Effective Leadership Styles

Which one works for you?

There are as many effective leadership styles as there are effective styles of parenting. There is much evidence that no one particular style is right for all situations.

Certainly to be a successful leader you will need some terrific skills, knowledge and aptitude, however, it's your leadership style that really gives your business unit (no matter how big or small) its flavor.

An effective leadership style is all about the behaviors and values that you choose to use to achieve the outcomes you want.

What works for one leader or organization may not work for you (or your business).

In this series of articles we'll look at a number of different leadership styles. An effective leadership style for one individual or one organization may not work for you and your situation.

• How well do you think Southwest Airlines or Virgin would run with Jack Welch at the helm?
• How much would Herb Kelleher struggle (internally at least) if he were to find himself a leader in The Ford Motor Company?
• It is well documented that Winston Churchill was a great leader during World War 2. Yet in peacetime his style was found lacking by the nation that had so recently held him in esteem as a hero leader.

Your style as a leader will be largely influenced by two things:

1. The culture of the organization you find yourself in


2. The quality of leadership, coaching and mentoring you experience as you move through your career

When you inherit a style from the culture or are overly influenced by another person, you may find yourself feeling frustrated and on-edge. You may have the feeling that you are trying to be someone you are not. You will do well to remember that leadership isn't something that you do, it is an expression of who you are.

Learn about and then try applying the various styles to find the a style that works best for you, your team and your organization.

A word of caution. Do not try to make your preferred/(natural) style fit all circumstances. Remain flexible enough to alter your style to fit the particular situation you find yourself in.

Blake and Mouton studied leadership behavior and described two extremes of leadership concern: Concern for Production and Concern for People. Read more about Blake and Mouton ...

A Proactive Leader tends to be much more focused on achieving performance objectives rather than focused on finding and fixing problems; that is the forte of the Reactive Leader ...Read more about Reactive vs Proactive

We've had a lot of change in the past 20 years and the speed of change is increasing. There are some distinctions between leadership and management that you may like to grasp ... Read more about Leadership versus Management

Is your organization over-burdened with rigid policies, rules and procedures that stop team members from meeting customer needs? Rules that don't make sense and distract people from achieving the mission of any organization - to serve its customers. Policies that are costly both in terms of employee morale and dissatisfied customers ...Discover more about Principle-Based Leadership here

Use the surveys on the Assessment Tools page to help you discover your preferred (and hopefully) effective leadership style.

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