Different leadership styles

Leadership styles vary across organizations depending on the nature of the company, its culture, its people and the prevailing circumstances. Leadership styles may be commensurate with the organizational values or vary according to the need of the hour.

There are six specific leadership styles that are used in organizations :

Visionary – used to bring employees on track with new organsational  goals, provide a vision for the future and put things in perspective but allows individuals to experiment and work on their own towards the new goals.

Coaching – used to advise and guide employees on a one-on-one basis to help them improve performance and align their goals with that of the organization, without interfering over-much in their activities as that could destroy their self-confidence.

Affiliative – used to strengthen bonds, enhance trust and communication and encourage employees to work together in harmony in a team. Effective when group members face problematic situations but may also cover up the mediocrity of some team members.

Democratic / Participative- used to include everybody in the decision making process, especially when there is uncertainty about how to achieve objectives and reach organizational goals. Leaders need to articulate goals clearly and assign specific roles to team members. Will not work during an emergency.

Pacesetting – practiced by high-achieving leaders to set high standards of performance for subordinates.

However such leaders have a problem of delegation as they fear performance may not be up to the mark. Will work only in small groups with high-performance individuals.

Directive / Commanding – used by the military and by organizations run on similar lines. People have to work to “orders”. There is no praise for work done well but a lot of criticism leading to demotivation and loss of interest in work.  Can work only in a crisis situation or when the team is performing very poorly and cannot pull itself out of the morass.