6 Common Leadership Styles

• Transformational Leadership
• Delegative Leadership
• Authoritative Leadership
• Transactional Leadership
• Participative Leadership
• Servant Leadership

Why Know Your Leadership Style?

Most leaders are not one leadership style but a mix of characteristics of different style with one being the more predominant style. Knowing a range of styles of leadership is critically important to understanding your personal style of leadership. Most leaders do not fall into one single style of leadership, but rather take on traits of each of the styles listed below with one area often becoming dominant.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leaders have a focus on change and transform, they often do not worry about blame or other negative sides of leadership. Instead, they focus on positive forward progress. These are the leaders that in a group setting will take change in the absence of a formal leadership structure. These types of leaders are often called inspirational and can get those collaborating with them to achieve results often thought impossible due to their level of inspiration and drive. These leadership often have a focus on three things, change, future and people.

Delegative Leadership

In this style of leadership leaders are more concerned with delegating out tasks to team members either because of expertise or to help people grow. Often looked at a “hands-off” approach to leadership, the value of this style of leadership comes from the interactions the leader has with those with which they are working. They often help individuals to grow and build skills in a one-on-one format. This may be a “behind the scenes” type of leadership, but the relationship and trust building of this style can be immensely powerful. This is only effective though, if the team members are competent and want to grow, if not this can often lead to blame and distrust among the team members. This style can be hard for new team members to adjust to as this style may not have a clear command structure if the leader is not careful.

Authoritative Leadership

This style of leadership should not be confused with Authoritarian Leadership, which is a toxic style of leadership. These leaders are often called visionaries and Trailblazers that often are the ones building a vision for how to change an organization and a path forward for those working for them to follow. These leaders are like a transformational leader but with more of a hands-on approach to leadership. These leaders are getting to know each of their team members personally, helping their team members to grow based on the members’ needs and where they want to go with their future skills and abilities. However, these leaders can very easily get into micromanagement situations, this can lead to negatives feelings among team members.

Transactional Leadership

This is a leadership style that most people have experienced in some capacity or another, often known as Managerial Leadership. This style relies heavily on praise and punishment and focuses more on building structure of leadership based on the assumption that team members do not have the motivation or capabilities to accomplish tasks on their own. In this style of leadership, the leader will often set a clear structure of how tasks and goals are accomplished and what the rewards and punishments will be if the task and goals are not accomplished. Typical these rewards and punishments will be in the form of financial compensation; this method can be stressful for team members who rely on regular financial stability. In this leadership style team members may initially be highly productive, but it can lead to diminishing returns when team members are acutely aware of their value to the company.

Participative Leadership

The Participative leader is most often viewed as a “hands-on” or democratic leadership style, in which a leader is encouraged to listen to team members and involve them in decision making processes. This style of leadership builds accountability for both the leader and team members through a collaborative process and has been an encouraged leadership style in many corporate and business structures. This collective leadership style is often used to identify problems, develop, and implement solutions rather than placing blame. This style can be successful if the leader at the top can be inclusive, use effective communication skills and share power and responsibility well. This overall helps to build trust between team members and leadership and will often empower/encourage them to share ideas that can help to improve the overall organization.

Servant Leadership

Servant leaders often put their team members and colleagues first. This style of leadership is about building strong relationships that can then be utilized to help team members grow and learn to reach their full potential. This style has a strong focus on understanding the people in the organization and of what they are capable. Ethical decision making is one of the key factors to the success of this style of leadership and will have a focus on building a structure that works for everyone not just a select few. Servant leaders can have a strong connection to team members and can create a strong sense of loyalty to the organization.