Leadership Style And Employee Performance: What You Need to Know

A leader’s role can change drastically from company to company. However, their main purpose tends to remain the same: develop processes to coordinate activities in order to accomplish a task. With so many different kinds of leadership styles, it is important to note how any leader can affect employee performance. Authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles can all have positive impacts on employee performance.

Authoritarian

This leadership style is a dominant and dictatorial way of leading. Typically leaders with this style enforce authority using rules and strict procedures as opposed to openness and teamwork. Although this style of leadership is not ideal for most jobs, it can help certain people excel. Jobs that have high stress or urgent situations will have employees that succeed and prosper with authoritarian leaders. These stressful situations need a firm leader that is able to quickly make decisions without input from others. This allows everyone to rapidly perform their job to achieve the preset goal.

Democratic

A democratic leader involves their team in most, if not all, decision-making. This creates an environment that fosters participation and openness. By fostering a sense of participation among the team, a democratic leader works to provide guidance among the group while allowing them to use creativity to solve a problem. This camaraderie can allow the team to collaborate ideas in order to grow as individuals increasing their overall performance. Studies have shown that this is the most effective type of leadership to achieve consistent success.

Laissez-Faire

A laissez-faire leader is also known as a free-rein leader. This style of leadership provides very little direction to their team. There is little control of the group as authority is shared equally between all members. This style of leadership can increase employee performance in groups where cohesion has already been achieved. This can create a sense of motivation and resourcefulness amongst the group which can foster growth personally and professionally.

Although a leader’s role changes drastically from job to job, their purpose remains the same. Whether your job environment works best under an authoritarian, democratic, or laissez-faire style leadership, Skywalk Group has the training to help your team succeed. Reach out to our experts today and see how our leadership training and development can give your company a competitive advantage.