5 Common Leadership Styles & How To Identify Yours
Have you recently been promoted to a leadership role and are wondering what your management style should be? Or maybe you’ve been asked the daunting ‘’what’s your leadership style’’ question during an interview and gave a confusing answer as you tripped over your words? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us ;)
Every leader has a unique way of leading a team, implementing processes and ideas, and handling problems. For instance, I like empowering my team members and pushing them outside their comfort zone as they grow and become more confident in their roles. As they gain new skills, I tend to give them new responsibilities and coach them to help them grow and develop. And this, my friends, is called transformational leadership.
But that’s me. As you progress into your career, you might adopt a totally different approach, which is totally fine. Knowing your leadership style is paramount because it allows you to analyze your strengths and areas of improvement, identify weak spots and work on them to become a better leader.
So, to help you identify your management style and increase your impact as a manager, I’ve shared five of the most common leadership styles below.
Autocratic Leadership Style
The other day, I was walking through the food markets, pushing my son in his pram. It was 10 am, and the markets were bustling with life. As I approached a bakery stand, the crowd became denser, and soon enough, I got stuck with the pram. A woman who must have been in her early forties suddenly decided to clear the way for me. ‘’Move aside please’’, ‘’ask your children to move on the right’’, ‘’keep the dog on your left’’. As we were progressing through the crowd, people complied. There wasn’t a hint of aggression, despise, or arrogance in her tone. Just a firm and effective way to deliver orders.
To me, this lady exemplifies autocratic leadership.
Autocratic leaders are extremely effective at solving problems and believe in the one-man show approach. Therefore, they control everything and take very little input from their team members. Micromanagers often use this management style to lead employees. Team members are expected to accept and follow any direction the leader and organization sets.
While this management style is usually frowned upon, it can be effective and even the only vital option in specific situations. For instance, if a looming deadline is about to be missed and the situation requires an immediate response with no time to discuss, autocratic leadership is the best option. Also, if a risky situation arises, team members will automatically lean on autocratic leaders to make the call and take the risk.
If you like to rule everything with a firm hand, you’ll most likely need to adapt your style to be more inclusive and ensure your employees feel supported and, more importantly, heard. However, your strengths as an autocratic leader can then be used in the specific scenarios I just mentioned.
Democratic Or Participative Leadership
As you might have guessed, a democratic leadership style supposes that each team member is involved in the decision-making process. This type of leadership guarantees high employee engagement. Democratic leaders constantly seek feedback and input from their team and encourage conversations. For instance, they might ask employees to vote about a specific issue or ask silent individuals for their opinion during team meetings to ensure everyone feels included.
Effective democratic leaders are great communicators who can successfully gather opinions and exchange information. And they know the importance of setting deadlines to efficiently collect and process information. They’re also adept at organizing their teams so that they can lean on their strengths for specific projects.
Coach-Style Leadership
Ever played a team sport?
A coach-style leader has a very similar approach to a sports team coach (minus the screaming). They focus on identifying each employee’s strengths and nurturing them. And they also use strategies to encourage synergies and ensure their team works better together.
Unlike in a democratic leadership style, the coach-style leader focuses on each individual’s skill set and strives to develop teams with specific areas of expertise while implementing strategies for each team member to embrace others’ unique expertise and skill set.
For instance, a coach-style leader might regularly offer guidance or encourage one-on-one meetings to help individuals to hone their skills and grow. They can also give specific employees new tasks to help them sharpen and expand their skill set and recommend that they shadow others to learn new skills.
Strategic Leadership
Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?
Yet, this type of leadership isn’t just a fancy concept. It’s a highly sought-after style because strategic leaders excel at creating a sound strategic plan and implementing new growth strategies. In other words, strategic leaders aren’t just about fulfilling today’s expectations and reaching today’s goals. They’re actively committed to defining the future agenda and taking the steps necessary to reach long-term goals. And so naturally, they’ll expect their team to make decisions with the company in mind.
If you want to lead your team effectively as a strategic leader, you need to clearly communicate your vision, demonstrate emotional intelligence, and be trustworthy. But above all, you should know how to allocate resources, delegate tasks effectively, and empower your team to make their own decisions with the company in mind.
Laissez-Faire Leadership Style
I had to brush up on my (very limited) French skills for this one!
Laissez-faire means ‘’let them be’’ in French. And so, just like the name suggests, a laissez-faire leader believes in a hands-off approach where employees are given a lot of room and autonomy to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, and manage their day and workload the way they see fit. Laissez-faire leaders trust their team and therefore tend to give little instructions or guidance, avoid micromanaging and allow individuals to complete their tasks autonomously as long as they don’t negatively impact the company.
Ever watched the office? That’s, to some extent, the kind of leadership Michael Scott uses as he gives a lot of autonomy and space for his employees to work (or not to work, as the case may be)! Because it’s so permissive, this type of leadership style has bad press.
However, it can be very effective if your employees are reliable and committed to their work, as it promotes personal growth and accountability and helps build trust with your team.
Which Leadership Style Should You Adopt?
As much as I love to support and empower women, I can’t tell you what leadership style is right for you. The truth is that there’s no right or wrong leadership style. The right leadership style is the style that suits your personality and your team.
But I can tell you this; the ideal management style is to develop a signature or dominant leadership style that suits your personality while being flexible in your methods to adapt based on the need of the hour. This will increase your leadership impact in the organization, help you foster great relationships with stakeholders, build trust with your team members, and, more importantly, boost your team’s morale and productivity.
