Figure Out What Is Your Leadership Style
Over the past few months, I’ve been passionate about learning more about leadership, with a specific focus on design leadership, as part of my career growth.
I’m excited to share my insights with fellow designers who are on a similar path. To kick off this series, let’s explore the different types of leadership styles.
When you’re interviewing for a leadership role, you’ll likely face the question: “What is your leadership style?”
Let’s get you ready to answer confidently!
What is a Leadership Style?
Leadership styles refer to how leaders guide, motivate, and manage their teams while planning and executing strategies to meet objectives and stakeholder expectations.
A leadership style shapes how leaders implement plans and achieve goals, all while considering the well-being and development of their team.
Several factors influence the leadership style you adopt: your personality (shaped by life experiences, emotional intelligence, family dynamics, and your way of thinking), the culture and context of your organization, and the maturity and skill set of your team. Instead of sticking to one style that matches your behavior or personality, it’s strategic to purposefully choose the most effective style for each situation. This means being proactive and thoughtful rather than reacting spontaneously and emotionally.
The 6 Goleman Leadership Styles
Psychologist Daniel Goleman and his co-authors introduced a model of six leadership styles in their book Primal Leadership. Each style impacts people differently on an emotional level and has its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the situation.
Before diving into the six styles, let’s explore the concept of resonant leadership, also introduced by Goleman. Resonant leadership is based on the idea that leaders can send out positive or negative wavelengths, which reverberate throughout their organization and influence others. Resonant leaders are aware of how their actions affect others and use emotional intelligence to guide and support their team.
As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry beautifully put it:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
When resonant leadership is successfully implemented, it results in comfort, cooperation, idea sharing, and strong bonds within the team. Resonant leadership requires a high level of emotional intelligence, along with self-awareness, empathy, authenticity, and excellent communication skills. Out of the six Goleman leadership styles, four are considered resonant: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, and Democratic.
Visionary
Visionary leaders see the big picture of where the company is headed and share this vision with their people, inspiring them to work collectively to achieve group goals. In this model, everyone understands the value and relevance of their work. The premise is that if they appreciate the big-picture goal, they’ll stay committed and work diligently towards achieving it.
To give a short definition, we can summarize it as: Visionary leadership is when a leader inspires others to pursue a long-term vision. The visionary leadership style builds on participation, communication, and goal setting.
✅ Advantages of the Visionary Leadership Style:
- A clear vision creates motivation, inspiration, and unity among team members.
- Innovation and creativity thrive under visionary leadership.
- Strong awareness of change drivers increases the chance of successful adaptation by the organization.
❌ Disadvantages of the Visionary Leadership Style:
- The strong emphasis on the long-term can lead to overlooking short-term and operational matters.
- If the vision becomes too intertwined with the leader’s personality, it can turn into charismatic leadership, which has substantial adverse effects.
Coaching
This leadership style focuses on the personal development of employees. Leaders show a genuine interest in individuals, which builds connections, grows trust, and leads to higher levels of motivation.
✅ Advantages of the Coaching Leadership Style:
- It leads to high engagement and low turnover within the team.
- It develops people to perform more and better in the future.
- Coaching builds empowerment and confidence in people.
❌ Disadvantages of the Coaching Leadership Style:
- Coaching is difficult and time-consuming.
- It requires commitment from both parties.
Affiliative
This leadership style is all about creating connections between employees, which strengthens relationships and boosts collaboration. Employees feel valued when leaders demonstrate true empathy. This approach is recommended to heal rifts in a team, motivate during stressful times, or strengthen connections.
✅ Advantages of the Affiliative Leadership Style:
- The team feels that the leader genuinely cares about them, which builds loyalty, commitment, and trust.
- Positive communication and a strong people-focus.
- Strong bonds between members help in collaboration and crisis handling.
❌ Disadvantages of the Affiliative Leadership Style:
- The focus on harmony can result in the avoidance of conflict and critical feedback.
- The overall goal might be lost as the strive for harmony takes over.
Democratic
Leaders using this style openly ask employees for their input or invite them into the decision-making process. This style builds resonance through valuing people’s input and gaining commitment through participation.
Democratic leadership empowers team members to participate in decision-making, striving for consensus. This engaging climate welcomes everyone’s opinions, leading to robust solutions. However, the democratic leader still has the final say on decisions.
✅ Advantages of the Democratic Leadership Style:
- Creativity and innovation are encouraged.
- Collaboration creates solid solutions for complex problems.
- Employee engagement is high.
- Common goals lead to high accountability.
❌ Disadvantages of the Democratic Leadership Style:
- Collaborative decision-making is time-consuming.
- Productivity can temporarily decline while awaiting decisions.
- It does not work well with low-skilled, inexperienced teams.
Pacesetting
Focused on performance and results, pacesetting leadership involves acting as a role model and setting high standards for others to follow. Pacesetting leadership is good for reaching short-term targets but can be detrimental to long-term employee engagement.
✅ Advantages of the Pacesetting Leadership Style:
- It can substantially increase performance for a limited time.
- Short bursts of increased performance build team confidence and commitment if not overused.
❌ Disadvantages of the Pacesetting Leadership Style:
- Overuse leads to stressed team members with low engagement.
- The focus on performance can result in poor attention to people’s development.
Commanding
Also known as directive or coercive, commanding leadership is about telling people what to do and when. Commanding leaders provide rules, instructions, and clarity. This style can be efficient in low-skilled teams and when decisions must be made very quickly.
✅ Advantages of the Commanding Leadership Style:
- Increased clarity on roles, expectations, and rules, beneficial for low-skill teams.
- Confidence and decisiveness, especially useful in times of crisis.
❌ Disadvantages of the Commanding Leadership Style:
- High dependency on the leader, who also needs to know how to perform all tasks in detail.
- Morale, motivation, and engagement are low, leading to potentially toxic work climates.
- Creativity and participation are minimal.
The first step is understanding and identifying your leadership style. Knowing how you lead — your strengths, weaknesses, and preferred approaches — helps you develop as a leader effectively.
Once you know your style, it’s crucial to align it with your career goals and workplace needs. Consider how your style impacts team dynamics, company culture, and goal achievement. Adaptability is key; adjust your leadership approach based on what your team and company require.
Your leadership style isn’t set in stone; it evolves as you grow and as your team changes. Embrace this journey of self-discovery and adaptation — it’s not just about leading others but also about understanding yourself better.
Remember, leadership is as much about discovering who you are as it is about guiding others to success. Embrace growth, and you’ll pave the way for impactful leadership in your career and beyond.
📚 Here are some resources if you want to learn more:
👉🏻 Leadership Styles Portal: 27 Styles and 10 Frameworks!
👉🏻 What is resonant leadership?
👉🏻 Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance
