 You've ever taken one of those online quizzes to find out, you know, which Harry Potter character or you or Which cast member of the office would you be those types of things? We can kind of do the same thing with Leadership what kind of leader are you and there's some online quizzes and things, but but really it's more just of a self-examination What kind of leader are you what kind of leader do you want to be? Those are the kinds of questions we ask when we get into things about leadership styles and discovering You know, what's our particular leadership style and what's the leadership style needed for the group that we're leading? So let's take a look at some of the different kinds of leadership styles that we that we that we have that we've That we recognize here So first of all you have what we call an authoritarian leader, which is somebody that says I am in charge They're clearly in charge and sometimes this is necessary the authoritarian leadership It kind of has a bad rap but a bad rep but really sometimes it's necessary Not always but sometimes it could be necessary but then authoritarian leaders as I'm in charge So authoritarian leadership basically it's a traditional top-down hierarchy It's where somebody's in charge at the top and everybody else kind of falls in somewhere below them in the in the structural Hierarchy of the of the system there one person is defining the objectives and issuing the marching orders telling everybody what to do And and where we're headed this is really kind of an efficient leadership style when it comes to time So if you if you are under a very strict deadline and you need something done break You got to get something done very quickly than an authoritarian leadership style can't be very effective Because it's quickened in making decision. It provides very clear guardrails People know what they're doing and when they're doing it and those types of things it provides those very clear Guidelines and guardrails for people. So there are advantages in fact Let's take a look at some of the different pros and cons of authoritarian leadership We'll do this with all the different styles But so some of the positives for authoritarian leadership are that it's efficient decision making because you have one person making the decision So it's a very top-down very efficient decision-making It's very defined chain of command. There's no question about who reports to whom who's in charge and what them what the The chain of command is there. So it's very clear in that regard Your task assignments are very clear and it also creates very consistent results We get the same thing kind of over time because you have the same people doing the same things and and you get that repetition and that Efficiency in that so you get very clear and consistent results The the negatives the potential negatives with authoritarian leadership system or style are that followers may resist or revolt They may not be interested in being led like that It does stifle creativity and innovation does not invite People to be creative and come up with different ways to do things You want you to do the same thing the same way every time it limits group input doesn't provide a lot of opportunity for people to Speak up and to have buy in there And so you're probably gonna get more turnover as a result People kind of chafe at that after a while people people aren't comfortable with that a lot of people aren't so you're gonna probably See higher turnover with authoritarian leadership style than you will other types of leadership styles so So we have positives negatives you got to weigh that out against what your goals are and what's necessary for that situation but But there you have authoritarian leadership another style of leadership that we could look at is called Participative leadership participative or participative leadership which basically says I want to hear from you the leader saying I want I want to hear you know Let's get everybody involved Let's have a group discussion those types of things so I'm participating participative leadership It's semi-democratic so you still the leader making the decisions, but really they're saying I want input. Let's talk about this Let's let's bounce ideas around Now in the end the leader typically has the final say But they are also intentional about including others. So that's what we say. It's semi-democratic You're getting it. You're getting some input. You're getting some say But in the end the leadership is gonna have the final say But this can be engaging and motivating for a team to even hear I feel like they are heard Have their voices heard can be engaging and can motivate people on that team However, it can also be potentially time-consuming because you're taking the time to involve everybody and And get everybody's input and can't let everybody have a say It takes more time so it can be very time-consuming to do that So it's positives and negatives about participative leadership You have on the plus side you have higher team motivation and satisfaction people are more involved they're engaged They're they're more satisfied with that that team experience usually it encourages creativity It encourages people to be creative and be innovative in the way that they do things It can increase team cohesion because you're getting to know everybody you're getting Everybody having a say in what's going on and and so that's good And you get that diversity of viewpoints, which is important for you know in group discussions That's one of the advantages of being a part of a group being part of a team is that you get that Diverse viewpoints different ways of viewing things And so you want to take advantage of that in participative leadership by by you know Getting that diversity of viewpoints and having them all be heard now on the downside downside We've touched on a couple of these but it's more time-consuming decisions take longer to reach All right The channels are less defined the communication channels are less defined It's a little more murky compared to like an authoritative chain of command. It's not as clear You have the weakest link effect in which means basically that you're you're relying on Everybody in the group to participate and if they don't you're you're only going to be as strong as your weakest link in other words And the idea that more transparency in group discussions and those types of things means less informational security So the more people that know something the more likelihood or the more opportunity there is for That information to be less secure. All right So when you have more transparency in a group you have the the possibility of a less group security less information security So he had positives negatives for participative leadership as well Next we can talk about a delegative leadership as a style which basically says i'm trusting you with this Leaders handing things off to other people and and so you have the leader delegating the different tasks To that group and to those group members So in delegative leadership the leader hands out the assignments the leader's still in charge But they're handing out those assignments to others This allows the leader to take advantage of experience and competent team members So when you have people who know what they're doing you can just kind of hand something off to them and say you look You know how to do this so go do it and you know how to do it Well, you have a lot of experience or or you know expertise in this area You go