Leadership Styles

7 Primary Leadership Styles For Different Situations

How to find your own based on your situations?

Different situations demand different leadership styles.

A leader is known for his style of leadership. A leader commands a team smoothly when he knows how and what style to use to better an organization.

There are seven primary leadership styles, which are the parts of a leader’s toolkit. All these styles are unique and are applied in different situations.

The effectiveness of these styles depends upon how well they are applied in certain circumstances.

When a leader fails to use the proper style or overuses a style, such an act leads to chaos and destruction of an organization or a country.

A strong leader doesn’t count on one style but assumes all the styles in himself and uses them to cope with the current situation successfully. A successful leader knows when and how to use a style efficiently.

Here are the seven primary leadership skills used in different situations.

1. Authoritative

Authoritative leaders are also known as visionary leaders. They adopt a “Follow Me” style and are highly confident of their capabilities to cope with the situations.

They devise the map of action, make the way, direct the subordinates, and set high expectations. They not only put their employees in hot water but also energize and motivate them to pursue an organizational goal.

This leadership style is highly suitable in a climate of uncertainty because it can control the situations and clear the ambiguities. They know what’s happening and what course of action is needed to put things in order.

Authoritative leaders issue orders and allow their subordinates to follow their initiatives and choices only if they are aligned to the achievement of the organization’s shared goals.

2. Democratic

As the word democratic suggests, such leaders seek their team’s opinion on important issues before taking a final decision. They are also open in their dealing with their subordinates and share their thinking and pieces of information with them, which are necessary.

Such leaders are highly cooperative and participative in style. They promote team spirit and develop trust among their employees.

The democratic leadership style is best for developing a consensus on issues related to the organization’s overall development. Such leaders keep the overall picture of their organization in their view and consider themselves to be part of the organizational process.

Under such leadership, employees develop and grow to the best of their potential and unleash their creativity to better the organization. These leaders can commit people to do what they want, making them feel that it is their choice.

3. Autocratic

Autocratic leaders are the absolute leaders who follow a “Do as I say” policy. They think of themselves as being more educated and competent than their team member; hence, they don’t include them in decision making.

Under such leadership, creative talent doesn’t grow. Such a style kills the employees’ initiatives, which leads to organizational stagnation.

However, it doesn’t mean that this leadership is outdated. The autocratic leadership style is very useful on certain occasions, such as when your company is in a dire situation, and you need to make on-the-spot decisions to save your company.

You can also use this style with inexperienced team members to make them understand the organizational process first.

So, there are situations where you can use an autocratic style.

4. Pacesetting

The pacesetting leadership style is indicative of the phrase “Keep Up.” This leadership style pushes employees beyond their limits to achieve certain goals in a limited time.

Such leaders set the pace and set a high bar for their employees. They are highly result-oriented and want to achieve their goals without delays.

However, this style is not good for the mental and physical health of the employees because it stresses them a lot.

Such an approach puts your employees under constant pressure where they feel burnout and lack creativity.

However, it doesn’t mean that this style should be discarded altogether. This style of leadership is suitable only if you are launching a new product and competing with your competitors. So, this style should be used for a short time.

Keeping the pacesetting style for longer may lead to burnout of your team, resulting in unproductivity and compromised quality of your services.

5. Affiliative

The affiliative leadership style is more related to the “People come first” phrase. Such leaders are people-oriented, and they think that if employees are physically and emotionally fit, it leads to more productivity and progress.

Such leaders pay attention to their employees’ emotional health and provide a conducive environment where everyone feels connected and valued.

This style strives for creating harmony and promotes a collaborative team environment.

This style is suitable for avoiding conflicts among team members and relieving the stress during working hours. This leadership style is good for organizations where different ethnicities work to avoid clashes and disorders.

6. Coaching

A coaching leadership style is experimental and most related to the “Consider this” approach.

Leaders who use a coaching style think of people as reservoirs of talents to be polished and developed. They tend to bring out the people’s hidden talents and use them to better their organizations.

They set the ground where employees can unlock their potential and experiment with new things to increase their skill sets.

This leadership style sees hidden talents in everyone, and they value people for their potential. Conclusion: they give chances to others and provide them clues and directions for developing their talents.

This leadership style is suitable in big organizations where the leaders train dedicated employees for higher roles in the future.

7. Laissez-Faire

This style of leadership is opposed to the autocratic leadership style. In the autocratic style, a leader is always overseeing employees and stands on his employees’ shoulders. In laisses-fair style, a leader is least involved in the oversight of the progress of his employees.

Such leaders trust their employees and their potential. They let their employees take the initiative and do what they want to do for the betterment of the organization.

This style of leadership has a drawback. The leader seems to be so aloof from the organizational process that he is often overlooked. Such aloofness can lead to disorders and chaos in organizations.

However, this style is suitable when your employees are highly skilled, motivated, and are self-starters. Use this style when you trust the abilities of your employees that they will dedicatedly work for the progress of the organization.

How to Find Your Style of Leadership?

Knowing your position and situation is an art to the leaders. When they know where they stand, they adopt a certain style according to their standings. You should be able to assume all the leadership styles in your personality and must be able to use them when situations warrant them.

However, if you don’t know your leadership style, you can know it by focusing on the following points:

Analyze your current leadership style

Now that you know the leadership styles analyze your current style through the lenses of the above leadership styles.

Ask your trusted colleagues to give your sincere opinion on your current leadership style. You should also focus on the team you are leading and the situation you are in to determine your style.

Familiarize yourself with different styles

You should use different styles occasionally to understand their patterns of actions.

This strategy will help you acquire and develop more leadership skills. This approach will also show what should be your dominant style.

Practice different styles to make them natural

Moving from one leadership style to another can be challenging, and in doing so, you can also lose your natural style. However, you can adopt a style and make it natural with gradual practice.

However, the best style is natural, which enhances your personality and gains you the loyalty of your team.

Stay flexible and agile

Rigidity in leaders can lead to disorders and chaos. In the 21st century, those leaders successfully combine various styles and stay flexible enough to command a team in every situation.

So, make agility the mark of your leadership disposition to be successful and admired by your team.

Final words

With the rise of the modern world and its complexities, the traditional business environment has changed. The modern business environment is engulfed by various challenges and complexities due to its diverse workforce and demography.

That’s why such complex business environments need modern leaders who are well equipped with various leadership styles. A leader should be the amalgamation of all the leadership styles discussed above to be productive and successful.

However, a leader can only assume this amalgamation of all the leadership styles if he is flexible and agile. The extent of the success of a leader depends upon the level of flexibility he holds in his personality.

“The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.” — A Chinese Proverb