Effective Leadership Styles: Autocratic, Transformational, and Democratic

Running head: EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES
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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES
Introduction:
Leadership can be defined as the capability of an individual for influencing as well as
guiding followers and members of the organization in achieving particular objectives set by the
organization. This helps the employees develop a clear vision of the responsibilities expected
from them as the leaders guide them by providing them knowledge, enhancing their skills and
also supporting them with tools that help them in their development (DeHoogh et al., 2015). This
assignment will mainly portray three different styles of leadership. It will also provide
comparisons among the different leaderships styles with examples of leaders in the present
generations. This will help in better understanding of the different styles properly.
Overview of the three different leadership styles;
One of the leadership styles that can be mentioned here is the autocratic leadership style.
Here, the leaders take all the decisions and give very little scope to the employees for providing
their suggestions. Leaders take all the decisions and do not participate in any consultation from
the subordinates. The power mainly remains on the top and the subordinates in the bottom can
only follow them. Those members who do not follow or agree with this kind of leaders are often
punished to keep them in line (Mwenda & Wachira, 2015). When any sort of mistakes take
place, autocratic leaders try to set examples of the offenders by mainly punishing them in front
of other employees. Blame is provided on the individuals even if the entire process of working is
faulty without explaining (Iqbal, Anwar & Haider, 2015). However, the next form of leadership
that can be described is the transformational leadership. This is quite different from the
autocratic leadership style, as they do not blame the employees in every failure. Rather they are
seen to provide inspirational motivation. This involves the leaders in providing a vision of the

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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES
future to the followers and at the same time motivating them for performing beyond
expectations. Another very important feature of this style of leadership is that in this type,
intellectual stimulation takes place of the old assumptions, traditions and beliefs by portraying
novel and innovative thoughts for better performance from the employees (Banks et al., 2016).
Unlike the autocratic leaders who are more concerned with the output rather than the
requirements and needs of the employees, the transformational leaders believe in individualized
considerations (McCleskey, 2014). The leaders remain highly concerned about the needs of the
people and try their best to develop the skills of their followers for better achieving of the goals.
Unlike the autocratic leaders, they do not put themselves in the topmost position and provide
more importance on what is better for the organizations. This type of leaders provides a clear
vision of the future that in turn helps in motivating staff members to perform beyond their
expectations (Rouche et al., 2014). Another form of leadership is called the democratic
leadership. Democratic leaders on the other hand are mainly seen to rely on different types of
group inputs and consensus before they are trying to make a decision. Such leaders are seen to
prefer an open discourse between the workforces (Teles, 2015). However, they make sure that
although they prefer interacting with all at equal levels, they reserve the final say. This is
different from the transformational leaders as the latter bases their leadership in motivating and
inspiring people by describing how the different changes would be helpful in benefitting the
organization before the transition initiates (Beerbobhm, 2015). Democratic leaders help the
employees in different ways by giving them the responsibility, accountability and even feedback
regarding their performance. This is also different from the autocratic leadership, as unlike
autocratic leadership, leaders do not exploit power; rather the democratic leadership believes that
relationships are very important in workplace. They place focus on the quality improvement of