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Leadership styles
A leadership style is a leader's style of providing direction, implementing plans,
and motivating people. There are many different leadership styles that can be
exhibited by leaders in the political, business or other fields.
Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction,
implementing plans, and motivating people. As seen by the employees,
it includes the total pattern of explicit and implicit action of their leaders
(Newstrom, Davis, 1993).
In 1939 Kurt Lewin led a group of researchers to identify different styles
of leadership (Lewin, LIippit, White, 1939). This early study has been
very influential and established three major leadership styles: (U.S.
Army, 1973):
Contents

1 Authoritarian

2 Paternalistic

3 Democratic

4 Laissez-faire

5 Transactional
o

5.1 Effect on work teams

6 Transformational

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Authoritarian
The authoritarian leadership style or autocratic leader keeps strict, close
control over followers by keeping close regulation of policies and procedures
given to followers. To keep main emphasis on the distinction of the authoritarian
leader and their followers, these types of leaders make sure to only create a
distinct professional relationship. Direct supervision is what they believe to be
key in maintaining a successful environment and follower ship. In fear of
followers being unproductive, authoritarian leaders keep close supervision and
feel this is necessary in order for anything to be done.
Examples of authoritarian communicative behavior: a police officer directing
traffic, a teacher ordering a student to do his or her assignment, and a
supervisor instructing a subordinate to clean a workstation. All of these positions
require a distinct set of characteristics that give the leader the position to get
things in order or get a point across. Authoritarian Traits: sets goals individually,
engages primarily in one-way and downward communication, controls
discussion with followers, and donates interaction
Authoritarian or Autocratic

I want both of you to. . .

This style is used when leaders tell their employees what they want
done and how they want it accomplished, without getting the advice of
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their followers. Some of the appropriate conditions to use it is when you

have all the information to solve the problem, you are short on time, and
your employees are well motivated.
Some people tend to think of this style as a vehicle for yelling, using
demeaning language, and leading by threats. This is not the
authoritarian style, rather it is an abusive, unprofessional style called
bossing people around. It has absolutely no place in a leader's
repertoire.
The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions.
If you have the time and want to gain more commitment and motivation
from your employees, then you should use the participative style.

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Paternalistic
The way a Paternalistic leader works is by acting as a father figure by taking
care of their subordinates as a parent would. In this style of leadership the
leader supplies complete concern for his followers or workers. In return he
receives the complete trust and loyalty of his people. Workers under this style of
leader are expected to become totally committed to what the leader believes
and will not strive off and work independently. The relationship between these
co-workers and leader are extremely solid. The workers are expected to stay
with a company for a longer period of time because of the loyalty and trust. Not
only do they treat each other like family inside the work force, but outside too.
These workers are able to go to each other with any problems they have
regarding something because they believe in what they say is going to truly help
them.
One of the downsides to a paternalistic leader is that the leader could start to
play favorites in decisions. This leader would include the workers more apt to
follow and start to exclude the ones who were less loyal. In todays market
paternalism is more difficult to come by according to Padavic and Earnest who
wrote business dimensional and Organizational Counseling. They believe this
because there have become more lay-offs and stronger unionization. This
affects paternalistic leaders because the co-workers may not believe that their
jobs are 100% ensured. When this happens, workers begin to look for bigger
and better job opportunities instead of staying at one company for a longer
period of time. Because of this, The leader may be thinking that you could be
leaving and not fully believe you when you tell them something about a job
opportunity. This could put the workers and leader at risk for a bad situation.
According to B. M. Bass who wrote Leadership and Performance Beyond
Expectations, workers who follow paternalistic leadership also have better
organization skills. The leader encourages organization because they allow the
workers to complete tasks so that they can stay on top of their work. The
workers complete tasks this boosts self-confidence and it makes them work
harder to reach a goal and exceed the goal to prove to their boss they are
working hard. Having this style of leadership can also help implement a reward
system. This system will allow their workers to work even better because there
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is something for them at the end of the tunnel. While doing this they will also be
able to accomplish more work in a set time frame.

