Leadership Styles and Behaviors

By: Travis Sokana

Leadership Styles and Behaviors

Leadership styles and behaviors are a huge part to human resources and organizational structure and strategy. There are many different types of leadership styles and behaviors but to truly understand them we must first know what leadership is. “Leadership is defined as the use of power and influence to direct activities of followers toward goal achievement.” (450) The term leadership is derived from the word leader, which is when a person is able to display a high ability of control and influence over a group of people. Interestingly enough studies have proven that leadership isn’t a trait that one is born with. Rather studies have shown that certain traits are more predictive of leader emergence but not of how effective one will be as a leader. That being said everyone has the opportunity to step up as a leader by developing key skills and characteristics. There are several key characteristics that make up a good leader which include empathy, consistency, honesty, direction, communication, and flexibility. Obviously there are plenty more key characteristics but these are some of the most important ones.

           

Empathy – By being empathetic the teams knows you understand their concerns, and will be more likely to work with you then work against you.

Consistency – By being consistent leaders gain the respect and credibility from their peers.

Honesty – By being honest it helps in earning credibility. Honesty also helps personal growth and assessment when you’re honest with yourself.

Direction – By having direction it shows you are willing to step out of the comfort zone and aim or strive for something better. Setting goals and reaching them is important.

Communication – By using communication positively it can help keep everyone motivated and focused. Allowing you to give critical feed back all while keeping them from getting to down on themselves.

Flexibility – By being flexible it allows the opportunity for better results. Keeping an open mind and knowing when to extend deadlines and goals can be very beneficial.

Two well-known styles of leadership include task-oriented leaders and relationship oriented leaders. Both of these styles provide advantages and disadvantages. The success of leadership styles heavily depends on who and what the task at hand is. Both task-oriented and relationship oriented styles of leadership have sub styles of leadership within them.

Task-oriented leaders are exactly that. They are leaders that are mainly focused on reaching certain tasks and goals. These leaders focus on setting goals and deadlines in which they expect to reach them by. Task-oriented leaders tend to excel in environments in which job responsibilities and goals are easily defined. This style of management also makes it easy for measuring progress, insuring deadlines will be reached. Often when talking about task-oriented leadership styles the autocratic style comes up. Autocratic style is when the leader makes decisions without any input, opinions, or suggestions from the employees on the work unit, virtually making the alone. Such tactics are often non-beneficial. Not keeping employees in the loop or even merely asking for some input can really bring down employee moral. Unhappy employees are not ideal for being a leader.

Relationship leaders focus on keeping the group as whole happy and motivated. The logic being that the sum of the parts will drastically produce better results. This style of management is focused on “power” but rather employee satisfaction. Keeping work environment enjoyable, while still finding time to talk and give feedback. Theoretically relationship leadership styles make sense, keeping employees upbeat and positive about work will truly keep them motivated to preform their best at work. Similarly, consultative style presents the problem to individual employees or a group of employees, asking for their opinion and suggestions before ultimately making the decision. (455) Facilitative leadership would also fall in the sub category of relationship leader style. Facilitative style truly look to make everyone in the group happy, because it makes decisions based on what the group decides as a whole. Relationship leaders aren’t all good though. One negative of this style of leadership is it can be easily taken advantage of.

Combining task-oriented and relationship leadership styles truly are the most effective style of leading. The key to making this successful is finding the proper balance of each style. Each situation will be different, but great managers find a way to merge these two styles. This ability to combine the positives of each style truly separates the good leaders from the great leaders.

Reference

Colquitt, A. J., Lepine, A.,Wesson, J. M.. (2009). Organizational Structure, Organizational Behavior (p. 527).  Location: New York.

Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. szaccaro@gmu.edu

The American Psychologist [2007, 62(1):6-16; discussion 43-7]

Kouzes JM, Posner BZ. The credibility factor: Credibility is the foundation of leadership. Clin Lab Manage Rev. 1994;8:340, 342, 344–345 passim.