Leadership Style

   

Leadership style, often called management style, describes the approach managers use to deal with people in their teams. There are many styles of leadership, and leaders can be classified in extremes as follows:


● Charismatic/non-charismatic. Charismatic leaders rely on their personality, their inspirational qualities and their ‘aura’. They are visionary leaders who are achievement-oriented, calculated risk-takers and good communicators. Noncharismatic leaders rely mainly on their know-how (authority goes to the person who knows), their quiet confidence and their cool, analytical approach to dealing with problems.


● Autocratic-democratic. Autocratic leaders impose their decisions, using their position to force people to do as they are told. Democratic leaders encourage people to participate and involve themselves in decision-taking.


● Enabler-controller. Enablers inspire people with their vision of the future and empower them to accomplish team goals. Controllers manipulate people to obtain their compliance.


● Transactional-transformational. Transactional leaders trade money, jobs and security for compliance. Transformational leaders motivate people to strive for higherlevel goals.


Most managers adopt an approach somewhere between the extremes. Some will vary it according to the situation or their feelings at the time, others will stick to the same style whatever happens. A good case can be made for using an appropriate style according to the situation, but it is undesirable to be inconsistent in the style used in similar situations. Every manager has his or her own style but this will be influenced by the organizational culture, which may produce a prevailing management style that represents the behavioural norm for managers that is generally expected and adopted.