5 leadership styles to boost performance

Introduction

What’s the difference between a manager and a leader? In most cases, the answer is simple: leadership skills.

A great manager can adapt to their team’s needs, utilise different styles to boost performance, and be an effective communicator with employees.

The value of a great manager is that they can adapt to their team’s needs and utilise different styles to boost performance.

The five styles of leadership are laissez-faire, autocratic, democratic, transactional, and transformational.

How does each leadership style boost performance?

Laissez-faire is a hands-off approach that is most effective when leading an intelligent and organised group of self-starters.

Under this leadership style, the manager simply lets the team get on with their work without interfering with their work or supervising their progress at all.

Autocratic is an authoritative approach that works best if there’s a tight deadline or a team requires strict supervision.

Decision-making power is held by a single leader, who makes every decision and announces them as orders to be followed.

Democratic: a shared style that encourages equal input. This style is most useful when you need to gather additional perspectives before making a final decision.

To encourage participation, a leader offers all options available, solicits opinions and feedback from team members and stakeholders, and evaluates options.

Transactional: a carrot-and-stick approach that works well when maintaining the status quo and completing a series of short-term tasks.

When executing transactional leadership, leaders may give orders and expect compliance.

When managers need employees to do routine work, transactional leadership works well.

Transformational: an emotionally-driven method where leaders act as visionaries.

This style excels when you need to encourage productivity, innovation, and team engagement.

Conclusion

So, which of these leadership styles is right for you? It depends on your team, goals, and situation. The key is to know yourself as a leader and to be able to adapt as necessary.

The key takeaways

The five styles of leadership are laissez-faire, autocratic, democratic, transactional, and transformational.

A great manager can adapt to their team’s needs and utilise different styles to boost performance.

The key is to know yourself as a leader and to be able to adapt as necessary.