Five Styles of Leadership
Directive Leadership

Directive Leadership is a common form of leadership we see in the world today. This leader tells the subordinate what to do, and how to do it.

He initiates the action about the things to do and and tells subdorinates exactly what is expected of them, specifying standards and deadlines. They exercise firm rule and ensure that subordinates do follow.

This kind of leaders are usually found in more traditional and long standing companies where the prevalent culture in the country is a more authoritarian type of rule, and especially so in Asian countries.

Employees in these organizations will find it hard or sometimes even frustrating to work there. This is because when a leader behaves in such a way, it restricts the potential of individuals in the organization by not valuing their creativity and initiative.

As a leader, you must strive not to become like that because this is how you ‘manage’ people. But people don’t want to be managed, they want to be lead.

However, of course there are some cases where this form of leadership is important, like in the military where strictness and accuracy in performing tasks is often a virtue.

However, for most other cases, I believe that this form of leadership in this day and age is counter-productive.

Bass and Colleagues
Five Styles Of Leadership

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The leadership styles proposed below reflect different levels of task and people orientation.

» Directive leadership style
The directive leader tells his followers what to do, and how to do it exactly. He specifics standards required of his followers and exercise firm authority over them.

» Consultative leadership style
The consultative leader seeks the counsel of the whole team before making a decision on what the team should do. He is also task oriented, but he seeks the opinion of his followers as well.

» Participative leadership style
The participative leader puts himself as a member of the team and discusses possible decisions with the team. He seeks consensus before coming to a decision and everyone is supposed to take ownership in the final decision.

» Negotiative leadership style
The negotiative leader employs a more political approach to leadership. He has a personal interest in his decisions and he uses incentives to entice his followers to do certain things.

» Delegative leadership style
He takes back seat toward decision making, and allows his team to take their own course of action. He only sits down together with the team to discuss possible decisions that could be adopted.

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