 Have you ever taken one of those online quizzes to find out, you know, things like which Harry Potter character or you or which friend or you or so forth and answer much personality questions and behavioral questions and they tell you you are run or you are Hermione or whatever, you know Do you ever do the same thing with leadership? Do you ever wonder who am I as a leader? Let me take this quiz and find out what my leadership style is Well, you know, it's not necessarily that simple. We tend to categorize leadership styles into these distinct silos, but truthfully, we may have one dominant style But we typically good leaders will pull from others depending on the need But but even so I want to spend a few minutes talking about leadership styles and the generalized leadership style categories that we have Just so we have an understanding of Where different leaders are coming from and and how different leadership tasks might be performed With that mind, let's start with authority authoritarian leadership Authoritarian leadership says I am in charge That authoritarian leader says you are following me. I set the tone I set the stage and and everybody else falls in line behind that So authoritarian leadership some of the different qualities that may exist in there is that it's a traditional top-down hierarchy It's one person at the top giving directions giving orders and setting the standard and everybody else following In line then it's one person who defines the objectives for the organization or for the team and then issues the marching orders for how They're gonna get there. So that person is not only setting the the vision and the mission But they're also determining how they're gonna get there and who's gonna do what on the way It is very efficient in terms of time constraints If you have a if you have a limited amount of time to complete a project or to accomplish a goal Then authoritarian leadership can be really effective in that regard because it is less time-consuming There's not a lot of hemming and hauling over Making decisions and things that person makes a decision and everybody else follows it So if you have a very short amount of time and you're under a time constraint Then authoritarian leadership can be effective in that regard. It does provide clear guardrails It does let people know here is your lane stay within it and here is what I'm instructing you to do And and these are your tasks and that's it So it does provide very clear guardrails for people to and and some people appreciate that and need that so Authoritarian leadership can be effective in those regards So let's take a look at each of these we'll take a look at the pros and cons positives and negatives of each of these leadership styles Let's start with a positive column for authoritarian leadership. First of all, again, it's very efficient decision-making It's not a lot of times. There's not a lot of conversation That person may ask for input or whatever but in the end They can make a decision as quickly as needed because they're the only one who's making that decision So decision-making is very efficient. There's a very defined chain of command There's no question about who's in charge. Who's making decisions? Who you should take orders from who's responsible for what because that person is identifying all of those things Again along those same lines your task assignments are clear if that person tells you to do something you do it if they don't Then you don't do it. You know, that's it. That's the task assignments It's very clear cut And it does create at times consistent results You know one person in charge of things and other people following along so you get the same thing every time So if you're trying to keep the status quo, then that's good. You get consistent results over time on The cons side the followers may resist or revolt in this whole thing because they may not like being told what to do They may not like that ruler, you know with an iron fist over them, right? So they could resist or revolt against that type of leadership It does stifle the creativity and innovation of the followers doesn't allow for that only the leader is allowed to to really Set the the tone and come up with new things and your job is not to come up with new things your job It's to do whatever that leader tells you to so it does stifle the creativity and innovation of the followers Really limits group input They may ask for some input But the truth is they're gonna make that decision and so it's much more limited than when you have a more free-flowing conversation And it tends to increase turnover And organizations like this and can you have a handful of people who really appreciate that? That defined chain of command those orders on people who thrive in the military for example really have a respect for authoritarian leadership a lot of times and so they thrive in that situation, but Many people in it faced with that that type of leadership again will tire of it they'll wear out on it and They'll leave so it you do have a higher turnover rate typically when you have somebody who's an authoritarian leader Okay, so pros and cons authoritarian leadership. Let's move on to the next style of leadership, which is participative leadership participative So here the leader says I want to hear from you sort of the opposite of authoritarian, right? We got participative leadership. They want people to participate. It says so right in the name, right a Participative leadership is semi-democratic, right? It's it's sort of democratic. It's it's it'll feature some of that I want to hear from you. I want your input I want everybody to have a say and in the end the leader does typically have the final say But they're going to be much more inclined to hear everybody out and to hear allow people to express themselves fully and to participate in that way They are intentional leaders are intentional here about including others If you have somebody who's maybe a little quieter and that leader will make an effort to pull them in to say You know, we haven't heard from you yet. Let's what are your thoughts here? And so they will make an effort and be intentional about including others. They'll also Be quite engaging and motivating for the team. This type of leadership style is engaging and motivating for the team Because they feel involved. They feel heard. They feel Wanted like the leader respects their input even if they don't take it necessarily that the leader Is interested in hearing what they say and that they have a voice at least so However, this can be went too far. This can be potentially very time-consuming Hearing all these voices allowing people to have their say and to fully have their say Can be time-consuming you're gonna spend more time listening to people go back and forth and decisions won't come as quickly So there are some drawbacks in that regard to the participant of leadership So let's take a look at some of the pros and cons then you do have a higher team motivation and satisfaction People tend to be more motivated and satisfied when they feel like they have ownership They feel like they have a voice So you'll have that as a pro It does encourage creativity encourages people to think and to express their views and to to be creative in what they're doing Also increases team cohesion. You're working together more. You're Engaging more in this type of leadership with this type of