Leadership lessons from Aaron Huizenga: How to lead with style

We all have our own style of leading and managing. Our own flair, our own spin, our own “je ne sais quoi.”
Leadership styles can be broken down into seven main categories:

Democratic, Autocratic, Laissez-Faire, Transformational, Transactional, Bureaucratic and Servant.

There are volumes of information written about these styles. Over the next couple of months, we will take a look into each of them to help you understand which style is right for you and your role. Maybe you are a Democratic style leader but your team would respond better if you were more of a Servant leader. Often as leaders, we need to be able to shift from one style to another based on situational needs, or blend two styles together for group involvement. The goal is to identify the style that works for you and the style that your team needs, and begin to take steps to blend some of the two styles together for the long-term benefit of those that you are leading and managing.

I am sure that if you have been doing this for a while, at some point, you have had to be the Autocratic leader – the general on the battlefield, so to speak. Then you might turn around, put on your Laissez-Faire hat and let your team figure out the situation for themselves. In another instance, you were both Democratic and Transactional as you worked through a process or procedure enhancement. However, before we go too deep into blending the styles together, let’s take a look at them individually.

Democratic style of leadership

In general, Democratic leaders seek input from the team. They solicit ideas, feedback and input. It involves the team as decisions are being made for next steps, organization direction, policy changes and so on. Democratic leadership is the most popular style as it is collaborative and allows everyone on the team to have a voice. This style usually produces high job satisfaction from those on the team. Whether you, as the leader, follow or implement your team’s ideas is a different topic, but you are taking their input into consideration. The Democratic style fosters collaboration but can be time-consuming and costly if you find yourself slow to come to any real sort of resolution or direction.

Autocratic style of leadership

The Autocratic style of leadership is the antithesis of the Democratic style. In this case, the leader makes all decisions on behalf of the team without taking any input or suggestions from them. The leader holds all authority and responsibility. They have absolute power and dictate all tasks to be carried out and in what order. There is no consultation before a decision is made. After a decision is made, the team must support the leader’s decision. The team often fears the leader to some level. This type of leadership fosters discontent in job satisfaction and disgruntled teams, which can lead to employee turnover. However, there can be a place for this general-on-the-battlefield type of style. Think crisis management and triage situations following an event.

Next month, we will look at the other five styles of leadership.

Let’s work on your upgrade!

Aaron Huizenga is East Division manager for Lakes Gas in Wisconsin. Reach him at ahuizenga@lakesgas.com.

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