Entrepreneur Leadership Style - To The Top Tuesday

You are an entrepreneur and as such, you are also a leader. Your leadership abilities can have a direct relationship with your business success.

Have you considered your leadership style?

Every one of us have a primary leadership style that is our most common approach, but the wise entrepreneur institutes various leadership styles depending on the circumstance and the person they are leading.

I recently read a Harvard Business Review article by Daniel Goleman called Leadership That Gets Results. Daniel and a team of experts did a 3 year long study that looked at how leadership within an organization effects the company’s profitability.

The results were amazing!

The results showed that leadership abilities accounted for around 30% of the company’s profitability.

What I am going to do in today’s post is point out the 6 leadership styles.

It is my opinion that every entrepreneur should use each leadership style depending on the conditions, but you should have a common leadership style that is your “signature” style.

I am going to share each leadership style in order of what I believe is the best to worst in “signature” styles.

Leadership Style – Democratic

I believe this is the best form of leadership to build a high quality tribe.

Just as the name describes, it is a form of leadership that gives each member a piece of ownership in plans, decisions and goals.

Team members feel free to share their opinions knowing that the leader will have the final say.

This leadership style is not good when a decision must be made quickly or team members do not have adequate knowledge of the subject matter.

Leadership Style – Authoritative

When you are working with competent tribe members who still need experience, I believe this is a great leadership style.

The title may give a dictator sound, but it is not. This leadership style simply sets a vision and the end goals and leaves the path to attain those goals up to the individual.

The leader must be able to accept their team members taking approaches to completing their tasks that the leader may not have used.

The easiest way to describe this leader is:

Here’s the blueprints – you get this area and you this area – let’s get it built!

Leadership Style – Coach

I also love this leadership style. It is all about educating and guiding team members.

Try it this way or Let me show you how I do this…

These are statements you would hear from the coaching leader.

Now I don’t believe any of the next 3 leadership styles should be used as a primary style. You may need to intermingle these leadership styles into your business, but they should be used with care.

Leadership Style – The Pacesetter

This is the leader that says

“Do it like I do, at the speed I do.”

This is a great way if you need quick action and results but if a leader always uses this leadership style, he/she is likely to build animosity by burning team members out.

Leadership Style – Affiliative

Daniel calls this the affiliative leader, but I call it the “Mother Figure” leader.

This leader is set on creating emotional bonds between all the team members.

Can we say – Group Hug!

This style is needed occasionally especially during or after high stress situations. But used too much, and it can create unhealthy dependency.

Leadership Style – Coercive

When I consider this leadership style, I can see the Drill Sergeant at Army basic training.

“Carry that rock pile over there…NOW!”

This leadership style should only be used in extreme circumstances such as emergencies. It should seldom be used by entrepreneurs unless you want a rebellion.