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Whether you are managing a team at work, captaining your sports team or leading a major corporation, your leadership style is crucial to your success. Consciously, or subconsciously, you will no doubt use some of the leadership styles featured, at least some of the time. By understanding these leadership styles and their impact, you can become a more flexible, better leader. The most effective types of leadership are Autocratic leadership, Bureaucratic leadership, Charismatic leadership, Democratic leadership/participative leadership, Laissez-faire leadership, People-oriented leadership/relations-oriented leadership, Servant leadership, Task-oriented leadership, Transactional leadership, Transformational leadership. Each one has its pros and cons but if used in the right situations makes an extremely effective team.
Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where a leader exerts high levels of power over his or her employees or team members. People within the team are given few opportunities for making suggestions, even if these would be in the team's or organization’s interest. Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Because of this, autocratic leadership usually leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. Also, the team's output does not benefit from the creativity and experience of all team members, so many of the benefits of teamwork are lost. For some routine and unskilled jobs, however, this style can remain effective where the advantages of control outweigh the disadvantages.
Bureaucratic leaders work “by the book”, ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances or at heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as cash-handling).In other situations, the inflexibility and high levels of control exerted can demoralize staff, and can diminish the...