Leadership models are a major part of understanding how leaders become influential and effective. They specifically show how the work of high-quality leaders can make a considerable contribution to a company’s achievements and success.
In other words, leaders should have superior characteristics which inspire employees to achieve their organization’s goals.
Hence, such traits as a sense of community, responsiveness, honesty, creativity, confidence, or a positive attitude toward workers create leadership models for an influential leader.
So what are these models, and how do they work?
1. Transformational
When leaders follow the transformational model of managing employees, they can provide quite effective support for its operation by inspiring workers.
As noted in Leadership and Sustainability in the Built Environment, managers can be pretty demanding; they motivate individuals to perform their job duties “beyond expected levels” and “think beyond self-interest” since they show “positive qualities and ethics.”
Such a model of leadership is quite effective in achieving organizational goals.
Key Traits of Transformational Leaders
- Inspiring
- Demanding
- Motivating
- Positive
- Focused
2. Charismatic
The charismatic leadership model is no less effective than a transformational one since it also creates enthusiasm for the team.
However, in contrast, this implies that a leader shapes other people’s values instead of working beyond requirements.
So a charismatic leader can achieve a company’s goals via personal “characters and behaviors” because they are communicative and responsive.
Key Traits of Charismatic Leaders
- Values Focused
- Great Communicators
- Responsive to Others
- Engaging
- Unifying
Ethical leadership is a useful model to manage a team. An ethical manager’s personality consists of honesty, empathy, and being principled.
3. Ethical
Consequently, such a leader follows their ethics, providing employees fair rewards and reasonable criticisms.
Moreover, ethical leaders are good at decision-making because their thinking is primarily moved by logic and justice, not emotions and feelings.
There may be no doubt that the manager, following an ethical leadership model, will perform consistently for the team and the company’s goals.
Key Traits of Ethical Leaders
- Honest
- Moral Standards
- Truthful
- Fair
- Virtuous
4. Laissez-faire
A laissez-faire model of leadership contains both the pros and cons of its implementation.
On the one hand, laissez-faire leaders let their employees do the job and make decisions by themselves. And it can be considered a positive and beneficial action when workers are entirely educated, experienced, and skilled.
On the other hand, such passiveness in performing leadership duties can lead to such an issue as uncontrolled production. I can note that laissez-faire leaders lack motivational influence on employees.
For instance, when the manager takes a small part in performing a job, their opinion about the work can be considered insufficient.
Key Traits of Laissez-Fair Leaders
- Hands Off Style
- Self Directed Teams
- Individual Freedom of Choice
- Push Decisions Down
- Easy Going
5. Bureaucratic
The bureaucratic leadership model is quite helpful in the field of production. Such leaders are primarily moved by established rules, standards, and norms.
Thus, while working with mechanisms requires following safety regulations and properly using the equipment, the bureaucratic leader can control these processes effectively.
However, it is also necessary to consider that the bureaucratic leadership model lacks flexibility. So it can harm performance if the leader works with creative tasks.
Key Traits of Bureaucratic Leaders
- Rules
- Regulations
- Status Quo
- Controlling
- Inflexible
6. Democratic
In contrast to more passive leadership models like laissez-faire and bureaucratic, a democratic model can motivate team members to work effectively. This model goes about involving employees in the decision-making process.
So employees become more motivated to work, knowing their mission at a company. Even though such a leadership model can lead to slow performance, the results pay off.
Being a democratic leader can be used in various fields of activity, both creative and routine.
Key Traits of Democratic Leaders
- Motivating
- Inclusive
- Self Governing
- Treats Everyone Equally
- Compromising
7. Autocratic
One more leadership model is autocratic, which is quite different from the above-noted models.
To exemplify, if a person follows the autocratic model, their team members will not have any chance to make suggestions concerning work.
While in creative work, the autocratic leadership model is not an effective way to manage employees, a routine job with no necessity for specific skills can benefit from such an approach.
However, my personal experience has shown that an autocratic leader lacks strong communication with employees, which harms relations between workers and managers.
Key Traits of Autocratic Leaders
- Decisive
- Total Control
- Authoritative
- Dictatorial
- Domineering
Organizational Goals
In conclusion, it is worth saying that the listed leadership models are effective in performing management. It is evident that all of them can not be without cons but can be implemented in all fields of activity.
Nevertheless, these models follow organizational goals and are helpful in managing your team.
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Which Leadership Models Work for You?
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Nicky is writing a book that is going to see the light of day by the end of 2019.