Using the best leadership style that shapes the desired organizational culture is also important to sustaining it. Leadership styles influence communication, employee engagement, innovation, and all the other elements that reflect the organizational culture. - BY DAVE DESOUZA

Organizational culture has many elements, including the organizational vision, communication systems, employee professional development opportunities, work environment, degree of employee voice, and leadership. Maintaining the culture depends on the leadership styles used. There are multiple styles, and one style will be the overriding and preferred style needed to support the culture, but organizational leaders must also know when to adapt their style. For example, a collaborative culture needs a democratic leadership style, but sometimes a transactional or authoritative style is needed. Every culture needs adaptable and resilient leaders.

A Leadership Style for Every Culture

Numerous leadership styles exist today as organizational leaders respond to changing business environments, dynamics, and employee expectations. Autocratic and transactional leadership styles once reigned when baby boomers grew and managed businesses. As new generations and technologies appeared, new leadership styles were needed. Millennials and Gen Z employees want more voice and more diverse voices, and they want more autonomy in their jobs. The autocratic leadership style is ineffective in most workplaces today and is more likely to lead to high employee turnover and low engagement.

Recognizing the common leadership styles enables identifying which style is the best fit for maintaining a successful current organizational culture or working towards a desired culture. There are at least six leadership styles. The autocratic leader makes decisions without much input from employees and dictates job tasks. It may be a good fit when employees need close supervision. Once decisions are made, employees are expected to support them. This leadership style can cause a lot of employee unrest when decisions affecting their work are not viewed favorably. When people have no voice, they lose trust in management. However, the fact is some decisions need to be made autocratically. For example, if the leader has the most knowledge, it is critical to make a swift decision.

Democratic leadership fosters a participative culture that works well when the organization wants to build a collaborative culture. This style encourages diverse perspectives and input in decision-making, but the leader makes final decisions. It is an effective style because all employees have a voice. The one drawback is that the leader must have skills in getting consensus while ensuring decision-making is not bogged down.

Transformational leadership supports a high level of employee engagement and inspires employees to pursue excellence. It is a style that fits a dynamic culture in organizations where change is constant. Transformational leaders cultivate organizational improvement and change, relying on their communication and emotional intelligence skills. A growing business in a highly competitive industry benefits from transformational leadership. Employees are encouraged to work on increasingly difficult projects, so the transformational leader must make sure employees get enough support.

Laissez-faire leadership is a hands-off style that fosters independence and self-motivation among employees. It is appropriate for highly skilled and self-driven teams, like R&D teams or professionals requiring little supervision. It is effective in an entrepreneurial culture. The leader provides staff members with the necessary resources and tools and lets them work autonomously. Employees can organize, plan, problem-solve, and make their own decisions to complete projects. Sometimes, managers utilize this style because they need more leadership skills development, but without the ideal circumstances, it can devolve into incomplete or inaccurate projects or even chaos.

Servant leadership used to apply mostly to non-profit organizations or service organizations, but this style is recognized as supporting a collaborative and cohesive culture. The leader prioritizes team needs and a people-first culture. The leader strives to inspire people to do their best work and pursue career goals. Servant leadership can promote a strong, positive organizational culture based on shared values and ideals. However, it works best when all leaders are servant leaders. Otherwise, there may be a conflict between servant leaders and leaders who are more competitive and results-driven.

Transactional leadership creates roles and responsibilities for employees and clearly spells out tasks employees are expected to complete. It is sometimes referred to as managerial leadership, which emphasizes structure and relies on a reward-based system for employee motivation, like bonuses. The focus is on employees adhering to role responsibilities within established policies and procedures. One issue with this style of leadership is that monetary rewards only motivate up to a point.

Within these dominant styles are other nuanced elements. Daniel Goleman, an expert on emotional intelligence, named six additional leadership styles in his article Leadership That Gets Results. He brought up coercive, authoritative, pacesetting, affiliative, democratic, and coaching styles, which may all influence how management expresses its style.

Blending Leadership Styles

The key to choosing a leadership style is identifying the organizational culture and selecting the most compatible style. However, the reality is that agile and resilient leaders must have the skills to use more than one style as needed. For example, a democratic leader may need to be an autocratic leader during a disruptive event requiring quick decision-making. A servant leader might have to employ a more transactional style should projects get off track. When a major new project is started, the leader may need to use a transactional leadership style to assign employee roles and responsibilities. and then switch to a motivating transformational style. Leaders must also be able to adapt their style quickly during disruptive events. There could be a business downturn, a geopolitical event disrupting the supply chain, a change in social responsibility dynamics, a reorganization, and so on.

As Goleman notes in his research, the most effective leaders switch flexibly among the leadership styles as needed. He finds that they don’t mechanically match their style to fit a checklist of situations. Plus, the best leaders are sensitive to the impact they have on others and adjust to get the best results. Still, it is likely one of the greatest challenges organizational leaders face today – the need to develop many different leadership styles and know when to use the right style to continually nurture the organizational culture.