Successful business depends on effective leadership. Guiding an individual, team, or enterprise organization requires intentional decision-making, clear communication, and the ability to motivate and guide. And while the idea of a “born leader” is attractive, most effective leaders learn and grow their way into the role, which is good news for organizations on the lookout for future leaders. With time, training, skill development, practice, and experience, leadership skills can be honed.

The first step on the path to effective leadership is identifying an individual’s particular style. There are several styles of leadership, and the most effective depends on your company’s mission, individual leaders, team goals, and how your employees respond to each leadership style.

What makes a good leader?

Poor leadership alienates employees, disrupts your workplace, and threatens retention. What are the hallmarks of good leadership?

Good leaders:

• Support your company’s direction. Good leaders understand the vision and goals of your organization, and they reinforce those messages with their colleagues and team members. They align their own behavior and interactions with your company’s mission and create environments in which others are inspired to do the same.

• Know how to motivate their teams. Some teams are motivated by rewards and incentives, some by recognition or other benefits; a leader who knows their team will know what works best for a particular person or group and use their knowledge to create opportunities for success.

• Help unify team members. Clear expectations and direction will bring employees together around a common goal. Good leaders focus on open, authentic communication, clarity, and transparency to keep everyone well-informed and on the same page.

• Encourage retention. Positive leadership engages workers and helps them accomplish their goals. Working together as a team to both set and achieve goals boosts morale and keeps employees engaged and invested, which makes them less likely to seek employment elsewhere.

• Model dedication and responsibility. Employees are more motivated when they know they aren’t the only ones working hard to achieve company goals. An effective leader demonstrates dedication, open mindedness, and willingness to work together as keys to workplace achievement.

Leadership styles

There are several styles of leadership, some more effective than others — and some more effective in certain settings. Understanding leadership styles is the first step to learning to lead effectively. Leadership styles include:

• Democratic leadership. Decisions are based on input from all team members; everyone has a voice in the direction of the project or business. The democratic style is among the most effective because it allows team members to practice the art of self-expression by providing input and sharing ideas, which is how future leaders get their start.

• Autocratic leadership. The polar opposite of the democratic style, autocratic leaders make decisions without inviting or hearing input from anyone. While these leaders move quickly and give clear direction for employees to follow, autocratic leadership no longer works well for day-to-day management, though it can be effective in a crisis. Worker expectations have changed; employees want to be respected and heard, and they’re more likely to move on when they feel undervalued.

• Transactional leadership. The transactional style is performance-based. It rewards employees for the actual work they do. A scheduled reward for meeting a particular goal is transactional. Transactional leadership can be effective in some situations. It establishes specific roles and responsibilities and specific rewards that can be relied on to appear when standards are met. This is a common style today, but transactional leaders run the risk of encouraging a bare-minimum attitude from employees who decline to devote energy to work without any prospect for reward. These employees aren’t typically inclined to go “above and beyond.”

• Laissez-faire leadership. This is the least intrusive style. Laissez-faire leaders transfer nearly all their authority and responsibility to their employees. It is sometimes effective for empowering employees and creating a culture of autonomy and trust, but laissez-faire leadership relies on skilled and motivated employees to devote themselves to team goals and the company’s mission with little, if any, direction. Laissez-faire leaders must be clear about roles, responsibilities, and objectives, as their leadership style can lead to inefficiency if employees lack a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

• Transformational leadership. These leaders are focused on improvement, overcoming conventions, and guiding employees to move outside their comfort zones. Transformational is an effective leadership style for growth-minded companies. It motivates employees to challenge their limits, innovate, and focus on new accomplishments. Provide employees access to training and development resources when transformational leaders assign new goals and responsibilities.

• Strategic leadership. This style functions at the intersection of operations and opportunity. Strategic leaders manage organizational goals while maintaining a focus on the quality of employee experience. Effective in many types of organization, strategic leadership supports employees at all levels to balance their needs with your company’s bottom line — an ever-changing dynamic.

Despite this formal delineation of leadership styles, most leaders don’t fall, or remain, within one specific category. Leadership is a fluid set of skills and behaviors, and an ability to recognize the most effective style for each situation, and shift course to align with context, is another mark of good leadership.

To learn more about developing and applying effective leadership styles, reach out to us at Fitch Consulting.