How to Pick the Right Leadership Style for the Situation?

Posted on July 13, 2017 by Al Robinette, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Winston Churchill was a great leader and so was Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela – they were all exemplary leaders. However, except for the fact that they all commanded great respect, you will find very few similarities between them.

All of them had a different leadership style, but were seen as great leaders. The reason behind their success is the fact that they adopted a style which not only suited their specific situation, but also aligned with their challenges and goals. The lesson to take from these leaders is that there are many ways to lead, and you need to find one that works best for your situation.

Many scholars and leaders have attempted to categorize the different leadership styles. In order to understand which style you should pick, it’s imperative to know and understand these styles. Here’s a brief guide on the different leadership styles and how to pick the right style for your situation.

Kurt Lewin’s Leadership Styles
According to the renowned psychologist Kurt Lewin, there are three types of leaders: Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez-faire. Autocratic leaders enjoy full autonomy and do not consider the opinions/expertise of others. Democratic leaders encourage members of a group to take a more participative role in the decision making process. Laissez-faire leaders empower employees and subordinates to take decisions related to their own tasks, providing support and advice where needed.

Blake-Mouton Leadership
Thirty years after Lewin, management theorists Robert Blake and Jane Mouton published a model that categorized leaders into ‘people-oriented’ or ‘task-oriented’. People oriented leaders focus on supporting and empowering members of their team to ensure that they remain motivated. Task-oriented leaders focus on concrete goals and objectives.

Blake and Mouton created a grid with four quadrants depending on how people-oriented or task-oriented a leader is, since it is impossible to put a leader solely in one category.

Path Goal Theory
This theory brought forth the idea of choosing a leadership style based on the needs of the people involved and the task/job at hand. According to the Path-Goal model, there are four types of approaches a leader can choose from: Supportive, Directive, Participative and Achievement-Oriented.

Supportive leadership works best when the task is very stressful and the team needs additional support. Directive Leadership is suitable for large organizations or when working with new team members as they need clear instructions and orders. Participative leadership allows leaders to closely work with the team and is suitable for managing complex tasks. Achievement-oriented leadership includes setting clear goals for the team in order to improve their performance and overall motivation.

Emotional Leadership Styles
One of the most recent theories include the Six Emotional styles as defined in the book ‘Primal Leadership.’ According to this theory, the way a leadership style impacts emotions can determine its suitability for different situations. The theory describes six styles: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and Commanding. The first four styles are positive and empowering while the last two can prove to be counter-productive.
There are many other leadership styles such as transformational and transactional leadership. These styles focus on the traits a leader should possess in order to improve his/her overall approach and strategy.

Who Should You Be?
While Laissez-faire sounds like a positive approach and results in higher employee satisfaction, it can lead to mismanagement if team members aren’t self-motivated. In case of Democratic leadership, the decision making process can become unnecessarily longer and may not yield the best outcomes, especially if you need an immediate solution. Similarly, different leadership styles have their own set of pros and cons, making it difficult to prefer one style over the other.

You should aim to be a leader who is able to take a fluid approach and cultivate traits that enable you to make a decision based on the situation. A leader should be a critical thinker as well as an emotionally intelligent person in order to make the best possible decision in the given situation.