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Leadership Styles Overview

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Leadership Styles Overview
Leadership Styles Overview
By Murray Johannsen
When developing your leadership skills, one must soon confront an important practical question, "What leadership styles work best for me and my organization?" To answer this question, it 's best to understand that there are many from which to choose and as part of your leadership development effort, you should consider developing as many leadership styles as possible.
Three Classic Leadership Styles
One dimension of has to do with control and one 's perception of how much control one should give to people. The laissez faire style implies low control, the autocratic style high control and the participative lies somewhere in between.
The Laissez Faire Leadership Style
The style is largely a "hands off" view that tends to minimize the amount of direction and face time required. Works well if you have highly trained and highly motivated direct reports.
The Autocratic Leadership Style
The autocratic style has its advocates, but it is falling out of favor in many countries. Some people have argued that the style is popular with today 's CEO 's, who have much in common with feudal lords in Medieval Europe.
The Participative Leadership Style
It 's hard to order and demand someone to be creative, perform as a team, solve complex problems, improve quality, and provide outstanding customer service. The participative style presents a happy medium between over controlling (micromanaging) and not being engaged and tends to be seen in organizations that must innovate to prosper.
Situational Leadership
Situational Leadership. In the 1950s, management theorists from Ohio State University and the University of Michigan published a series of studies to determine whether leaders should be more task or relationship (people) oriented. The importance of the research cannot be over estimated since leaders tend to have a dominant style; a leadership style they use in a wide variety of situations. Surprisingly, the research



References: Hofstede, Geert (1977). Culture and Organizations: Software of the Mind new York: McGraw-Hill. Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271-301 Newstrom, John W. & Davis, Keith (1993). Organizational Behavior: Human Behavior at Work. New York: McGraw-Hill. Schriesheim, Chester A. The Great High Consideration: High Initiating Structure Leadership Myth: Evidence on its Generalizability. The Journal of Social Psychology, April 1982, 116, pp. 221-228. Return Tannenbaum, R. & Schmidt, W. How to Choose a leadership Pattern. Harvard Business Review, May-June 1973, No. 73311 (originally published in March-April 1958 issue). U.S. Army Handbook (1973). Military Leadership.

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