Managing and leading people is no easy feat. Different leaders have different leadership styles, much like different personality types. Perhaps the following list exploring the five famous leadership styles will give you an insight into the leader you would want to become or who you may be working with.

1. Laissez-faire

This term, roughly translated, means “to leave alone,” in French, and that’s generally what leaders who exhibit the Laissez-faire leadership style do. They sit back and let you make your own decisions. If you are the team member who likes supervision and goes to your superior asking for approvals on every little detail of the project, the Laissez-faire leadership style could baffle you.

What you need to understand is that such a leader is involved so you get more room to learn and grow. For those who despise micro-management and are highly experienced employees needing little or no supervision, a superior with a Laissez-faire leadership style will be a dream-come-true. Such employees will thrive under a boss who exhibits this leadership style.


2. Autocratic

Sam was a creative designer at an writing company Essays Scholaradvisor. When he joined a new famous agency as a Creative Director, he was shocked that he was asked to work on nothing but a book cover design for over 3 months and then to be told explicitly what to design and how. He could never be a part of any ideas brainstorming sessions because the boss preferred deciding things by himself and conveying his ideas to the team for execution.

While this worked beautifully for the new design intern who needed all the hand-holding and guidance possible, Sam got easily frustrated and found his superior bossy and controlling. Sam did not know he was dealing with an autocratic/authoritarian leadership style there. That’s just how autocratic/authoritarian leaders work. Such a style also benefits those employees and team members who need close supervision to perform well.

3. Participative/Democratic

In this leadership style, the leader seeks and values the opinions of the team members and peers; however, the making the ultimate decision is the onus of the leader here. Such a style helps boost employee morale because they feel included in the decision-making process and like that their opinions are valued and sought-after. The participative leadership style helps organizations embrace changes quickly because the employees are a part of driving the change.

In such a leadership style, the leaders sought the opinions of employees before switching to a new business model and a new growth structure within the organization. In a world of increasing attrition, this mid-sized organization has helped retain great talent for over 15 years.

4. Transactional

This is the classic rewards and punishments based leadership styles, more prominent in conservative workplaces or even in a classroom. In this style, the leader gives out rewards or punishments to the team members based on their performance. The team members, however, are involved in setting a collective goal and in charting their course of achieving that goal.

However, the leader assesses everyone’s performance and reviews who gets a reward and who needs help/reinforcements in the form of training or even punishments based on his/her judgments.Your year-end performance-based bonus is an example of such a leadership style. Here, your efforts don’t matter as much as the result does.

5. Transformational

This leadership style involves high levels of motivation and communication from the leader. In this leadership styles, the leaders motivate the employees and team members through open, collaborative discussions, goal setting, passionate big-picture discussions, and by being accessible to everyone. Most team members who need a purpose for their work thrive with such leaders.

Those city-hall meets with the management where they discussed the organization’s value system, and how the employees embody and practice these values to help realize the organization’s vision, is a classic example of a transformational leadership style.

Workplaces that help you buy into their dream and make be so driven that you make the cause your own are indeed remarkable; the journey of how the leader and the team members work hand-in-hand to achieve those dreams is an entrepreneurial dream-come-true.