Effective Leadership Styles in Business 

Effective leadership is one of the essential parts of running a business, with effective leadership the leader is able to get the most out of their employees and in that way also maximize the quality of the work that the company is doing and putting out to the customers. There is not a specific style and right way to lead in an effective way because every company is different and there is different kinds of people which want to be lead in different kinds of ways. Leadership styles can be developed shaped to be your own way of leading. It is not always that easy to be a good leader, but it is really important and big part of a company’s success. The leader of the company is basically in charge of the direction of the whole company and can make major decisions to get the company going to the right direction if it is going to the wrong direction. (Campbell 2022)  

Effective leadership has a lot of similarities with inspiring, aligning and then activating but certainly that is not everything. For one to be effective, they need to be able to recognize their employees talents and strengths and then put them to use in the best places possible to get out the best quality of work. The best leaders are able to see these talents and put the to work in the right place, and most of the times the leader is more aware of the employees strengths than their weaknesses. A good leader as well has the ability and knowledge to know that all of us have weaknesses but they don’t let them blind them, because they concentrate on the strengths. A leader is also able to recognize the actual goal that they are aiming for and with that make the right decisions towards that goal. The goal cant be hazy and switch all the time because then the decisions will be hard to make, when the leader doesn’t really know what is the aim.   (Gallup) 

There is a couple “Typical” ways of leading and differs where people want to count themselves and their leading style. Here’s a small list of them.  

Transformational Leadership 

This is a way of leading where the leader is working towards transforming their teams and organizations in a way that the teams would be constantly improving and getting better. The leader shares a common vision with the teams so all of them can work together towards a common vision and goal. These types of leaders are often seen as really empathetic and authentic within the workers of the company, and that way the leaders are often very liked. This can be when the leader is not too strict for the workers inside the company while also making sure that there is things happening and when there is not they are to able to lift it up to the table that what is everyone doing. (Campbell 2022) 

Democratic Leadership 

Democratic leaders work in a way were they let their companys’ teams be a part of the decision-making while in the end taking the responsibility for the decision making by themselves. They respect and listen to the opinions of the people under themselves and take the opinions to consideration. This lifts the engagement of employees in the business which logically makes them feel more like they actually are a part of the company. (Campbell 2022) 

Laissez-Faire Leadership 

Laissez-Faire style of leadership gives the employees a lot of freedom in their work. They are offering the employees a lot of support and resources when they need it, but the leader leaves out the micromanaging of their employees and lets them work in peace. For a leadership style like this to work, the leader needs to know that the team the they have are good with their time and they actually get things done on their own, if there is people that are slacking when no one is watching that is when this style of leadership style fails.  (Campbell 2022) 

Bureaucratic Leadership 

When someone is using this bureaucratic leadership style it is meaning that they are setting really strict rules for their employees that they have to go by. This kind of leadership might work in some cases, but for example when talking about creative businesses this probably is not the best way to lead the company. This can sometimes make the employees feel kind of trapped when there is no room for error and the rules are so strict that they can’t do anything else outside of them. Specially in creative businesses this takes a lot away from the workers when they are not allowed to think outside the box and think of many variations for a solution, since they are behind all these rules. But where this kind of leadership could work is a job that really oriented and is constantly going trough the same patterns, in this case the employee knows what they can or can not do, and also know what is expected from them. (Campbell 2022) 

Transactional leadership 

Transactional leaders are people who think that when the employee has accepted their job offer they are in the same time accepting a kind of transaction. This means that when the employee has accepted the job offer, they have accepted to some kind of a work load and this way they are also expected to meet the requirements of the asked job/task, while also providing quality in the work that they are putting out. This can be used for example in difficult jobs where it is really important the employee needs to know their task, in the end this might cause a low satisfaction to the job because this leadership style can be seen as really strict and cold. (Campbell 2022) 

Conclusion 

So in conclusion it is clear that the is no right way to lead a company because there is so many different ways and styles that you can lead with. In the end what is most important is that out of all these different styles you can gather the style that you feel like you can lead the best with and also that you are able to be adaptive in different situations to also change the leading style a bit depending on the company that you are leading to get the best effort and results out of the whole company.  

Sources : 

Campbell, A. 2022. Effective Leadership Styles in Business. Read on 2.12.2023. Updated on 1.5.2023. https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/effective-leadership-styles-business/  

Gallup. Leadership Effectiveness : How to Be a Better Leader. Read on 2.12.2023. https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/356072/how-to-be-better-leader.aspx