Today, we want to take the styles explored by Daniel Goldman in his article “Leadership That Gets Results” and further expand on some of the key aspects of each style, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages and how it can work for your particular organization.

1. 6 Of The Most Common Leadership
Styles
By David Kiger Image courtesy of Venu Gopal at Flickr.com

2. Leaders come in many shapes and forms and no leadership
style is like the others, while all of them try to accomplish
pretty much the same objective. When it comes to leadership,
one has to be flexible and understand there is no
one-size-fits-all solution for leadership that can adjust to a
company and make all management-related problems go
away. Leadership transforms a company and is transformed
by those it manages, to the point that it creates a symbiotic
relationship in which both parties are nurtured and grow to
achieve more every day. Many authors out there define
leadership differently and propose it to be categorized in
diverse ways depending on the context. Today, here at David
Kiger’s Slideshare, we want to take the styles explored by
Daniel Goldman in his article “Leadership That Gets Results”
and further expand on some of the key aspects of each style,
analyzing the advantages and disadvantages and how it can
work for your particular organization.

3. As we mentioned before, there are many styles of leadership and
depending whether we are talking about a military, business or political
environment they can be further broken down into more subcategories
to cover a broader spectrum. This is by no means a comprehensive list,
but nonetheless it is very thought provoking to explore and analyze
further.
Authoritarian
One of the main aspects of authoritarian leadership is the creation of a
clear distinction between the leader and the followers. Authoritarian
leaders exert a strong control over their employees and promote
upholding strict rules in the workplace. The word of an authoritarian
leader is final and their instructions are to be followed exactly as they
were presented initially. This type of approach has the advantage of
creating very clear expectations upon the responsibilities of each team
member, as there will rarely be any doubt of what each person’s role is
within the organization and how to carry out such role. The problem
with this type of leadership is that it can be demoralizing sometimes to
employees as it is extremely inflexible and it feels like you are being
micromanaged.

4. Paternalistic
Also known as parental leadership style, this particular type
of leadership focuses on the leader working as a father or
mother figure to its subordinates and caring for them as if
they were all part of the same family while expecting loyalty
and obedience in return. The relationship between team
members is very close in this leadership style while inside or
even outside of the workplace. Many people find interesting
to work in this type of environment but it has been said that
strife can arise in situations in which the leader may seem
to favor an employee over others.

5. Democratic
Like the name indicates, the democratic leadership style
considers the input of all members of the organization
when it comes to making decisions. While there continues
to be a clear figurehead who leads the organization, all
members are involved somehow in the decision-making
process and the way they go about realizing the goals of
the company. The democratic style of leadership requires a
lot of commitment from all parties involved and a very
effective leader to maintain people motivated and focus on
the tasks at hand. This leadership style has proven to be
quite effective in the way that it maximizes the strengths of
the group as a whole and best takes advantage of multiple
inputs.

6. Laissez-faire
The laissez-faire leadership style is where all
decision-making power is given to the employee. These
leaders allow followers to have total control over the way
they do things while they offer them guidance and support
to go about their tasks. This type of leadership assumes the
workforce is highly responsible, experienced, skilled and
educated in order to work. One important aspect for the
leader to consider is the continuous feedback they must be
able to provide constantly in order for this management
style to work properly. The autonomy of delegation can be
positively freeing for team members, but at the same time
there is a high risk of low productivity and poorly defined
roles within the organization.

7. Transactional
Transactional leadership is focused on results and a system of
rewards and penalties that go along with those results. Their
involvement with their employees is somewhat reduced and
limited to instances in which they make corrections in instances
in which performances levels are not met. The problem with this
type of leadership is that it doesn't leave much room for
individual innovation or creativity because goals are already
established from the beginning and cannot be easily changed.
Transformational
In transformational leadership, leaders and employees work
together towards communal growth and the creation of a vision
that embodies the purpose of the organization and the
appropriation of their goals to become better in many ways. This
type of leadership is all about mutual motivation and teamwork
between all parties involved. Transformational leadership is
about sharing a vision and working together towards its
accomplishment.