Paternalism
Paternalism has at times been equated with leadership styles. Most
definitions of leadership normally state or imply that one of the actions
within leadership is that of influencing. For example, the U.S. Army
(1983) uses the following definition:
Leadership is influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and
motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the
organization.
The Army further goes on by defining influence as:
A means of getting people to do what you want them to do. It is the
means or method to achieve two ends: operating and improving. But
there is more to influencing than simply passing along orders. The
example you set is just as important as the words you speak. And you
set an examplegood or badwith every action you take and word you
utter, on or off duty. Through your words and example, you must
communicate purpose, direction, and motivation.
Paternalism is defined as (Webster Dictionary):
A system under which an authority undertakes to supply needs or
regulate conduct of those under its control in matters affecting them as
individuals as well as in their relationships to authority and to each
other.
Thus, paternalism supplies needs for those under its protection or
control, while leadership gets things done. The first is directed inwards,
while the latter is directed outwards.
Geert Hofstede (1997) studied culture within organizations. Part of his
study was on the dependence relationship or Power Differencethe
extent to which the less powerful members of an organization expect
and accept that power is distributed unequally. Hofstede gave this story
to illustrate the concept of Power Difference:
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The last revolution in Sweden disposed of King Gustav IV, whom they
considered incompetent, and surprising invited Jean Baptise Bernadotte,
a French general who served under Napoleon, to become their new
King. He accepted and became King Charles XIV. Soon afterward he
needed to address the Swedish Parliament. Wanting to be accepted, he
tried to do the speech in their language. His broken language amused
the Swedes so much that they roared with laughter. The Frenchman was
so upset that he never tried to speak Swedish again.
Bernadotte was a victim of culture shocknever in his French
upbringing and military career had he experienced subordinates who
laughed at the mistakes of their superior. This story has a happy ending
as he was considered very good and ruled the country as a highly
respected constitutional monarch until 1844. (His descendants still
occupy the Swedish throne.)
Sweden differs from France in the way its society handles inequality
(those in charge and the followers). To measure inequality or Power
Difference, Hofstede studied three survey questions from a larger survey
that both factored and carried the same weight:

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Democratic
The democratic leadership style consists of the leader sharing the decisionmaking abilities with group members by promoting the interests of the group
members and by practicing social equality.
This style of leadership encompasses discussion, debate and sharing of ideas
and encouragement of people to feel good about their involvement. The
boundaries of democratic participation tend to be circumscribed by the
organization or the group needs and the instrumental value of people's
attributes (skills, attitudes, etc.). The democratic style encompasses the notion
that everyone, by virtue of their human status, should play a part in the group's
decisions. However, the democratic style of leadership still requires guidance
and control by a specific leader. The democratic style demands the leader to
make decisions on who should be called upon within the group and who is
given the right to participate in, make and vote on decisions. Traits of a Good
Leader compiled by the Santa Clara University and the Tom Peters Group:

Honest Display sincerity, integrity, and candor in all your actions.

Deceptive behavior will not inspire trust.

Competent Base your actions on reason and moral principles. Do not

make decisions based on childlike emotional desires or feelings.

Forward-looking Set goals and have a vision of the future. The vision
must be owned throughout the organization. Effective leaders envision what
they want and how to get it. They habitually pick priorities stemming from
their basic values.

Inspiring Display confidence in all that you do. By showing endurance

in mental, physical, and spiritual stamina, you will inspire others to reach for
new heights. Take charge when necessary.

Intelligent Read, study, and seek challenging assignments.

Fair-minded Show fair treatment to all people. Prejudice is the enemy

of justice. Display empathy by being sensitive to the feelings, values,
interests, and well-being of others.

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Broad-minded Seek out diversity.

Courageous Have the perseverance to accomplish a goal, regardless

of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Display a confident calmness
when under stress.

Straightforward Use sound judgment to make a good decisions at the

right time.

Imaginative Make timely and appropriate changes in your thinking,

plans, and methods. Show creativity by thinking of new and better goals,
ideas, and solutions to problems. Be innovative!

Research has found that this leadership style is one of the most effective and
creates higher productivity, better contributions from group members and
increased group morale. Democratic leadership can lead to better ideas and
more creative solutions to problems because group members are encouraged
to share their thoughts and ideas. While democratic leadership is one of the
most effective leadership styles, it does have some potential downsides. In
situations where roles are unclear or time is of the essence, democratic
leadership can lead to communication failures and uncompleted projects.
Democratic leadership works best in situations where group members are
skilled and eager to share their knowledge. It is also important to have plenty of
time to allow people to contribute, develop a plan and then vote on the best
course of action.

Participative or Democratic

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Let's work together to solve this. . .

This style involves the leader including one or more employees in the
decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it).
However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using
this style is not a sign of weakness, rather it is a sign of strength that
your employees will respect.
This is normally used when you have part of the information, and your
employees have other parts. A leader is not expected to know everything
this is why you employ knowledgeable and skilled people. Using this
style is of mutual benefit as it allows them to become part of the team
and allows you to make better decisions.

