The Most Common Leadership Styles

 

Francisco Faraco - Founder & Managing Partner at Faraco Partners, LLC

What is leadership? Leadership is the art of influencing others in such a way that they start following the orders of the leaders willingly. All the leaders in the world believe in different styles of leadership. There are multiple styles of leadership out there but all the managers follow different leadership styles. They decide the type of leadership based on a number of different factors. Most of the leaders choose a random style of leadership or follow a leadership style they have experienced in the past. There are multiple leadership styles to choose from.

The leaders can choose the style of leadership that best fits their company. The leaders have to perform a number of different roles at the company. They have to perform interpersonal roles. They have to play a variety of roles under different circumstances in the company. Sometimes the leaders have to play the role of figureheads (people who represent a company or family). Sometimes the manager has to play the role of a supervisor, sometimes he needs to act as a bridge between the departments. The leaders or managers connect the departments, they act as a bridge between departments to connect the employees of different departments. As mentioned earlier, leader/managers follow different styles of leadership. Here are the most common styles of leadership.

1) Autocratic Leadership

Autocratic leadership is one of the most common styles of leadership. It is the style of leadership with centralized management. In this style of leadership, all the power will be in the hand of one person who does not like to delegate the power to his subordinates. The person here is the leader. Delegation is basically passing down the authority from a higher level of the hierarchy to lower one. The subordinate has been given the authority but the ultimate decision-making power is still with the manager. Delegation is also known as empowerment.

2) Democratic Leadership

Democratic leadership is a decentralized management structure. Decentralization stands for delegation. Democratic leaders have a participative style of management. They lead the company and let the subordinates take part in the decisions of the business. They believe in passing down the authority to the employees or subordinates.

3) Free Rein

It is the rarest type of leadership style. The leaders in this style let the workers do what they want to do. The workers are granted maximum freedom in the workplace.