leadership. The team is so they're gonna Be more cohesive as a team. They're gonna be more connected and together as a team There's also Something to be said for the diversity of viewpoints. You're bringing in more voices Which again can be time-consuming but at the same time not everybody sees things the same way So this is going to bring to you different viewpoints and give you different perspectives on an issue or on a possible challenge So you're gonna get that diversity of viewpoints with this type of leadership style On the cons it does take more time to make decisions I get you just by virtue of hearing everybody out and Allowing that that debate and that discussion to go on longer. You're gonna spend more time Making decisions. So it's not great when in a time-sensitive situation You have your communication channels are less defined because people are communicating across different areas It's not got that silo effect. So so Communication channels become more jumbled and more mixed So that they're not necessarily as defined naturally in this type of leadership style You also have the weakest leak effect, right? You're as in you're only as strong as your weakest weakest link, right? The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So your team if you're depending on everybody's participation and everybody to pitch in and everybody to participate and and To be involved then you're only gonna be as strong as the person who does that the least You know, that's the person who's gonna kind of hold you back And and so you do have that weakest link effect that that comes into play here sometimes with this leadership style And then when you have more transparency that by definition almost really relates to less information security then if people are Aware of more things within the team. They're aware of more information. They're talking about it And you're encouraging talking about it then people talk about it and information gets out there. So Information security if that's a priority can be an issue in a participative leadership situation Okay, so we got authoritarian. We've talked about participative now. Let's talk about Delegative leadership So this is essentially says I'm trusting you with this the leader hands things over says I'm trusting you with this I'm giving this to you and it's kind of a they call laissez-faire Leadership style sort of a hands-off and so Delegative leadership again the leader hands out these assignments the leader determines what the assignments are they give people tasks They they assign them chores. They they give them responsibilities and and and things to complete then This does allow that leader to take advantage of when you have experienced and competent team members if you've got a good team If you've got a team with that that's got solid experience. They're competent They know what they're doing then you can it takes advantage of that experience and that competence and just hands things over to them and allows them to Take care of things knowing that you don't have to them right because you're able to delegate that This can lead to I can mention before the work silos though kind of like authoritarian authoritative leadership. I Can lead to these situations where? People are only working on their thing Right they're only working on their thing so they don't know what's happening in other areas necessarily The the leader is kind of controlling who does what in these situations So so that person may be focused on their own thing and not really aware of what's going on in different areas So it can it can kind of create a silo where people aren't necessarily working across those Channels which can positive as negatives to that as well, but but it can lead to these work silos So pros and cons for this it leverages the experience and competence of your team as we mentioned It does encourage innovation and creativity it gives people that kind of responsibility and tells them This is your task go for it and make it happen So it does encourage innovation and creativity in that way It can be individually satisfying a person who feels like that per the leaders putting their faith in them and giving them You know plenty of room to run with that project can that can be individually very satisfying again, it can be Difficult it's for team cohesion because you're not really working maybe as much with other team members You're working on just kind of your specific thing, but Individually that can be very satisfied and it can bring a lot of fulfillment in that way on the con side these this type of leadership style can lead to a difficulty when adapting to change People in this type of system don't deal with change as well They're not generally is informed with other areas of the Organization and they used to doing things in their way and get kind of stuck in this mindset so difficulty to change can be an issue People can get territorial when a leader gives them an assignment it becomes theirs, right? and so then when somebody else has an idea about that or Once to participate once meant to maybe help and get into that people can become territorial about no That's mine that person gave it to me. It's mine. I'm so territoriality can be an issue and Prioritization might not be clear to the team if everybody's working on different parts or different pieces They may not have a sense of well, where does this fall in terms of? What's the most important thing here? What's which one's gonna get the Most resources everybody's gonna think well mine is the best and needs the most resources and it may not understand, you know that prioritization of Tasks might not be clear to the team in terms of how resources are allocated and how how much attention is given to each thing and those types of things Okay authoritative Participative delegative leadership style who talked about all those let's talk about Transactional leadership or what we sometimes call the carrot in the stick model, right? Meaning, you know, they will expression You can motivate up use me donkey You can motivate a donkey with a carrot or the stick either you you'd angle that carrot in front of like a reward Or you use the the stick to kind of you know Give him a little swat so they do what you want So not that we're gonna do that with our employees or our team members. I'm not encouraging, you know Any kind of corporal punishment or physical? Contact whatsoever in that record so but in any case the carrot in the stick transactional leadership meaning there's a transaction There's there's an exchange here of some sort happening between the leader and the follower So when we have that transactional leadership Happening the leader has the ability to reward and or to punish or to make some other exchange You know to keep kind of a quid pro quo not none get not it's usually a lot of times using the sexual harassment That's that's not what we're talking about going about the ability to to again provide reward or punishment on on part of the organization for that employee or that team member The leader then sets the goals and the team understands the consequences positive and negative consequences, right? The leader says this is what we're working toward. This is our quota. This is our our standard This is what we're going to achieve and if the team achieves that then the team members know that they will be rewarded And if they don't achieve it then they know that there may be a