Think you’re simply an employee at work? Whether you care to admit or deny it, you’re never just an ordinary staff -you have been a leader at some point in your career! You would have taken on leadership roles by either leading a project, a meeting, a team or even an entire department.

An American football coach Vincent Lombardi once said: no one is born a leader. However, with the right process of education, training, and experience over time- he also said that one can be made a leader. After all, leadership learning is a lifelong activity.

There Are At Least Eight Different Styles of Leadership – Which One Is Yours?

The leader which you choose to be can be advantageous or detrimental to your company’s outlook. To achieve a better understanding of how your actions may have impacted your staffs or your colleagues’ behavior towards you – take a look at some of these leadership styles and see which ones you identify very well with:

1. Most Effective – Transformational Leadership

Are you constantly pushing yourself to go beyond your comfort zone? Always aiming to achieve higher goals and greater results under challenging deadlines? Then you are a transformational leader, a highly desired one among growth-minded companies. For successful implementation of this style, you should surround yourself with more detail-orientated managers.

2. Very Effective: Democratic Leadership

As a democratic leader, you make the effort to ask your team members for feedback and suggestions before locking down any decisions. You treasure each voice and let them know their contributions matter. Such leadership style fosters high levels of employee engagement and workplace satisfaction! This style will be excellent for companies that thrive on creativity and innovation namely the technology industry.

3. Highly Effective: Laissez-faire Leadership

Derived from a French term that means “let them do”, you empower your employees with authority to make the decisions. You implement a “hands-off” approach by providing little to no supervision. This leadership works its magic if the team members are highly experienced, well-trained and require less oversight. The only setback is a downfall in productivity should the employee’s expectations towards the assigned tasks are not in check.

4. Quite Effective: Transactional Leadership

Also known to be the pacesetter, you reward your staff when their performances meet your expectations and objectives set. A transactional leader often formulates incentive plans that motivate you to quickly fulfill the job demands, and establish responsibilities that are most suited to you. A clear example can be getting rewarded for achieving your specific key performance index (KPI) earlier than the timeline given.

5. Commonly Effective: Strategic Leadership

You possess the capacity to express a strategic vision for your organisation to follow and you persuade that vision with all the right strategies and tools that you can get your hands on! Under this commonly effective leadership style, you are adept at forming the “A” team – a team of well-equipped and well-trained to deal with unforeseen circumstances, threats, and risks. If you are a strategic leader- you will be exemplified for cultivating a high performing environment!

6. Sometimes Effective: Bureaucratic Leadership

As a bureaucratic leader – you expect your team to fall in line and follow every rule, instruction, and procedures imposed. The emphasis is on fixed duties within the hierarchy and you have little care for collaboration or creativity. Nonetheless, this leadership is useful for highly regulated departments such as healthcare, administration or finance.

7. Rarely Effective: Autocratic Leadership

The opposite of democratic leadership – you make decisions without seeking anyone’s opinion. You do not consider your employees’ feedback and you conquer with an iron fist. You expect your staff to accept your decisions, regardless of how irrelevant they can be. This style is extremely unfavorable as it can produce high turnover and work absenteeism.

8. Not Very Effective: Charismatic Leadership

Noticed that your staff looks up to your charisma and way of thinking? By practicing this leadership, you have the confidence and ability to build a powerful positioning and brand image which attracts a large number of fan-following. However, you might be focusing too much on your personality that you exhibit instead of the results. Be careful as your success or failure relies heavily on just, you. Would your charm be enough?

Any of them rings a bell? In truth, there is no leadership style deemed to be right or wrong – you can apply each of them according to different case scenarios. By familiarising yourself with styles that resonate with your personality type, you may even recognise certain areas that you can improve or expand on.

Even better, you can “mix-and-match” different leadership styles that are relevant and can better serve your existing goals! Just remember to choose wisely.

Keen to gain more information like this? Watch out for new articles posted every week here.

Concept and moderated by : Rizky Anggara

Written by : Michell.Lee

Design by : Risky Ramanda