1. 5 Different Leadership Styles to Implement
The driving force of any organization is the leadership. Leadership and management have many
definitions. Here I would like to refer the term leadership to management and leader to manager.
The reason being, I personally feel that all managers are leaders as they help their team identify
their goals, lead change and ultimately bring transformation in their organization. A good leader
encourages his team to be creative and allows out-of-the-box thinking to find solutions to
problems. He lays great stress on values, beliefs and ethics.
You should be aware that there are various styles of leadership. For an organization to be
successful, it is necessary to implement multiple leadership styles ranging from situational to
transformational to cross-cultural leadership.
Situational Leadership
Consider the scenario where the manager delegates a piece of work to one of his team members
who is ill-prepared for it. This will leave an impression that the worker is incompetent and this
can even de-motivate the employee. Here, the fault lies with the manager than the employee. If
you are an effective leader/manager, you would have realized the inability of the employee and
delegated it to someone who is more proficient in it.
A situational leader is a person who would understand the current work related issues and take
the best possible measures to solve the problem. In this form of leadership style, a manager
should show the ability to switch between strategies and select an appropriate style that suits the
given current situation.
Transformational Leadership
One of the right kinds of leadership style that every business should implement is the
transformational leadership. Whether you are the owner of the business or a manager of a team,
you should be able set attainable goals and nurture your team by fostering positive behaviors and
thereby sharing the vision of the organization. Leaders with this style of leadership recognize
that the employees are the strength of the organization and thus encourage innovative and
creative thinking among them. A transformational leader shares their vision with the employees,
thereby motivating them to leverage the business growth.
© 2011 Apptivo Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Transactional Leadership
Transactional leadership style inclines towards the management than the employees. This type of
leadership is based on rewards and punishments. Here the employees are rewarded for their good
work and punished for discrepancies. Transactional leaders are bend towards the policies and
procedure to get the work done and they are autocratic in decision making. For a business to
succeed, the manager should possess a right combination of transactional and transformational
leadership style.
Servant Leadership
This style opposes the autocratic and transactional leadership styles. In servant leadership style,
the manager or the owner of the organization keeps in mind the growth of his employees. His
emphasis would be on empathy, collaboration and ethics. He would encourage teamwork and
charts ways to achieve long-term goals. Servant leadership is similar to transformational
leadership.
Cross-Cultural Leadership
Today, people from different cultures and value systems are hired by the business organizations
across the globe. Western leadership style is more of a participative style where the manager
involves his team members to a certain degree in decision making process. However, in Asia the
leadership style is a combination of autocratic and transactional leaderships. An effective leader
who deals with another culture should understand their work related social and cultural values to
achieve business success. He should also have the ability to organize and lead a workforce of
diverse cultures.
The current world scenario is seeing a paradigm shift in leadership styles and one such style is
empowering leadership. In empowering/super leadership the leader aims at creating effective
self-leaders who will eventually be capable of leading their team. The combination of various
strategic leadership styles is the secret behind the success stories of various small/medium
businesses.
-Maya Pillai is passionate about helping small businesses and professionals. She is a blogger for
Apptivo's Small Business University .
© 2011 Apptivo Inc. All rights reserved.