How to Lead: 6 Leadership Styles and Frameworks

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Table of Contents

Participative Leadership (Democratic)

Delegative Leadership (Laissez-Faire)

Transformational Leadership

Transactional Leadership

Situational Leadership

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Leadership styles are classifications of how a personbehaveswhile directing, motivating, guiding, and managing groups of people. There are many leadership styles. Some of the most widely discussed include: authoritarian (autocratic), participative (democratic), delegative (laissez-faire), transformational, transactional, and situational.

Great leaders can inspire political movements and social change. They can also motivate others to perform, create, and innovate. As you start to consider some of the people who you think of asgreat leaders, you can immediately see that there are often vast differences in how each person leads.

Fortunately, researchers have developed differenttheoriesand frameworks that allow us to better identify and understand these different leadership styles.

Lewin’s Leadership Styles

In Lewin’s study, schoolchildren were assigned to one of three groups with an authoritarian, democratic, or laissez-faire leader. The children were then led in an arts and crafts project while researchers observed the behavior of children in response to the different styles of leadership. The researchers found that democratic leadership tended to be the most effective at inspiring followers to perform well.

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Researchers found that decision-making was less creative under authoritarian leadership. Lewin also concluded that it is harder to move from an authoritarian style to a democratic style than vice versa. Abuse of this method is usually viewed as controlling, bossy, and dictatorial.

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Pros and Cons of Autocratic Leadership

Lewin’s study found that participative leadership, also known as democratic leadership, is typically the most effective leadership style.Democratic leaders offer guidance to group members, but they also participate in the group and allow input from other group members. In Lewin’s study, children in this group were less productive than the members of the authoritarian group, but their contributions were of a higher quality.

Participative leaders encourage group members to participate, but retain the final say in the decision-making process. Group members feel engaged in the process and are more motivated and creative. Democratic leaders tend to make followers feel like they are an important part of the team, which helps foster commitment to the goals of the group.

Democratic Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses

Delegative Leadership (Laissez-Faire)

Lewin found that children under delegative leadership, also known as laissez-faire leadership, were the least productive of all three groups. The children in this group also made more demands on the leader, showed little cooperation, and were unable to work independently.

Delegative leaders offer little or no guidance to group members and leave the decision-making up to group members. While this style can be useful in situations involving highly qualified experts, it often leads to poorly defined roles and a lack of motivation.

Lewin noted that laissez-faire leadership tended to result in groups that lacked direction and members who blamed each other for mistakes, refused to accept personal responsibility, made less progress, and produced less work.

How Does Laissez-Faire Leadership Work?

Observations About Lewin’s Leadership Styles

While authoritarian leadership certainly is not the best choice for every situation, it can be effective and beneficial in cases where followers need a great deal of direction and where rules and standards must be followed to the letter. Another often overlooked benefit of the authoritarian style is the ability to maintain a sense of order.

Bass and Bass note that democratic leadership tends to be centered on the followers and is an effective approach when trying to maintain relationships with others.People who work under such leaders tend to get along well, support one another, and consult other members of the group when making decisions.

Additional Leadership Styles and Models

These leaders tend to beemotionally intelligent, energetic, and passionate. They are not only committed to helping the organization achieve its goals, but also to helping group members fulfill their potential.

Research shows that this style of leadership results in higher performance and more improved group satisfaction than other leadership styles.One study also found that transformational leadership led to improved well-being among group members.

The transactional leadership style views the leader-follower relationship as a transaction. By accepting a position as a member of the group, the individual has agreed to obey the leader. In most situations, this involves the employer-employee relationship, and the transaction focuses on the follower completing required tasks in exchange for monetary compensation.

One of the main advantages of this leadership style is that it creates clearly defined roles.People know what they are required to do and what they will be receiving in exchange. This style allows leaders to offer a great deal of supervision and direction, if needed.

Group members may also be motivated to perform well to receive rewards. One of the biggest downsides is that the transactional style tends to stifle creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

How a Transactional Leadership Style Works

Situational theories of leadershipstress the significant influence of the environment and the situation on leadership. Hersey and Blanchard’s leadership stylesis one of the best-known situational theories. First published in 1969, this model describes four primary styles of leadership, including:

