if everyone’s unhappy.
Companies tend to like having some strategic leaders in the mix because of their strong analytical skills and their ability to see and balance a wide range of needs. But strategic leaders should watch out for the trap of trying to please every single person at all times.
Transformational Leadership
A transformational leader is a visionary, someone who’s always focusing on the big initiatives as well as what they perceive to be missing from the company. There’s always an effort to transform the company from where it is to where it needs to be.
With their teams, transformational leaders push individuals to be better. This can be a good thing, but it’s possible for it to get out of hand and become exhausting for team members.
Transformational leadership is important during phases of growth, but it must be managed carefully. If employees get frustrated and claim you’re moving the goalposts on them, it’s probably because you are. Work to find the balance between appropriate pushing and “nothing’s ever good enough.”
Transactional Leadership
Transactional leaders are everywhere today, treating work as a series of transactions and little more. In this leadership model, leaders frame all decisions and rewards or incentives in terms of work objectives and concrete results.
Simply put, deliver x leads or widgets or new sign-ups, get y incentive.
Transactional leadership can be effective if you need to hit certain targets and you want to incentivize your way to those marks. But it can also encourage plateauing or even bare-minimum approaches from unmotivated employees. Why deliver x + 10 if I get my incentive at x?
This style also struggles to develop relationships, since everything is about performance and the individual doesn’t seem to matter much.
Delegative Leadership
Delegative leadership is akin to laissez-faire leadership, but with a clearer sense of delegated responsibilities. In this approach, the leader cedes decision-making power to others by way of delegation. Therefore, it’s not totally hands-off, but recognizes that certain individuals are better suited to make certain decisions.
If you’re a leader in charge of a team that does work you can’t do or don’t understand, this can be an effective strategy, especially for technical tasks or objectives that you can’t achieve yourself.
The main challenge here is knowing which tasks to delegate and which ones to keep.
Coaching Leadership
Coaches develop each member of their team in whatever way the individual needs. They also work to put together teams that are cohesive, with no large gaps in talent or skill.
That’s exactly what this leadership style does in a business context. Where other leaders might push all team members to meet identical objectives (deliver x widgets), the coach takes a more customized and individual approach — all while building a team that functions well together.
Charismatic Leadership
Charismatic leaders use their charm, wit, persuasion, and demonstrated ability in their field to compel others to do more, better. These are the leaders that people just want to follow, even if they can’t tell you why.
This leadership style can be effective on its own if you’re a natural, but it’s best when paired with another complementary leadership style. People may be drawn to personality and gravitas, but they don’t always follow it in the long term if there isn’t substance and ability behind the personality.
It’s also not a style you can easily fake, so few should specifically try to lead in this way.
How to Find Your Personal Leadership Style
Certainly, some of the styles listed above are more broadly effective than others. But ultimately, the most effective leadership style is the one that works for your team, your task, and yourself.
Consider first your team. What mix of personalities are you leading? What needs do they have? Some groups respond well to strong, charismatic leadership, while others do better with high levels of collaboration.
Also consider your corporate culture. Choosing a leadership style that’s far removed from the norm at your organization could lead to impressive results—but it could also lead to higher-ups questioning your decision-making.
Next, consider the task at hand. Often, your end goals will inform which leadership style or styles will garner the best results.
And lastly, consider yourself. Some leadership styles just won’t be a good fit for your skills and personality. If you’re more of a behind-the-scenes delegator, trying to shoehorn yourself into a charismatic leadership style is a recipe for failure. The opposite is true, as well.
Learn the Hard and Soft Skills Necessary for Leadership at Wilmington College Cincinnati
Getting a quick overview in the most popular leadership styles is a great place to start, but truly effective leadership requires more. You’ll need a complex mix of both hard and soft skills like emotional intelligence, in addition to a firm grasp on leadership theory.
A Business Administration – Management degree from
Wilmington College Cincinnati is the perfect way to add these elements to your current skill set, helping you become the best leader you can be. If you are interested in learning more about the Business Administration - Management degree offered at Wilmington College Cincinnati,
request information today!
