Leadership styles

Leadership is defined as the ability to lead and motivate people to achieve a desired goal. Leaders with great people management skills are needed in all organization. Here are some of the effective leadership styles

• Participative Leadership: In this leadership style, opinions are sought from all the team members. The team members get better job satisfaction and get an opportunity to develop their leadership skills. The process take a longer time as compared to other effective leadership styles but the outcome is relative better and satisfactory. This kind of leadership style makes every employee feel appreciated and be in control and always keeps them highly motivated. However it is important to remember in this leadership the leader makes the final decision. This kind of leadership style is suitable when high levels of quality is needed.

• Relations oriented leadership: The leader lays special emphasis on organizing, supporting and enhancing the people in teh team. The most important point being creative collaboration and excellent teamwork.

• Transformation Leadership: This is one of the top notch leadership style. In this style of leadership the leader consistently inspires the team with a shared vision. The stress is on the value enhancing initiatives.

• Charismatic leadership: The charisma of the leader is the driving force which inspires all the team members to deliver above par performance. The leader is universally respected and admired. Charismatic leaders invoke the trust of their followers.

• Autocratic leader: Here the leader wields absolute power and does not listen to his subordinates. This style is suitable for unskilled jobs or fighting wars. The advantage of this leadership style is a greater degree of control as compared to other effective leadership styles. However this style is resented by employees particularly in the corporate sector. It lowers the self-esteem and the morale of the team members, hence it can be counter-productive at times.

Note: The ideal leader must have to use a combination of various effective leadership styles to achieve the desired objective.