Question

List and describe the 8 leadership styles

Answer 1

A leadership style is described as a method of providing direction and motivation to employees or followers in order to encourage and help them to achieve their goals. There are the following eight leadership styles:

1. Democratic Leadership: In this kind of leadership style, the leader makes his own decisions, but based on the inputs he receives from his employees or followers. Though he takes inputs from the employees, the final call is his own whether to pursue those inputs or not.

2. Autocratic Leadership: It is an opposite leadership style to the democratic one. In this style, the leader makes decisions on his own. He does not take any input from the employees or followers.

3. Strategic leadership: In this kind of leadership style, the leader takes the key operations of the company and its growth opportunity into his consideration before making any decision. His main goal is to find the best direction for the company.

4. Laissez-faire leadership: In this kind of leadership style, the leader permits his employees or followers to handle the things the way they want to handle them. It is generally found in new ventures or start-ups.

5. Transactional leadership: In this kind of leadership style, the leader believes in giving rewards to his employees on achieving their goals. It helps in establishing clear roles and responsibilities and motivating employees to achieve them.

6. Transformational leadership: A transformational leader is the one who believes in transforming the company as well as the employees. He encourages the employees to come out of their comfort zone and achieve something big for themselves as well as for the company.

7. Coach style leadership: In this kind of leadership style, the leader acts as a coach to employees or followers. He focuses on their individual strengths and weaknesses.

8. Bureaucratic leadership: It is almost like an autocratic leadership style. In this leadership style, the leader takes inputs from the employees. The difference is that he can reject those inputs if they do not sync with the company policy.