When you get your small business team together, you’ll find that you need to have great leadership skills.
However, you may be thinking of the great leaders of the past and that you are definitely not one of them.
This is patently untrue. While genius may be something you’re born with, greatness isn’t.
You too can be a great leader. But what type of leader are you?
Let’s look at 3 leadership styles and their advantages and disadvantages.
#1 Autocratic
You are the ruler of North Korea. You say, they do. In this highly unrecommended leadership style, you desire no input from your employees at all.
You make the decisions, and they follow your directions to a ‘T’.
The advantage of this leadership style is that it will be useful for employees who require lots of close supervision. (Although this often means that employee is untrustworthy and probably shouldn’t have been hired in the first place.)
The disadvantages is that you are killing your workers’ creativity. They need their manager to lead, not dictate, this will not only make them robots, but also kill their motivation and desire to work.
#2 Transactional
Transactional leaders work by first creating goals for each employee with the employee. Then, the employee is either rewarded for reaching the goal or punished in some way or form for falling short.
The advantage of this leadership style is that the employee is working on the goal with you. That means they have some input and motivation. They also get rewarded (often in the form of bonuses) for a job well done.
The disadvantage is that there is a punishment associated with this style. Beyond that, all the accountable will be with the employee, rather than at other important factors (such as inadequate support).
#3 Participative
This is a wonderfully recommended, balanced leadership style that is built on democratic principles. In this style, the input of the employees is valued, although you, the manager, will still make the final decision.
The advantages here are plenty. First of all, this will help support employee input and boost the morale in the office.
Furthermore, as they make recommendations and share ideas, they begin to believe in the company and the effectiveness of their ideas.
Lastly, this style is particularly great for leading employees through big changes in the company.
The disadvantages are few and far in-between. The only possible cases would be for those unenviable employees that require really close supervision or the ones that don’t want any supervision at all.
What is your leadership style?
The leadership style that should be most effective is the one that is most balanced—participative. However, leadership styles are associated often with your personality.
Therefore, you should choose the leadership style that best suits how you think and act. That way, it will be more natural and effective.