do it and so it takes advantage of that in the team members takes advantage of that experience and the expertise Now it can lead to work silos though people get protective over you know, no this was given to me It's my project. I don't want anybody else involved in it can create A situation where one person doesn't know what the rest of the group is doing Everybody's just kind of doing their own thing and and they they're in that silo and they're not seeing The bigger picture. They're not seeing what everybody else is doing as well So some positives and negatives to delegative leadership It does leverage as we said that experience that competence that that expertise It takes advantage of that in a positive way it encourages innovation and creativity again in delegative leadership And it can be individually satisfying it can be very satisfying for individuals because they have the opportunity to Really take something on as their own and to be in charge of that project. So so it can be Very satisfying for them individually However, you can't have difficulty with the system adapting to change when things change or things, you know Because people are kind of they get territorial and that can lead to that difficulty in changing They don't want to give up what they're doing. They're not familiar with what everybody else is doing So when you have something that changes or is different, it can be difficult for a team to To pivot and to to evolve as needed and prioritization may not be clear to the entire team Everybody, you know Inherently thinks that their task is the most important and their part of the project is the most important And so it may not be clear to them what takes priority What's going to get the most resources and why they're part of it may not be getting as many resources That prioritization may not be clear to the team because they don't have that full picture Another type of style we can look at is called transactional leadership And this is what we would call the carrot and the stick model Right where you have the carrot and the stick so rewards versus punishments so to speak right So the transactional leadership the leader has the ability to reward and or punish Usually they have the ability to do both right to reward and punish But at least have the ability to do one of those or the other The leader sets goals and the team understands the consequences So the leader is setting out the tasks setting out the vision setting out those goals And the team understands that if they achieve those things then it'll go well And if they don't then they're going to you know, maybe be some consequence some negative consequences to that So they're setting the leader setting those goals and then helping the team understand What the consequences are or the or the you know positive or negative consequences are for that A focus is on maintaining the status quo in this situation Right when you have transactional leadership, you're just trying to keep things going as they are Trying to keep things moving forward in the same way that they have so you're trying to maintain that status quo So positive and negatives here we can see The positives are that the goals are set and understood those are made clear to both the leader and the team You get increased motivation and productivity maybe surrounding that because they understand they've driven toward those goals You have a clear chain of command the again the like authoritarian a state of leadership You know who's in charge and who's responsible for what and there's a clear chain of command there And members can potentially choose the reward so you can give them the opportunity to say look This is what you're working toward right? This is why you want to succeed at this and and they can maybe have some say in what their reward is then On the downside you have minimal innovation and creativity. You're just trying to keep the same thing going There's not a lot of opportunity for people to be innovative and creative There's kind of a low degree of empathy between the leader and anybody else that's either He did it or he didn't and there's not much empathy usually within that system And there's a limited development of leaders within the team then so you're not really focusing on developing people as leaders You're focusing on getting them to do their job the best they can but you're not really developing then internally those leaders to the next generation so to speak And next we have transformational leadership where we say you have a leader that says see this with me see it with me In transformational leadership the leader casts the vision They set out what you're moving toward they cast that vision and then they encourage and empower the team And and really tool to give the team the tools that they need to to reach that vision and to help Accomplish achieving that vision right the leader should serve as a role model The leader has to be at the front of things you know leading the way they can't just you know start shouting out orders They've got to be the one you know get their hands dirty with the team After they cast that vision they're helping row the boat so to speak to get you there Positiveness and negatives to transformational leadership You do have a high morale in transformational leadership people really enjoy you have a low turnover Because people who are there tend to want to be there so they stay and you get a lower amount of turnover and transformational leadership It really values relationships and puts people as a priority So the people involved in that and involved in that group are going to be a priority values those relationships It places an emphasis on motivation and inspiration And so the leader is focused on those things motivation and inspiration which is positive them On the downside, there's a potential for deception by the leader You see this in cults for example a lot of times are transformational leadership In cults there's potential that they're just lying to you and misleading you so there is that potential It does require regular motivation and feedback So that can be time consuming for a leader requires them to be in there providing that regular motivation and feedback It also depends on buy-in it depends on the people The group members to buy into what the leadership is selling what the leader is selling there. So So that can be an added challenge So as you've seen, you know along the way with leadership There are many ways to get to the same place. None of these leadership styles are inherently bad It depends on you and your leadership style and what the team needs at the time and whether those match up well So I encourage you to spend some time examining your own leadership style And to really understand that to see how it might fit best in different groups But we can see that leadership comes from a variety of different places and Shows itself in a variety of different places can be Employed and enacted in a variety of different different ways for leadership takes on many different forms and many different styles If you have questions about any of these different leadership styles, please don't hesitate to email I'd love to talk to you there and chat more about this in that way So please send me an email and we can discuss that further in in the meantime I hope this gives you a better understanding of just some of the basic leadership styles and some insight into What your own leadership style may be and how you might be able to use that most effectively