While many factors can positively or negatively affect the work environment, one has a significant impact: the type of leadership style. Understanding the different leadership styles can help you identify your own.
Let’s start with the dictatorship leadership style, where intimidation is used as a management tool and decisions are made without discussion. This creates a hostile work environment. As a result, employees feel that their opinions don’t matter, which lowers their motivation and commitment as they are treated like robots.
Now, let’s look at the paternalistic leadership style, where some tasks are delegated, but most decisions remain in the hands of the supervisor. In this style, people are treated as if they were children in elementary school. Employees feel trapped because they cannot contribute more, which decreases their interest in growing within the company.
In contrast, participative leadership style takes employees’ opinions into account to improve work processes. Unlike paternalism, this model fosters creativity, and employees are treated like teenagers. Their opinions are heard, and they are given some autonomy and flexibility to make decisions, but they are still constantly supervised.
Finally, we have collaborative leadership style, which creates an environment where all employees can contribute equally to process improvement. In this approach, everyone is treated as adults, and as they progress in their work, supervision becomes minimal. The key is to increase their contextual understanding of what they do and reduce control over them, treating them as adults. These conditions foster a more positive work environment.
As we can see, each leadership style cultivates specific attitudes and behaviors in employees. Ultimately, what you plant is what you will harvest. To determine the best leadership style, ask yourself: Am I leading robots, children, teenagers, or adults? Always ensure that your leadership style adds value to your organization.
By Miguel Gonzalez
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