Leadership styles will vary from person to person, and even if you share the same style as someone else you still may work slightly differently in certain areas. Despite this, knowing what your leadership style is can be useful to help you take advantage of all the benefits you can provide your team, plus it is very possible to adopt new leadership styles if you feel yours isn’t as effective for a certain area of work.
Karrie Fleming discusses ”What kind of leader are you?” on a TedTalk which is a great first step into exploring your leadership, your values, and emotional intelligence. Moving forward, in this article we have gathered 6 leadership styles and their benefits.
1) Authoritative
Authoritative leaders tend to be the more confident type and are great at leading teams who have a tendency to be a little unsure. These types of leaders are also called “visionary” as they have a “very follow” me attitude. A common strategy is for them to map out the way and they tend to be very thorough with their explanations, creating well informed teams with a clear objective. This style helps teams almost completely avoid the struggle of uncertainty not only with the task itself but also to why, since these types of leaders often take the time to explain their thinking process, it tends to be clear to employees why everything is being done or why it was chosen to be done a certain way which is proven to increase motivation amongst teams.
2) Pacesetting
The more driven leaders tend to lean towards a pacesetting style of leadership, they set the goals and expectations high from the start. This style is incredibly effective for experienced teams working on short term projects, this is because even the best employees can get stressed if there is constant pressure on them long term. Pacesetting drives employees to go above and beyond their ability and if done correctly this can be a very rewarding thing for everyone. As long as the leader is aware of the pressure they set on their employees with such a style and know how to encourage through barriers, all should work well. Although this type of style would not be recommended when working with unconfident or newer workers.
3) Democratic
Leaders that like to focus more on discussion and idea-sharing tend to be the more democratic type leaders. They have a common tendency to ask for opinions and feedback on every project, their goal is to encourage their employees to give their input and ultimately agree with their leader with the feeling that they too genuinely believe in this idea and want it to happen without obligation. This leadership style is great for creative teams who have many ideas to contribute and are willing to further develop them.
4) Coaching
People with a coaching leadership style have the emotional intelligence to see the potential in their employees and tend to nurture individuals strengths for the best results possible. Alongside this, they will focus on identifying areas where some may struggle and will attempt to find the best strategy as a team to combat this. This leadership style puts a huge emphasis on organisational and personal growth which creates very strong teams which work well together long term. Short term projects might be a weak spot as they like to take the time to allow improvements and discover all possible skillsets or weaknesses although with the amount of guidance they are willing to provide this is easily compatible for them.
5) Affiliative
Affiliative leaders are some of the most personal leaders you will meet as they take the approach of focusing solely on a person’s emotional needs. These types of leaders are excellent at creating good work relationships with their employees as well as encouraging them to do the same amongst themselves. Forming collaborative teams are their strong point and getting people to work together and work together well allows them to create very happy and healthy workplace cultures within their business. With such an understanding of someone’s emotional needs, these leaders pair well with shy, unconfident employees or anyone with extra troubles that can make anything at work difficult.
6) Laissez-faire
The French term “laissez-faire” directly translates to “let them do” which is what this leadership style is all about. Often described as laid back, these types of leaders put a large amount of trust into their employees by giving them plenty of room and freedom of thinking to do their job at their own pace, their own way. This style works perfectly with experienced employees who don’t need such a hands-on leader such as a coaching style leader, this type of leadership should always be paired with employees who are confident in their own ability to do their job well and have the motivation to continue to do so. It is possible that this strategy can have many downfalls such as limiting company growth by missing the small things, but this is easily avoidable if the leader takes the time to routinely review and give feedback as well as call regular team meetings.
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