What are the different leadership styles? | Types of Leadership Styles to Use

There are as many models that seek to describe the various leadership styles as there are theories of leadership, ranging from the simple to the complex. But, keeping things straightforward, your challenge as a leader is essentially two-fold

• Achieve: In terms of getting the results you want, you must decide how much direction to give your team, or individuals within it and how much control you must exercise over their actions.
• Engage: In relation to engaging with them, you will have to consider how much to involve them in the decision-making process and how much autonomy or freedom to give them in the completion of their duties.

Obviously, if you exercise high levels of direction and control, you reduce the involvement and autonomy of your employees, so it is always a juggling act and the specific approach you take will be influenced by many factors. (leadership styles)

Using these four elements – direction, control, involvement and autonomy – a simple model of leadership styles can be developed:

These are not rigid styles that you jump in and out of, but rather a form of continuum across which you smoothly move back and forth depending upon what is required. Notice also that there is another dimension that impacts on the leadership style you adopt, namely the levels of trust and respect between you and your team. As trust and respect grows, the nature of your approach should naturally change.

The three broad styles in the model can be described as follows:

• Steering style: This indicates that you take a direct and active role in guiding the actions of your team, or individual members within it. In doing so, you seek to exercise high direction and control over what they do, which naturally means they have low levels of involvement and autonomy at that time. In applying this style of leadership, it is important that you do not confuse it with being aggressive, because aggression is not a style of leadership in any case, nor does it deliver the best results over the long term. However,
• you may be firm and assertive if that is what is required. The steering style essentially means that you are more achievement-focused (getting things done) and less concerned with the needs of the team at that particular point in time; you steer their actions in the direction you want them to go, because that is what is called for. It is an essential style, where decisions have to be made quickly, or where a change has to be implemented that is beyond your control and not open to debate. It could also be the approach adopted when a team-member steps out of line. There are many occasions when you may apply this style and, once it is not accompanied by aggressive behaviours, it is perfectly acceptable. (leadership styles)
• Engaging style: Here you loosen the reins a little and increase the involvement and / or autonomy of your team because you feel that is what is called for. This may mean including them in the decision making process, or allowing them to propose solutions to given problems. It might involve different levels of engagement: for example, on some occasions, it might simply involve explaining decisions already made to your team – you may not be in a position or willing to alter the decision, but at least you are prepared to listen to their concerns; on other occasions, you consult with your team about decisions to be made, or allow them relatively high levels of autonomy in their actions. You always remain in control, but you are more people-focused using this style.
• This style is beneficial when you want to harness the input of your team, or particular individuals within it, and can be great for problem-solving and decision-making. (leadership styles)
• Facilitating style: This involves allowing the team or particular individuals very high levels of involvement and autonomy of action. In some ways, as the leader, you are almost defunct because the team is essentially self-managing; clearly, this is a style you could only ever use if you had a very high-performing team where there was strong mutual trust and respect. Using this style, you might define a problem for the team, explain broadly the outcome you expect but let them decide how to devise and implement a solution. You know from experience that they are capable of making the right decisions and that, should problems arise, they will come to you for guidance.

In seeking to determine which style you should use, there is no step – by step framework to guide you; a lot simply comes from experience. However, in any given day, you should be using a mix of styles – certainly, Steering and Engaging – depending upon the situation or people involved. Having the ability to apply the ‘right’ leadership style is another example of how leaders need to think as well as do.