Three Leadership Styles

There are probably more leadership or managment styles than mentioned here but these three are well worth discussing.

1. Laissez-faire (pronunciation: French, laissez-faire)is a term used to describe a policy of allowing events to take their own course. The term is a French phrase literally meaning "let do.

If there’s anything that will prevent a company from optimizing its bottom line, it is a laissez-faire management style. In other words: a propensity among company managers to avoid too much interference in employee behavior.

All employees need leadership, and in addition, employees generally achieve a higher level of performance if they understand what is expected of them and their managers inspect what they expect.

When employees don’t know what is expected of them or when there are no incentives in place to reward outstanding performance, management is failing to take advantage of one of the most basic of management principles, to hold employees accountable for measurable results and reward outstanding performance.

Bill Lee has said, "The best manager I ever worked for received a higher level of performance out of me than I would have ever achieved without his demanding management style. He motivated me to a higher level of accomplishment than I would have ever achieved on my own. At that particular stage of my career, I needed this kind of direction. While I resented his demands then, I tremendously value them today."

Avoid using the same management style on each employee. Some employees need a heavy hand and others need a more gentle approach. It has been written that the great Vince Lombardy never chewed out a player unless the player could take it. Lombardy used a less caustic management style on his players who possessed a more passive temperament.

2. In contrast to the above is the dictator or bully style. This is where the manager says that he works by the "Golden Rule," namely, "I've got the gold and I make the rules." Or he or she may say, "It's my way or the highway." Often they will also tell employees that they are paid to work and not to think.

You can imagine the discouraging effect on morale in such a workplace and the resultant low profit margin?

Such managers often spend more time finding fault with whatever they can and then dumping on, and belittling their employees. They come down especially hard on employees who may make a mistake.

When managers consistently search for faults, and fail to complement workers where appropriate, a mindset develops amongst workers along the lines of, "He does not appreciate the good things that I do and will not cut me any slack at all. The only way for me to avoid making mistakes and being dumped upon is to do as little as I need to so that I keep out of trouble." Naturally, this adversly affects productivity.

Compare this with:

3. The empowering management style.

This is where a manager will go out of his or her way to find something to complement workers. Such a manager will often do a "walk around" the work area and give complements, no matter how insignificant they may seem, to workers. Where they cannot find something to compliment they may make a little small talk and ask about the worker's family. This makes the workers feel important and valued members of the team.

Similarly, an empowering manager will encourage employees to make appropriate decisions that may benefit the business. When something does not turn out as well as expected, or a loss may even occur as a result of trying something new, an empowering manager will console the responsible employee and praise them for at least trying something innovative. He or she may remind the employee how Newton had many failures that he called "learning what does not work" before he perfected the light bulb. Without trying new things to improve products, procedures, or sales techniques etc. there will be no progress.

When I reported to a manager, I used to keep a slip of paper, with the following statement on it, in my wallet.

The only person who does not make mistakes is the person who does nothing.
So if you do not want to make mistakes:-
Do nothing!
Say nothing!
BE NOTHING!