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Laissez-faire
The laissez-faire leadership style is where all the rights and power to make
decisions is fully given to the worker. This was first described by Lewin,
Lippitt, and White in 1938, along with the autocratic leadership and the
democratic leadership styles. The laissez-faire style is sometimes described as
a "hands off" leadership style because the leader delegates the tasks to their
followers while providing little or no direction to the followers. If the leader
withdraws too much from their followers it can sometimes result in a lack of
productivity, cohesiveness, and satisfaction.
Laissez-faire leaders allow followers to have complete freedom to make
decisions concerning the completion of their work. It allows followers a high
degree of autonomy and self-rule, while at the same time offering guidance and
support when requested. The laissez-faire leader using guided freedom
provides the followers with all materials necessary to accomplish their goals, but
does not directly participate in decision making unless the followers request
their assistance.

This is an effective style to use when:

Followers are highly skilled, experienced, and educated.

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Followers have pride in their work and the drive to do it successfully on

their own.

Outside experts, such as staff specialists or consultants are being used.

Followers are trustworthy and experienced.

This style should NOT be used when:

Followers feel insecure at the unavailability of a leader.

The leader cannot or will not provide regular feedback to their followers.

Delegative or Laissez-faire

You two take care of the problem while I go. . .

In this style, the leader allows the employees to make the decisions.
However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made.
This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and
determine what needs to be done and how to do it. You cannot do
everything! You must set priorities and delegate certain tasks.
This is not a style to use so that you can blame others when things go
wrong, rather this is a style to be used when you fully trust and have
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confidence in the people below you. Do not be afraid to use it, however,
use it wisely!

Transactional
The transactional style of leadership was first described by Max Weber in 1947
and then later described by Bernard Bass in 1981. Mainly used
by management, transactional leaders focus their leadership on motivating
followers through a system of rewards and punishments. There are two factors
which form the basis for this system, Contingent Reward and management-byexception.

Contingent Reward Provides rewards, materialistic or psychological, for

effort and recognizes good performance.

Management-by-Exception allows the leader to maintain the status

quo. The leader intervenes when subordinates do not meet acceptable
performance levels and initiates corrective action to improve performance.
Management by exception helps reduce the workload of managers being
that they are only called-in when workers deviate from course.

This type of leader identifies the needs of their followers and gives rewards to
satisfy those needs in exchange of certain level of performance.

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Transactional leaders focus on increasing the efficiency of established routines

and procedures. They are more concerned with following existing rules than
with making changes to the organization.

A transactional leader establishes and standardizes practices that will help the
organization reach:

Maturity

Goal-setting

Efficiency of operation

Increasing productivity.

Effect on work teams

Survey done by Jun Liu, Xiaoyu Liu and Xianju Zeng on the correlation of
transactional leadership and how innovations can be affected by team
emotions. The research was composed of 90 work teams, with a total of 460
members and 90 team leaders. The study found that there is a relationship
between emotions, labor behavior and transactional leadership that affect for
the team. Depending on the level of emotions of the team; this can affect the
transactional leader in a positive or negative way.
Transactional leaders work better in teams where there is a lower level of
emotions going into the project. This is because individuals are able to

Think freely when setting their emotions aside from their work.

Have all of their focus on the given task.

A transactional leader is:

1. Negatively affected when the emotional level is high.
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2. Positively affected when the emotional level is low.

Transactional leadership presents a form of strategic leadership that is
important for the organizations development. Transactional leadership is
essential for team innovativeness.

Transformational
A transformational leader is a type of person in which the leader is not limited by
his or her followers' perception. The main objective is to work
to change or transform his or her followers' needs and redirect their thinking.

Leaders
that
follow
the
transformation
style
of
leading, challenge and inspire their followers with a sense of purpose and
excitement. They also create a vision of what they aspire to be, and
communicate this idea to others (their followers). According to Schultz and
Schultz, there are three identified characteristics of a transformational leader:

Charismatic leadership has a broad knowledge of field, has a selfpromoting personality, high/great energy level, and willing to take risk and
use irregular strategies in order to stimulate their followers to think
independently

