What Are The 7 Leadership Styles

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Leadership styles have been a hot topic for decades. However, many people still confuse leadership with management, which is unfortunate because they're not the same thing. Leaders are responsible for setting the tone and vision of their organizations while managers are mainly focused on getting things done. In this article, we're going to explore seven different leadership styles that can help you become more effective as both an individual contributor and team leader: authoritarian, coaching, laissez faire, democratic/participative, pace-setting/high drive (also called autocratic), facilitative, transactional and transformational.

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Authoritarian leadership is a style that can be ruthless, intimidating and dictatorial. It is a top-down approach that is characterized by the leader’s high level of control over their employees. This style stems from an authoritative parent who expects compliance from their child – this type of parenting can lead to an autocratic style of leadership in adulthood.

This leadership style generally results in:

Low morale among staff members who feel disempowered and are unable to contribute ideas or take initiative
Lack of communication between manager and subordinates; poor interpersonal relationships within teams
Disengaged employees because they do not understand what success looks like

Coaching is a style of leadership in which the leader's main focus is on developing the skills and abilities of the team members.

The coaching leader is concerned with helping people grow, so that they can reach their full potential.

Coaching leaders set aside time to work with individual team members one-on-one, giving them feedback on how they are doing and helping them enhance their skills through practice.

They strive to create an environment where people feel safe taking risks because they know there will be support from their coach whenever things don't go as planned.

The coaching style tends to emphasize individual development over group performance, so it can be less effective when trying to improve productivity or achieve specific goals within a limited period of time (such as achieving quarterly sales targets).

Facilitative leadership is the style that is based on the needs and wants of the followers. This type of leader will focus more on group harmony, unity, cooperation and consensus which means they want everyone to be happy. This can be a good style if you are working in a small team where everyone knows each other well because it allows everyone to have their say and makes sure that each person feels valued.

However, facilitative leaders may find it hard to make decisions due to resistance from others who have different opinions than them. It’s also not ideal for large teams or when there are multiple stakeholders involved as you need someone who isn’t afraid to make firm decisions even if they go against what others think or want in order to achieve results quickly without getting bogged down by disagreements among team members/stakeholders etc.

Laissez-faire leadership style may be one of the most common leadership styles. This is because it requires very little effort from the leader—the leader does not participate in day-to-day operations and delegates authority and responsibility to others, which can potentially free up time to focus on other aspects of the organization. A laissez-faire leader is not involved in decision making, implementation or evaluation. In fact, they may even avoid taking action until they are forced to step in.

Democratic leadership is a style in which team members are permitted to express their own opinions and encouraged to participate in decision making. Team members are also empowered to make decisions on their own, rather than having to wait for approval from leaders or managers.

This form of leadership allows each individual on your team the opportunity to contribute ideas that can help shape the direction of your organization or business. This can result in greater efficiency as well as increased morale because individuals feel like they have a voice in the company’s future.

Pace-setting leadership is the style of leadership that sets the pace for their team and their organization. They have high standards and expect everyone, including themselves, to keep up. They are not afraid to take risks and make decisions quickly. They also motivate their teams through providing encouragement and praise for a job well done as well as corrective feedback when needed.

Benefits of this leadership style include: being able to accomplish more tasks in a shorter period of time with fewer resources; setting goals that are achievable by all members on your team; building trust within your group; creating greater accountability between yourself and your colleagues/employees.

Transactional leadership is a type of leadership in which the leader and the follower exchange rewards and punishments. This can be seen as a win-lose situation where both sides are trying to gain more than they give up. The leader gives rewards to those who perform well, while punishing those who do not perform well.

The transactional style of leadership is based on the idea that people are fundamentally selfish and driven by self-interests (i.e., paid for performance). Therefore, in order for a manager to get anything done from his/her employees he/she must reward them when they do something good or punish them when they don’t do something good.

This type of leadership has some advantages such as being clear about what is expected from employees so there will be less confusion among employees about what exactly needs to be done at work but it may also cause resentment towards managers if those individuals don’t receive any recognition for their efforts.

There are 7 main leadership styles

Authoritarian
Coaching
Laissez faire (i.e., hands off)
Facilitative
Democratic (i.e., consensus-building)
Pace setting (i.e., leading by example)
Transactional (i.e., reciprocity)

We’ve looked at 7 different types of leadership styles, from authoritarian to democratic and everything in between. Each style has its strengths and weaknesses, and as you can see from the examples above, there are many different ways to lead a team effectively—or not! Keep these tactics in mind next time you find yourself in charge of a group project or a new business vent.