November 3rd is the 2015 Election Day and, though we are a year away from electing our next president, there are many municipal, gubernatorial, and state elections to participate in on Tuesday. While we all get ready to cast our respective ballots for our future fearless leaders, we thought it would be a great time to consider leadership in the workplace. We’ve put together a list of the major forms of leadership, as well as issues to help you think about electing the style that works best for you and your company.
Choosing the right leaders and leadership style is important in order to help combat a number of workplace pain points, the most crucial being employee engagement. One of the major causes of a lack of engagement is poor leadership. According to a Dale Carnegie study, 80% of employees who identified as disengaged were dissatisfied with their direct manager. Further, 70% of employees who lack confidence in the abilities of senior leadership are not fully engaged. We’ve also already outlined how poor management styles can lead to losing key employees. However, stellar leaders who engage with employees and encourage them to grow, can help tackle employee engagement challenges.
Not sure what leadership style you have or could embody? We’ve outlined the top types, as well as the situations where they often flourish or flounder:
Five Styles of Leadership
1. Autocratic
Autocratic leaders have a high-level of control over all aspects of the company and make decisions entirely by themselves. Coming from Greek roots, the word means ‘self-power’ and in this case the leader is the only source of power and possesses total authority.
Autocratic leadership works well for:
- Employees who require close and constant supervision
- Smaller companies with few employees
- Situations when quick decisions are needed
But, doesn’t always work well for:
- Creative types
- Growing employees’ skills or responsibilities
- Companies with a large number of employees
- Highly-experienced and competent employees
Situational Aspect: If you are a small startup, and looking to make quick decisive decisions, then an autocratic style may work best for you as it privileges a take charge leadership. Alternatively, if you have a handful of inexperienced employees, they may need your constant guidance and approval to succeed. However, if you have a larger company, it is really difficult to have your hands in so many pies and remain successful. Alternatively, if you’ve hired a number of experts in the field, ruling as an autocrat quickly becomes micromanaging and you run the risk of scaring away top talent.
2. Laissez-Faire
With French origins, laissez-faire means ‘allow to do’ and, generally, just as the phrase suggests, managers allow employees to do what they want. In this style of leadership, managers have low-levels of control and employees are given freedom to make decisions. The major role of the leader is to provide resources and tools for their employees to succeed.
Laissez-faire leadership works well for:
- Highly-experienced and trained employees who require little supervision
- Remote employees
- Employees who are already passionate and motivated
But, doesn’t always work well for:
- Growing employees
- Employees who require direction
- Employees who lack knowledge or experience
Situational Aspect: Because laissez-faire is so hands-off, it is best utilized by teams that consist of highly-experienced and talented employees who can self-motivate. If your employees need direction, either because they are new or the company is new, this laid back management style will not be the most effective. Further, leaders can be seen as uninvolved or withdrawn in these situations, so if you need an authority figure to steer the ship, avoid this style of leadership.
3. Participative (or Democratic)
The idea of a democracy goes back to our Ancient Greek comrades, and generally involves the idea of ‘people ruler,’ from its root words. In a participative or democratic leadership style, the leader values the input of team members, but final decision falls with leader.
Democratic leadership works well for:
- Making employees’ opinions feel valued
- Getting a number of ideas on the table
- Utilizing your employees’ expertise
But, doesn’t always work well for:
- Quick decisions
- Innovative thinking
- Data-driven decisions
Situational Aspect: Certainly a popular choice, the democratic leadership approach makes employees feel like they are part of the project and have a real voice in the company, which can motivate and inspire employees. However, if your workforce isn’t diverse, you might not actually get that much innovation. Or, as our own Matt Epstein argues, democratic decision making sometimes allows popular ideas to go through that aren’t actually supported by data, and therefore have the possibility to fail.
4. Servant
As the name implies, servant leaders are primarily servants to their employees, and then leaders. This means that the primary focus of the servant leader is on their team members’ growth and well-being. Servant leaders share their power by empowering employees and putting their needs first. Included in servant leadership is a focus on ‘leading by example’: if you want employees to practice a good work-life balance, for instance, you do just that.
Servant leadership works well for:
- Empowering employees
- Helping employees grow
- Creating solid teams and future leaders
But, doesn’t always work well for:
- Situations when an authority figure is needed
- Times when bigger picture thinking that steps back from employee needs is needed
- Business structures that require leadership to maintain a customer-centric focus
Situational Aspect: When you need your employees to grow leaps and bounds, servant leadership is best. For example, if you have a young but smart workforce, leading them from behind can be key to seeing them become the best in the business. Alternatively, you may not have the time and resources to focus so heavily on employees, especially if you have a bigger company-wide vision that needs to be realized. Being overly invested in employee growth can sometimes mean you miss out on other interests like your customers’ growth, or your bottom line.
5. Transformational or Charismatic
Leaders that are inspirational, energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate are known as transformational leaders. The name comes from the idea that these leaders transform their employees by inspiring and motivating them. Transformational leaders often take a bigger picture approach, developing a vision for the company and selling that vision to employees.
Transformational leadership works well for:
- Employees who need motivation
- Getting a big picture and getting everyone on board
- Inspiring and changing people
But, doesn’t always work well for:
- An organization that doesn’t need transforming
- An organization that needs to focus on the details, rather than the big picture
- Employees overwhelmed with relentless enthusiasm
Situational Aspect: If you have low employee morale, or want to get employees to buy in to your company culture, putting a charismatic leader in power can do the trick. However, charisma can wear off, especially if it never ends or never evolves. Plus, if all of your company’s vision is tied to one person, and that person leaves, so does the vision and the inspiration.
Choosing the Style That’s Best for You
So, now that you’ve got a better handle on the major styles of leadership, including when and where they work best, how do you figure out which one you should adopt? Begin by asking yourself the following two questions:
- What are my strengths and weaknesses?
- What does my company need the most?
Being a good leader can mean a variety of things depending on your own strengths. For instance, if you are naturally better at leading from behind, it might be difficult for you to pretend to be autocratic. Such a move might come off as disingenuous and backfire. Rather, it is important to evaluate what you do best and use that as your leadership starting point. It can also be good to get out of your comfort zone and incorporate aspects of other styles so that you are as effective as possible and continue to grow as a leader.
If your company needs to work on motivation, improve innovation, or transform your organization, these needs can help determine what kind of leadership style you should adopt, or that you should hire for. Further, you can determine needs on a departmental basis because what works for one team might not for another. Determine your needs and use that to motivate your leadership style, rather than the other way around. You don’t want to be leading from behind when your company needs to be transformed.
Final Considerations
If you have an international workforce, keep in mind cultural differences in leadership. For example, in some cultures, leadership styles may follow a clear hierarchy, where decision-making power is designated to certain positions. Other leadership styles might be more collaborative, allowing all team members a voice in decision-making.
Also, while it is a good idea to reflect on your own leadership style, as well as the style of your company’s managers, it is equally important to look ahead. Developing future leaders for your company is of increasing importance as Baby Boomers retire and millennials take their place. Begin to think about the type of leaders your company will need, and start to groom for them now.
Finally, it is important to consider when changes might be necessary to your leadership style. Perhaps, when your startup only had six employees, the autocratic style worked. However, now that you’ve grown to 600, you might need to move away from micromanaging and toward a different leadership style. Electing a new leadership approach might be just what you need to garner a vote of confidence from your employees and boost efficiency in your workforce this campaign season, as well as those to come.
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