A leadership style is where an individual creates a vision, builds and maintains relationships, and leads others. It is the approach to leadership that an individual adopts to achieve their goals. You can take up leadership responsibilities with the right training, experience, and guidance. A leadership style is a set of behaviors and attitudes that an individual uses to guide the work of others. There are various leadership styles in business, and in this article, we will learn about all these leadership styles.
- Article Summary show
Autocratic leadership style:
In this style, the leader makes decisions for followers, who have little input into the decision-making process. The leader has all the power in this situation, and followers are expected to follow orders without question. This type of leadership is often seen as a more top-down approach to leading others. It is usually associated with military organizations or business executives who control their company’s operations.
Democratic leadership style:
A democratic leadership style promotes input from followers when making decisions, giving them a voice in how things should be done. This type of leadership is often seen as a more bottom-up approach to leading others. It is visible in many types of organizations – small businesses to large corporations – where employees are encouraged to share their opinions.
Transformational Leadership Style:
Transformational leadership is a leadership style that is based on the idea of transforming people and organizations. It is a style that focuses on developing followers to become more effective leaders themselves. The transformational leader inspires trust, confidence, and respect in followers. It gives followers challenging tasks and the resources needed to accomplish them and treats them as individuals with unique strengths, needs, and perspectives.
Participative Leadership Style:
Participative Leadership Style is a leadership style that encourages followers’ involvement in decision-making. It is also known as participative management or participative management style. Many companies and organizations adopt the participative leadership style to achieve different objectives, such as improved employee morale, customer service, and productivity and performance.
Transactional Leadership Style:
The transactional leadership style is a leadership style based on the idea of exchanging rewards for compliance. It is used in hierarchical organizations where the leader’s power comes from their position. There are three types of transactional leaders:
Reward Transactional Leader:
This type of leader will reward people who comply with the goals and objectives set by the organization. The tips can be anything, from monetary to promotions and perks.
Coercive Transactional Leader:
This type of leader will use threats and punishment to get people to comply with the goals and objectives set by the organization.
Laissez-Faire Transactional Leader:
This type of leader will not offer any incentives or punishments to get people to comply with the goals and objectives set by the organization.
Servant Leadership Style:
Servant leadership is a style of leadership that emphasizes the importance of selfless service to the followers. It is based on the idea that leaders must serve those they lead. The core concepts are based on five levels of awareness: Awareness of oneself, awareness of others, serving others with respect, understanding others’ needs better than they do themselves, and finally, taking action to help them fulfill their needs.
These are all the leadership styles that exist in businesses. It is not easy to choose the best leadership style, as it depends on the qualities you possess as a leader and the company you are running. So, before choosing one of the above leadership styles, it is better to examine yourself. Opting for a comprehensive leadership training program will help you explore and understand your leadership type.
