Common Leadership Styles and How to Improve Yours

A leadership style is a way a person approaches giving direction, implementing goals, and inspiring and motivating individuals to take action towards those goals. Styles of leadership can vary between individuals and are largely based on each person’s unique personality, behaviors, preferences, and character. How someone leads greatly impacts their overall success as a leader as well as the success of those they are overseeing.

Leadership styles were first introduced by psychologist Kurt Lewin in 1939. Since then, these styles have been used to identify the leadership types of those in authoritative positions and help leaders recognize and hone their unique styles of leadership.

There are several advantages of knowing and understanding your leadership style, including that it:

• Gives you a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses in a leadership position.
• Allows you to strategically use your strengths in your leadership role.
• Provides you with a better comprehension of your perspective and values in the workplace.
• Enables you to more effectively communicate with your team.
• Offers you insight into the best work environment for your unique leadership style so you can better choose your place of employment.
• Allows you to more efficiently handle challenges by offering solutions that best correlate with your unique leadership style.

The following are the most common leadership types seen in the workplace:

Autocratic

This type of leadership style is when the person in charge makes decisions with little to no consultation with others. For example, a leader may decide that their team will work on projects from 2 to 5 p.m. each day despite whether team members have other obligations during this timeframe. This type of leadership is ideal during times of crisis or when there is little time for consulting others when a decision needs to be made.

Servant

A servant-style leader is one who puts the needs and satisfaction of their team members first. This type of leadership is excellent in situations when team morale is low or in nonprofit settings where individuals are an essential component of the organization’s mission.

Pacesetter

A pacesetter leadership style is when the leader is mostly focused on results and encourages their team to work quickly to get fast results. They may set the standard high for their employees and expect their team members to accomplish goals along a set timeline. This leadership type works well in fast-paced work settings where employees need constant motivation and energy to get the job done.

Democratic

A democratic-style leader is one who considers the feedback of team members when making decisions. This type of leadership allows employees to feel heard and to regularly contribute to their projects at work.

Transactional

A leader with a transactional leadership style rewards their team members based on the work they accomplish. For example, members of a sales team may be awarded a bonus for bringing in a set number of sales, but a team member won’t receive a bonus if this number isn’t reached. This leadership style is especially effective in work settings that require ample motivation and use incentives to encourage employees to achieve their work goals.

Transformational

A transformational leader is an individual who is focused on the big picture and making lasting transformations within the organization. They are often concerned with long-term goals and work with their team to motivate them to achieve these goals. Transformational leaders are authentic, humble, and motivational and inspire others to do their best.

Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire is French for ‘hands-off,’ and that’s exactly what this type of leader is like with their team. Laissez-fair leaders delegate tasks to employees and offer little or no supervision in the completion of these tasks. This type of leadership is ideal in situations when the team is very experienced and requires little guidance when completing tasks and accomplishing goals.

Coach

A coach-style leader is one who works to identify their employees’ strengths and weaknesses and uses this information to help each team member improve in their work. Coach leaders offer feedback at regular intervals and develop a motivating and positive workplace. For example, a coach-style leader may create separate teams of employees with similar strengths and give each team a goal to work on that best caters to these strengths.

Bureaucratic

Bureaucratic leaders are those who follow company policies and guidelines closely and rarely work outside of these procedures and rules. They emphasize the need to work on fixed duties and provide each employee with a specific set of responsibilities that they will be responsible for on a regular basis. This type of leadership allows for little creativity and, while bureaucratic leaders may allow employees to make suggestions and voice their concerns, the leader puts the company policies and procedures first.

There are several things you can to do to improve upon your unique leadership style, including:

• Identify your leadership type. Before you can improve your leadership style, you first need to know what it is. There are several online assessments that offer insight into your unique leadership type that can help you better understand your management and leadership skills.
• Assess your strengths and weaknesses. Your unique strengths and weaknesses will play a major role in how you lead. Take time to identify these and focus on your strengths when leading while also taking time to improve upon your weaknesses.
• Establish goals for your leadership development. Just as you’d set goals for your team, you should also establish goals for yourself when it comes to improving as a leader. For example, if you want to improve your ability to delegate tasks, make it a point to spend more time when doing so and get feedback from your team as to how your delegation has impacted their work.
• Work with a mentor. Working with a mentor is a great way to gain valuable insight and learn by example.