According to Edwin Flippo: “Leadership style is a pattern of behavior designed to integrate organizational and personal interest in the pursuit of some objectives"
1. Autocratic Leadership: In this leadership, the leader holds all authority and responsibility. In this leadership, leaders make decisions on their own without consulting subordinates. It is also called authoritarian or work-oriented leadership.
In this style of leadership, a leader has complete command and hold over their employees/team. The team cannot put forward their views even if they are best for the team or organizational interests. They cannot criticize or question the leader's way of getting things done. The leader himself gets things done. The advantage of this style is that it leads to speedy decision-making and greater productivity under leader's supervision. The drawbacks of this leadership style are that it leads to great employee absenteeism and turnover. This leadership style works only when the leader is the best at performing or when the job is monotonous, unskilled, and routine in nature, or when the project is short-term and risky.
2. Democratic Leadership: It is also called participative or person-oriented leadership. Subordinates have freedom, and Concern for people is more rather than production. A leader's job is to encourage and reinforce constructive interrelationships. A leader is quite an important figure in a democratic situation however he is the key model in an authoritarian type.
The leaders invite and encourage the team members to play an important role in the decision-making process, though the ultimate decision-making power rests with the leader. The leader guides the employees on what to perform and how to perform, while the employees communicate to the leader their experience and suggestions if any. The advantages of this leadership style are that it leads to satisfied, motivated, and more skilled employees. It leads to an optimistic work environment and also encourages creativity. This leadership style has the only drawback that it is time-consuming.
3. Transformational Leadership (Proactive): Transformational leaders motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought possible. They set more challenging expectations and typically achieve higher performance
4. Transactional Leadership (Responsive): People know what they are required to do and what they will receive in exchange for completing these tasks. It also allows leaders to offer a great deal of supervision and direction if it's needed.
5. Laissez-faire leadership: Laissez-faireliterally means “let them do” in French. This is typically translated to “let it be”. As such, laissez-faire leaders are characterized by their hands-off approach, allowing employees to get on with tasks as they see fit. It is a type of leadership where there is the least interference by the leader. The Group operates on its own, Group works without the leadership of a manager. The manager maintains relations with people outside the organization.
Here, the leader trusts their employees/team to perform the job themselves. He just concentrates on the intellectual/rational aspect of his work and does not focus on the management aspect of his work. The team/employees are welcome to share their views and provide suggestions for organizational interests. This leadership style works only when the employees are skilled, loyal, experienced, and intellectual.