A successful company emerges owing to significant contributions from the business leaders, senior executives and work forces. The relationship between them is interdependent on each other, people have to work in collaboration for a company to be successful.
According to Harvard Business Review Study titled, Leadership That Gets Results, Daniel Goleman draws on research of 3,000 middle-level managers to outline six different leadership styles, each springing from a component of emotional intelligence.
It is an undeniable truth that a manager needs a specific leadership style, even more styles to control and supervise the work performance of subordinates and colleagues. Why is a single skill not enough? At a time, employees might need an assertive order to accomplish the goals and chase the deadlines, however at another point in time, they might need a warm hug to subside the conflicts and feel motivated when workloads increase.
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It is important for a business leader to choose the leadership style that best suits the cultural fit to understand employee demands and lead by example. Here are six unique and distinctive leadership styles for HR professionals to know and implement accordingly:
1. The Coercive Leadership
This kind of leadership style demands absolute submission of the employees to the commander, ‘just do whatever the manager tells you to execute’. The coercive leadership style is suitable to be conducted in times of crisis, such as to deal with critical issues of importance like quake, emergies, mergers and acquisitions, unwarranted employee layoffs etc.
The coercive leadership is not suitable to be implemented during common case scenarios, as this typical order would shut down employees’ creativity and not call for initiating ideas that boosts performance and productivity.
Workloads and targets often lead an employee to a stagnate self development, and during the course of time productivity burnouts are a common occurrence with employees who work in a stagnated environment allowing no room for individual growth. This is unfair towards employees, especially when someone stops working on skill up gradation, then their capabilities and productivity remain stagnant.
A good manager should opt and follow a coaching leadership style, wherein opportunities are provided to talented individuals to upgrade their knowledge, learn new skills and progress in their careers. This leadership style promotes employee self development initiative and in turns maximize productivity levels as well.
This specific leadership style works much on emotional bonding between a leader and the workforce. Having sense of emotional bonding with employees can sometimes across as being unprofessional conduct at work. However, in certain cases, emotional support system at work helps employees to overcome problems, deal with personal challenges better and rebuilds trust with the company.
The affiliation leadership style is not meant to measure people’s work performance and productivity, as emotional touch is not required to achieve goals.
The kind of leadership is critically needed when the team work needs enthusiasm, motivation or sometimes a new perspective on a project. Inputs from an authoritative leader can bring about significant improvement in the workflow process and foster innovation in the project execution plan.
The leader might show off an attitude and effort to present a modelling figure, in order that the employees would imitate him in right manner. The pace setting leadership style is suitable to be implemented when you need a highly motivated team to set pace against change, stay abreast of the trends and hence achieve best performance and achievement. The leader hopes to be a role model to foster great team building spirit and efforts.
As the name implies, democratic leadership requires so much participation, inputs and suggestions from the colleagues to run a project. This kind of leadership can be implemented when fresh ideas and perspectives towards a program, it is not suitable to make critical decision that impacts progress and determine future growth of the company.
These leadership skills can be learnt, hone and trained by mature leaders and professionals who have a vision to be a part of the bigger dream, to manage a workforce and invest worthwhile for a successful secured future.
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