Individualized consideration

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Intellectual stimulation

Developing the vision

Transformational Leadership starts with the development of a vision, a view of
the future that will excite and convert potential followers. This vision may be
developed by the leader, by the senior team or may emerge from a broad
series of discussions. The important factor is the leader buys into it, hook, line
and sinker.
Selling the vision
The next step, which in fact never stops, is to constantly sell the vision. This
takes energy and commitment, as few people will immediately buy into a
radical vision, and some will join the show much more slowly than others. The
Transformational Leader thus takes every opportunity and will use whatever
works to convince others to climb on board the bandwagon.
In order to create followers, the Transformational Leader has to be very careful
in creating trust, and their personal integrity is a critical part of the package that
they are selling. In effect, they are selling themselves as well as the vision.
Finding the way forwards
In parallel with the selling activity is seeking the way forward. Some
Transformational Leaders know the way, and simply want others to follow them.
Others do not have a ready strategy, but will happily lead the exploration of
possible routes to the promised land.
The route forwards may not be obvious and may not be plotted in details, but
with a clear vision, the direction will always be known. Thus finding the way
forward can be an ongoing process of course correction, and the
Transformational Leader will accept that there will be failures and blind canyons
along the way. As long as they feel progress is being made, they will be happy.
Leading the charge
The final stage is to remain up-front and central during the action.
Transformational Leaders are always visible and will stand up to be counted
rather than hide behind their troops. They show by their attitudes and actions
how everyone else should behave. They also make continued efforts to
motivate and rally their followers, constantly doing the rounds, listening,
soothing and enthusing.
It is their unswerving commitment as much as anything else that keeps people
going, particularly through the darker times when some may question whether
the vision can ever be achieved. If the people do not believe that they can
succeed, then their efforts will flag. The Transformational Leader seeks to infect
and reinfect their followers with a high level of commitment to the vision.
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One of the methods the Transformational Leader uses to sustain motivation is

in the use of ceremonies, rituals and other cultural symbolism. Small changes
get big hurrahs, pumping up their significance as indicators of real progress.
Overall, they balance their attention between action that creates progress and
the mental state of their followers. Perhaps more than other approaches, they
are people-oriented and believe that success comes first and last through deep
and sustained commitment.
Finally, Transformational Leaders, by definition, seek to transform. When the
organization does not need transforming and people are happy as they are,
then such a leader will be frustrated. Like wartime leaders, however, given the
right situation they come into their own and can be personally responsible for
saving entire companies.

Continuum of Leader Behavior

In 1958 Tannenbaum and Schmid (1958, 1973) expanded on Lewin,
LIippit, and White's, three leadership styles by extending them to seven
styles and placing them on a continuum as shown in the diagram below:

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Notice that as you go from left to right, it moves from manager oriented
decision making to subordinate oriented decision making, thus the
teams freedom increases while the managers authority decreases.
Depending upon the present level of your team's experience and skills,
you select a starting point and as the team develops, you move from it
to the next one:
Basically the first two styles or behaviors are similar the authoritarian
style, the next three are similar to the participative style, while the last
two are similar to the delegative style. This approach gives the leader
more options that can be refined to specific situations or environments.

Positive and Negative Approaches

There is a difference in ways leaders approach their employees. Positive
leaders use rewards, such as education, independence, etc. to motivate
employees, while negative employers emphasize penalties (Newstrom,
Davis, 1993). The negative approach has a place in a leader's repertoire
of tools in certain situations; however, it must be used carefully due to
its high cost on the human spirit.
Negative leaders act domineering and superior with people. They
believe the only way to get things done is through penalties, such as
loss of job, days off without pay, reprimanding employees in front of
others, etc. They believe their authority is increased by frightening
everyone into higher levels of productivity. Yet, what normally happens
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when this approach is used wrongly is that morale falls, which leads to
lower productivity.
Most leaders do not strictly use one or another, but are somewhere on a
continuum ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative.
People who continuously work out of the negative are bosses, while
those who primarily work out of the positive are considered great
leaders.
References
Hofstede, G. (1997). Culture and Organizations: Software of the
Mind new York: McGraw-Hill.
Lewin, K., LIippit, R., White, R.K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive
behavior in experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social
Psychology, 10, 271-301
Newstrom, J.W., Davis, K. (1993). Organizational Behavior: Human
Behavior at Work . New York: McGraw-Hill.
Schriesheim, C.A. (1982). The Great High Consideration: High Initiating
Structure Leadership Myth: Evidence on its Generalizability. The Journal
of Social Psychology, April 1982, 116, pp. 221-228.

Stogdill, R.M. (1974). Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and

and Research . New York: Free Press.
Tannenbaum, A.S., Schmitt, W.H. (1958). How to choose a leadership
pattern. Harvard Business Review, 36, March-April, 95-101.
Tannenbaum, A.S., Schmitt, W.H. (1973). How to Choose a Leadership
Pattern. Harvard Business Review Reprint, 36, May-June, 4-12.
U.S. Army. (1983). Military Leadership. Field
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

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