Six Leadership Styles That Can Make Or Break Your Organization, Which Will You Choose?

Leaders come from all walks of life and have different styles. Here are six leadership styles that are most popular among leaders.There is no such thing as the best leadership style as they all have their pros and cons.

It greatly depends on the leaders' personality and the type of team or organization they are leading.

Charismatic leader:

This type of leader leads through their persona and wit. They are able to obtain followers with their charm. Charismatic leaders are particularly effective when leading high energy projects i.e. Sports or the performing arts.

A leader using this type of style is able to deliver lots of enthusiasm to their team and inspire them into action with their great speaking ability and charm.

The downside is that often charismatic leaders believe very much in their own abilities and not so much in the abilities of their team.

Autocratic leader:

Out of the six leadership styles this is the leader generally defined as very 'bossy' or pushy. They dictate what their team should do and other options are not accepted.

The autocratic leader seldom allows ideas other than their own enter into the discussion. The whole idea of team work is not important to an autocratic leader.

Although this leadership style does sound a bit harsh, it works very well in a scenario where there is not a lot of time to do a project and workers just need to get the work done.

It's also good if the team doesn't necessarily have any skills on the topic and must simply be told how to do something. This leadership style is very ineffective if there is any focus on teamwork

Bureaucratic Leader:

This is the kind of leader that you may find in a factory or in some kind of workplace where workers must follow procedure to a "T".

Bureaucratic leaders like to stick exactly to the book and don't focus too much on team building or inspiring others to work toward a goal.

This type of leadership tends to be a little too strict and lacks flexibility and often is ineffective when responding to a changing environment.

Participative leader:

This just might be the most popular of the six leadership styles.This style is also known as Democratic leader and its all about involving several members of a team to get a job done.

A participative leader will consider ideas and suggestions from people beneath him/her, but they will make the final decision.The degree to which a participative leader involves others in the process depends on the individual.

Often these kind of leaders lose control and may find it hard to evolve into an authoritative figure when the time comes.

Transformational Leader:

This kind of leader is never cooped up in an office, is very visible to his/her team and is big on communicating.

This leader's vision for the future is one that's shared with the rest of their team and not just of the leader. They believe in delegating responsibility, but very often have problems with not paying enough attention to detail.

Situational leader:

This is the chameleon of the group because this type of leader is able to change according to the specific situation.

A situational leader can assess a particular work environment and determine which of the six leadership styles (or others)best suits the situation. Most leaders strive to be situational leaders.

Of course as mentioned before there is no one perfect leadership style. If you ever find yourself in a leadership positionyou should be changing from style to style depending on the type of people in your team(how skilled they are etc), the work environment(whether it's constantly changing),and your specific personality.

Remember these six leadership styles are the most popular but are not the only styles to choose from. You may find it helpful to look further into leadership styles to broaden your approach to leading your own team.

Return to Define Leadership from Six Leadership Styles