Leadership Styles
One factor in becoming a successful leader is choosing the right leadership style. The style that you choose to use will play a role in your success or failure. As you can imagine, there is no one leadership style that will work for all situations.
To become a good leader, you will need to know when to use a certain leadership style for a given situation. There are six simple leadership styles that you will want to become familiar with. In this article I will go over them, and you can decide which one is best to use for a given situation. You will want to choose the one which will help you succeed.
The first leadership style is called the authoritative method. This style should be used when you wish to persuade those that follow you to carry out a specific task. A leader who uses the authoritative method is telling their followers to "join them." This is a style of leadership which will convey a great deal of confidence. You don’t want to demand that your followers carry out a certain task. This is a very considerate style.
The second style of leadership is called the coercive method. When a leader uses this style, they are telling their followers to "do as I say, not as I do." This style is not good for people who run their own businesses. A business person who uses this style will find it hard to build strong bonds with their employees, because they don’t set a good example. This style should rarely be used, especially if you are the manager or CEO of a company. It is not efficient for laying down long term objectives.
The third style of leadership is called the affiliative method. Another name for this style could be called "followers come first." This is one of the best leadership styles in existence. A leader who uses this style realizes that they are nothing without those that follow them. These leaders will typically be quick to perform difficult tasks with those beneath them, and will not place themselves above those they lead, even though they have enough power to do so. This method has been used by many well known multi-billion dollar companies.
The fourth style is called the democratic method. Leaders who use this method will want their followers to have a say in the decisions they make. This is a very good style of leadership that is similar to the affiliative method. When employees are allowed to play a part in the decisions that are made by the leader, they will feel valuable, and research has shown that they will become very productive. Unfortunately, this is not a method that is used by many large companies. Most companies are run by a CEO and board of directors who make the decisions, and their employees are not allowed to participate.The employees will often have a view of the company that the corporate executives may not see, and could be instrumental in helping the company improve.
The fifth style of leadership is called the pacesetting method. With this style, a leader will create high standards that they will follow, and will expect their employees to perform in the same manner. With this style, the leader is basically telling their employees to "act as I do."
The sixth and last leadership style is called the coaching method. With this style, the leader will place an emphasis on the development of his followers. This is a good style of leadership because it allows you to invest in your followers, and when their skills or knowledge is enhanced, they will be more productive.
There will be situations where multiple leadership styles will need to be used. No matter which style you decide to use, it is absolutely critical that you understand that the people you lead are more important than marketing, products, or services. They are the people who can make or break your company. If you don’t believe this, imagine for a moment what would happen if all your employees decide to quit on the same day. Your business, no matter how successful it is, would slow to a halt. While this may sound simple, you would be surprised by the number of large companies that fail to understand it.