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8 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Lewin K, Lippitt R, White K.Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created “social climates”.J Soc Psychol.1939;10(2):271-301.Bass BM.The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications.4th Ed. Simon & Schuster; 2009.Choi SL, Goh CF, Adam MB, Tan OK.Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment.Hum Resour Health.2016;14(1):73. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2Nielsen K, Daniels K.Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers’ working conditions and well-being?The Leadership Quarterly. 2012;23(3):383-397. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.09.001Hussain S, Abbas J, Lei S, Haider MJ, Akram T.Transactional leadership and organizational creativity: Examining the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior.Cogent Bus Manag.2017;4(1). doi:10.1080/23311975.2017.1361663Kark R, Van Dijk D, Vashdi DR.Motivated or demotivated to be creative: The role of self-regulatory focus in transformational and transactional leadership processes.Applied Psychology. 2017;67(1):186-224. doi:10.1111/apps.12122Hersey P, Blanchard KH.Life cycle theory of leadership.Training and Development Journal. 1969;23(5).Blanchard KH, Zigarmi P, Drea Zigarmi.Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership. William Morrow, An Imprint Of HarperCollins; 2013.Additional ReadingHersey P, Blanchard KH.Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. Prentice Hall, 1969.

8 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Lewin K, Lippitt R, White K.Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created “social climates”.J Soc Psychol.1939;10(2):271-301.Bass BM.The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications.4th Ed. Simon & Schuster; 2009.Choi SL, Goh CF, Adam MB, Tan OK.Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment.Hum Resour Health.2016;14(1):73. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2Nielsen K, Daniels K.Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers’ working conditions and well-being?The Leadership Quarterly. 2012;23(3):383-397. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.09.001Hussain S, Abbas J, Lei S, Haider MJ, Akram T.Transactional leadership and organizational creativity: Examining the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior.Cogent Bus Manag.2017;4(1). doi:10.1080/23311975.2017.1361663Kark R, Van Dijk D, Vashdi DR.Motivated or demotivated to be creative: The role of self-regulatory focus in transformational and transactional leadership processes.Applied Psychology. 2017;67(1):186-224. doi:10.1111/apps.12122Hersey P, Blanchard KH.Life cycle theory of leadership.Training and Development Journal. 1969;23(5).Blanchard KH, Zigarmi P, Drea Zigarmi.Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership. William Morrow, An Imprint Of HarperCollins; 2013.Additional ReadingHersey P, Blanchard KH.Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. Prentice Hall, 1969.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Lewin K, Lippitt R, White K.Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created “social climates”.J Soc Psychol.1939;10(2):271-301.Bass BM.The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications.4th Ed. Simon & Schuster; 2009.Choi SL, Goh CF, Adam MB, Tan OK.Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment.Hum Resour Health.2016;14(1):73. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2Nielsen K, Daniels K.Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers’ working conditions and well-being?The Leadership Quarterly. 2012;23(3):383-397. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.09.001Hussain S, Abbas J, Lei S, Haider MJ, Akram T.Transactional leadership and organizational creativity: Examining the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior.Cogent Bus Manag.2017;4(1). doi:10.1080/23311975.2017.1361663Kark R, Van Dijk D, Vashdi DR.Motivated or demotivated to be creative: The role of self-regulatory focus in transformational and transactional leadership processes.Applied Psychology. 2017;67(1):186-224. doi:10.1111/apps.12122Hersey P, Blanchard KH.Life cycle theory of leadership.Training and Development Journal. 1969;23(5).Blanchard KH, Zigarmi P, Drea Zigarmi.Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership. William Morrow, An Imprint Of HarperCollins; 2013.

Lewin K, Lippitt R, White K.Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created “social climates”.J Soc Psychol.1939;10(2):271-301.

Bass BM.The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications.4th Ed. Simon & Schuster; 2009.

Choi SL, Goh CF, Adam MB, Tan OK.Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment.Hum Resour Health.2016;14(1):73. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2

Nielsen K, Daniels K.Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers’ working conditions and well-being?The Leadership Quarterly. 2012;23(3):383-397. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.09.001

Hussain S, Abbas J, Lei S, Haider MJ, Akram T.Transactional leadership and organizational creativity: Examining the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior.Cogent Bus Manag.2017;4(1). doi:10.1080/23311975.2017.1361663

Kark R, Van Dijk D, Vashdi DR.Motivated or demotivated to be creative: The role of self-regulatory focus in transformational and transactional leadership processes.Applied Psychology. 2017;67(1):186-224. doi:10.1111/apps.12122

Hersey P, Blanchard KH.Life cycle theory of leadership.Training and Development Journal. 1969;23(5).

Blanchard KH, Zigarmi P, Drea Zigarmi.Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership. William Morrow, An Imprint Of HarperCollins; 2013.

Hersey P, Blanchard KH.Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. Prentice Hall, 1969.

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