LEADERSHIP STYLES

This paper is a comparative discussion of four styles of leadership: authoritative and delegative versus facilitative and consultative. While each style has some qualities useful for the manager in contemporary business, there is greater potential in approaches which cast the leader as a coach and elevate employees to the position of team members. The more democratic facilitative and consultative styles encourage participation and creativity from both leader and staff. However, an egalitarian approach can be carried to its extreme; without skill and experience, a coach can become merely a fellow teammate, providing no leadership at all. While sometimes more complex to master, the middle ground between extremes is ultimately more rewarding in the teamwork it inspires and the results it produces.

Scholars studying the way people work together have broken down styles of management into a handful of categories. While different social scientists have given various names to these categories, they generally agree that a manager's style is rooted in the individual administrator's philosophy of human nature. The ways in which managers lead depend on whether they believe that employees are fundamentally lazy and must be forced to work or have a natural affinity for work and simply need encouragement and structure. Those who subscribe to the former viewpoint can sometimes be effective managers but tend to spend the majority