punishment, you know There may be you know Something negative that would happen as a result, but they understand well clearly what those goals are what that standard is What and what it's going to take to meet that and then understand what they will What will happen as a result of that? The focus here is maintaining the status quo when we have transactional leadership. It's not about changing things. It's not about Development it's not about innovation. It's about Doing things efficiently and doing them in kind of the same way over and over again and and doing so is Best of ways possible. So it's really focused on maintaining the status quo positives and negatives for transactional leadership include first of all a positive is a goal Goals are set and understood and they're very clear everybody understands what the goal is and and everybody understands what they're working toward You do see in this situation oftentimes increased motivation and productivity People get into a rhythm. They get to do the same thing over and over again. They become better at it So it becomes more productive that motivation comes in that the idea of a reward You know a bonus or whatever if you get to the certain level it can increase the motivation and productivity of a team then There's a very clear chain of command the leaders setting things things out in transactional leadership and the leader is the one who has the Ability to offer awards and end a lot of punishment as needed. So there's a very clear chain of command though And potentially the members could choose their awards. Oftentimes, you know what companies will say, well, you know What would you like as a reward here? Let's what should we work toward? Let's identify something that we can that would be appealing to people that we can work towards so You can maybe even choose those rewards On the negative side on the on the cotton side, you have minimal innovation and creativity There's not a whole lot going on here again the idea status quo It's doing the same thing and doing it efficiently and and doing it better But not not a lot of innovation or creativity going on There's a low degree of empathy. It's either you got it or you didn't you hit that mark or you didn't There's not a lot of well, this is why and let me show you some I understand So let's give you that reward. Anyway, no, it's either did you hit that number or did you not hit that number? So to speak, right? So there's a low degree of empathy in in the style a lot of times And there's limited development of leaders within the team This type of thing again doesn't really lend itself to people learning how to lead They learn how to do their thing over and over again in the best way possible They don't learn how to lead. They don't learn how to excuse me grow in the organization And those types of things so there really is a limited development of leadership within the team You don't see a lot of growth from within the organization within the team Finally you have what's called transformational leadership Where the leader essentially says Try and see this with me see it with me envision this with me They set that vision and ask people to come along with them So in transformational leadership again the leader casts the vision they identify vision They set that goal they identify the mission Then they encourage and empower the team in an effort to help them achieve that mission and that vision The leader also serves as a role model though. That's an important aspect of transformational leadership That the leader Not only sets that vision, but they You know set the standard for how to achieve it. They are a role model They demonstrate the behaviors that are needed to do it and they they model those for their employees and they You know, so they they're not just talking the talk. They're walking the walk as well in transformational leadership positive negatives here It's high on high value on mission or an on vision That place is a really high value on mission which can be Really effective and really inspiring for for team members It does tend to lead to high morale People are excited to be involved with this type of leader if if I mean if they stay with it Then they're they're there because it's a cause they believe in a product They believe in a mission that they believe in and so morale tends to be high when you're working with a transformational leader It does tend to lead to lower turnover Again, the people who aren't interested will leave but those who are will stay and they will stay For a long time. They will they will you know be better retained than with some of these other leadership styles It does place an emphasis on and on relationships and values relationships within the organization it emphasizes the idea of of connecting with those people and and So it does value relationships in that regard and then it emphasizes Motivation and inspiration It's really a transformational leader relies on motivation and inspiration and they provide those things to their Their team members so that those folks will then help them pursue the vision On the con side, you have the potential for deception by the leader Right potential for deception transformational leaders Pull people in with charisma and they deceive them sometimes not all the time, but sometimes, you know You see this and cult leaders and other other people like that that we're they're they're leading them But they're deceiving them at the same time It does require regular motivation and feedback. It's a constant As a leader you constantly have to be pouring into them and providing that motivation and providing that feedback And so that you can see the team grow and change and improve And it does depend on the buy-in from members. You have to have the buy-in of the group You can't transformational leader Isn't much of a leader if they don't have anybody following them So you have to have those people that buy into that vision and that mission and then follow along with them And protocol and regulations can be undefined here as well Again, not not very clear channels of or a clear idea of what the guardrails are and who's in charge of what necessarily and It tends to be a little more fluid Which it can work well for some people in organizations, but for other folks that that's going to be something that's difficult to navigate So again, as I mentioned in a previous video, I hope that you're understanding that It's not just any one of these leadership styles really that's important, but it's all of them. It's it's you know How can we pull the best out of all these in my opinion the best out of all these to for that situation? And and to become the most effective and appropriate leader that we can in that context Because leadership really does pull on a lot of different things. It's not just any one thing leadership is draws on and depends on a variety of different things for effectiveness, so Um, so we should do the same thing and pull from these as we can and understand them so that we can pull from them as we can and as we need If you have questions about communication and leadership, please feel free to email me and be happy to chat with you I'm there and in the meantime, I hope that you will really Think about and reflect on these different styles of leadership And which one might work for you the most and then how you can pull from the others to really round out your own leadership ability