It’s important to know leadership and management have two very different objectives and require different skillsets, although it’s easy to confuse the two. Throughout our lives, we’ve been trained to respect people in positions of authority and our elders. But job title and age factor more into the management conversation and have little to nothing to do with leadership.
A leader provides inspiration. A manager provides direction. That’s the difference in a nutshell. Managers can be leaders and vice versa, but the two require a different approach.
Types of Leadership Styles
German-American psychologist Kurt Lewin is credited with branding the basic leadership styles in 1939. Lewin and his researchers tasked schoolchildren with an arts and crafts project while the team observed behaviors and responses to different styles of leadership. The idea was to determine which style was most effective to use in business.
Lewin identified three styles of leadership: Autocratic, Democratic, and Laissez-faire. Over time, more leadership styles have emerged, and one that is commonly grouped in with Lewin’s three is Transformational Leadership. Today, there are a variety of leadership styles in business, but the four primary leadership styles you’ll be exposed to include:
Autocratic
Democratic
Laissez-faire
Transformational
Autocratic Leadership
Also known as Authoritarian Leadership, an Autocratic Leadership style can easily be summed up by the command, “Do as you’re told.”
In Autocratic Leadership, direction comes from the top, a singular figure who leads a company or team. An autocratic leader determines strategy, policies, procedures, and the direction of the organization, dictating everything to subordinates. Authoritarian leaders are not focused on collaboration with those in their circle, they are rarely interested in feedback, and they prefer to hold all of the power and be in charge.
