A leadership style is a way of planning, implementing, and executing what a leader proposes. We need to promote these leadership roles amongst millennials.
There are a lot of millennial leadership styles, and they all can vary from person to person as everyone has a mind of their own and may implement what he/she thinks is right, but there are 3 main leadership styles that stand out which are further explained in this article.
Autocratic (Authoritative) Leadership Style
A leader who exhibits an Autocratic leadership style tends to give orders to his or her employees and leaves no room for receiving any input from the employees.
Most times, this leads to the organization being deficient in creativity as it is running on the ideas and procedures of a single person.
Autocratic can be effective as it can reduce delays and use direct communication. Reduced employee stress is one of the benefits that this leadership style provides.
This leadership style is best for quick decision-making situations, and there isn’t time for consultation.
Laissez-Faire Leadership Style
This leadership style is the complete opposite of Autocratic Leadership as it shifts the responsibility of decision-making exclusively from the leader to the group. They get complete control over all sorts of decisions, and the leader does not interfere with their ways of implementing and executing.
There are negatives to this leadership style as it displays poor involvement with the group, and you can find the group unmotivated and withdrawn at times. This leadership represents passivity as it does not display the absolute representation of what authentic leadership is.
This leadership style works the best for new individuals who are passionate and don’t require constant reassurance/feedback to work and get the job done. They have a firm decision-making power.
These Leaders only adopt this style when they know that the people they are working with are skillful, self-motivated, innovative, and creative, and their track records are promising.
Participative (Democratic) Leadership Style
A leader who adopts a Democratic leadership style relies on consultation and input from his/her employees. It is a balance of their input and a leader’s own thoughts about the decision.
Autocratic leaders receive tasks, sort them out, provide the execution instructions to the employees and do all the decision-making themselves. This style gets a lot of criticism because it is very easy to use in the wrong environment and can produce horrendous results.
This method of leadership can be quite beneficial as it promotes new ideas and maximizes creativity as it allows everyone to put their ways of executing on the table, which a leader then extracts in an ideal way, and the efficiency is optimized.
Democratic style promotes two-way interaction between the leader and the group. Democratic Leaders require the approval of their respective groups before finalizing a decision.
Conclusion
Of all the various leadership styles, the three mentioned in this article have been found to be the most popular amongst millennial leaders. Whether the millennial is in the role of the leader or the follower, these styles prove to be among the favorites.