What is your leadership style?

Have you ever wondered what style of leadership you naturally adopt within your position?

Some maybe wondering, what exactly is meant by ‘style’ ? A leadership style is a range of techniques, traits and skills you can adopt within an role/organisation or team to encourage motivation, standard of work, punctuality, goal/target setting, teamwork, efficiency and so on… Firstly, I think that I should briefly explain the different styles, if you scour the internet you will find lots of different leadership styles, however there are 4 main styles which are;

Democratic style

Considered to be one of the most effective styles, a leader that demonstrates a democratic style of leadership often will share the decision making and problem solving with employees, but having the overall say. This makes the employee feel as though their opinion and thoughts are valued and encourages group involvement and team building.

Autocratic style

You will find that the leader will not involve the employees in any decision making at all and will not invite them for thoughts or ideas, having the opposite effect on the democratic style of leadership.

Bureaucratic

This is an efficient style to use within large companies that do not require a lot of creativity or innovation, this is because there are clear lines of authority such as authority and responsibility. As duties are supervised under hierarchy, such as having different departments for marketing, accounts, production etc.

Laissez-faire

This style is known as the ‘hands-off’ style of leadership, the leader will welcome group members to make the decisions allowing freedom to make their own decisions, the leader will provide the resources and knowledge needed bit provide little guidance to employees. The leader will still acknowledge and take on the responsibility for the employee’s decision making and actions.

Tip: Research further into the different styles of leadership to understand them in more depth, noticing which style you should adopt within your organisation. Once you understand them you will be able to notice areas of improvement for yourself or others and notify what training needs should be met.

Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_style#Democratic

This is very brief overview of the four main styles of leadership, it is important to understand these styles, there are preferred ways of leadership, but your style should benefit your company or team, so adapting the right behaviours and skills is important to the efficiency of the team. There are many questionnaires and ‘tests’ you can take online to find your leadership style you are unconsciously practicing currently, however there are many modules and extensive training you can undergo to have a better understanding of this and how to develop yourself and others. See our previous blog post on: How to increase employee motivation.

Check out some of our upcoming courses in Leadership and Management and Team Leading.