Q&A - Explain the four main leadership styles

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Leaders exercise their authority in different ways.  In doing so, they are said to exhibit a “leadership style”.  Leadership styles are essentially about:

• The way that the functions of leadership are carried out
• The way that a leader behaves

There has been substantial research into the types and effectiveness of various leadership styles, with the four most common generally accepted to be:

The key features of each of these leadership styles can be summarised as follows:

Authoritarian:
- Autocratic leaders hold onto as much power and decision-making as possible
- Focus of power is with the manager
- Communication is top-down & one-way
- Formal systems of command & control
- Minimal consultation
- Use of rewards & penalties
- Very little delegation
- McGregor Theory X approach
- Most likely to be used when subordinates are unskilled, not trusted and their ideas are not valued Leader decides what is best for employees

Paternalistic:
- Links with Mayo – addressing employee needs
- Akin to a parent/child relationship – where the leader is seen as a “father-figure”
- Still little delegation
- A softer form of authoritarian leadership, which often results in better employee motivation and lower staff turnover
- Typical paternalistic leader explains the specific reason as to why he has taken certain actions

Democratic:
- Focus of power is more with the group as a whole
- Leadership functions are shared within the group
- Employees have greater involvement in decision-making – but potentially this slows-down decision-making
- Emphasis on delegation and consultation – but the leader still has the final say
- Perhaps the most popular leadership style because of the positive emotional connotations of acting democratically
- A potential trade-off between speed of decision-making and better motivation and morale?
- Likely to be most effective when used with skilled, free-thinking and experienced subordinates

Laissez-faire:
- Laissez-faire means to “leave alone”
- Leader has little input into day-to-day decision-making
- Conscious decision to delegate power
- Managers / employees have freedom to do what they think is best
- Often criticised for resulting in poor role definition for managers
- Effective when staff are ready and willing to take on responsibility, they are motivated, and can be trusted to do their jobs
- Importantly, laissez-faire is not the same as abdication

As a generalisation, in the UK there has been a gradual shift away from autocratic leadership.  Possible reasons for this include:

• Changes in society’s values
• Better educated workforce
• Focus on need for soft HR skills
• Changing workplace organisation
• Greater workplace legislation
• Pressure for greater employee involvement

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