What is Leadership Style in Management?
What is a Leadership Style?
A leader’s leadership style applies to how they give orders, executes strategies, and motivate others. Several scholars have suggested that leaders in politics, industry and other fields demonstrate a variety of leadership types.
Research on leadership style is undertaken in the military, expressing an ideology that emphasises a systemic understanding of leadership and how a leader’s outward appearance influences how people experience them. Military bearing, physical health, trust, and endurance are all aspects of physical appearance in this sense.
The analytical potential of the leader assists in the conceptualisation of ideas and the development of required skills for the job. Agility, judgement, ingenuity, behavioural tact, and domain experience are examples of a leader’s conceptual skills. Tactical and technological expertise and cultural and strategic understanding are all part of domain knowledge.
Types of Leadership Style in Management
Throughout history, great leaders have evolved with distinct leadership models for offering guidance, executing strategies, and inspiring people. It can be classified into 8 categories:
- Autocratic Leadership
- Strategic Leadership
- Transformational Leadership
- Democratic Leadership
- Laissez-Faire Leadership
- Transactional Leadership
- Bureaucratic Leadership
- Coach-Style Leadership
Autocratic Leadership
Democratic leadership ensures that the chief takes decisions based on the input of all members of the team. Each employee has a fair say in a project, even though they make the final decision.
Democratic leadership is one of the most powerful forms of leadership because it encourages lower-level workers to wield the power they will require in future jobs. It’s pretty similar to how decisions are taken in corporate boardrooms.
Strategic Leadership
Strategic leaders sit at the crossroads between a company’s core activities and its potential for expansion. They embrace the responsibility of executive interests while ensuring that everyone else’s working conditions remain secure.
Strategic thought embraces many groups of workers simultaneously, making this a desirable leadership approach in many businesses. Leaders who behave in this manner, on the other hand, can set a risky example in terms of how many people they will serve at once and what the best course of action for the business is if everyone gets their way all of the time.
Transformational Leadership
The organisation’s conventions are constantly being “transformed” and improved by transformational leadership. Employees may have a simple set of assignments and goals to achieve each week or month, but the boss continually moves them outside their comfort zones.
When beginning a job under this sort of boss, all workers will be given a list of objectives to meet and deadlines to meet them. Although the goals will seem easy at first, as you advance through the business, this boss will accelerate the speed of deadlines or allocate you more complicated targets.
Democratic Leadership
Democratic leadership is a form of leadership that is participatory and inclusive. Democratic leaders do not dictate what should happen but instead ask for input and ideas from those who will be affected by the decisions. One of the main features of democratic leadership is that it is often more effective than authoritative leadership because those being led feel as though their opinions and voices were heard. They have helped to make the decision.
Democratic leadership ensures that the chief takes decisions based on the input of all members of the team. Each employee has a fair say in a project, even though they make the final decision.
Democratic leadership is one of the most powerful forms of leadership because it encourages lower-level workers to wield the power they will require in future jobs. It’s pretty similar to how decisions are taken in corporate boardrooms.
Laissez-Faire Leadership
The term “Laissez-Faire” leadership is often used to describe a style of management where the employees are given freedom and autonomy. This is in contrast to a more directive style of management where the manager takes more control over the work process. Laissez-faire leadership works best when employees are self-directed, committed, competent and enthusiastic.
If you recall your high school French, you’ll know that laissez-faire leadership is the most miniature invasive leadership style. Leaders who follow the French word “laissez-faire” mean “let them do,” and they delegate virtually all power to their workers.
You may see a laissez-faire business founder in a new startup, for example, that makes no big office rules about operating hours or deadlines. They can place complete confidence in their employees while concentrating on the day-to-day operations of the business.
Transactional Leadership
In today’s world, transactional leaders are fairly popular. These bosses award their workers salaries depending on the job they perform. A typical example of transactional leadership is a marketing staff that earns a quarterly incentive for assisting in the generation of a certain amount of leads by the end of the year.
When you first start working for a transactional manager, you might be given a reward package to encourage you to learn your daily job responsibilities easily. For example, if you work in marketing, you could get a bonus for sending 10 marketing emails. On the other hand, a transformational boss could only give you a bonus if your job results in a significant number of newsletter subscriptions.
Bureaucratic Leadership
Members of the bureaucracy follow the rules. Unlike autocratic leadership, this type of leadership can listen to and accept employee feedback. Still, the leader is more likely to ignore employee input if it contradicts company policies or past practices.
Employees do not feel as dominated as they may under autocratic administration, but there is always a limit on how many employees will do with their employment. This can easily stifle creativity, which is not good for businesses aiming for big ambitions and fast expansion.
Coach-Style Leadership
Like the coach of a sports team, this chief is concerned with understanding and cultivating the individual talents of each member of their team. They also concentrate on tactics to help their staff work together more effectively. This leadership model is similar to strategic and democratic leadership, but it emphasises primarily individual employee development and performance.
Rather than requiring all staff to rely on the same abilities and priorities, this leader might form a team where each individual has a particular experience or ability set. In the long term, this chief is concerned with developing solid teams that can collaborate successfully and respect each other’s unique abilities.
