Leadership Styles

This post is a little late this week because Emily and I have been in Williamsburg at a conference.

This week I am going to discuss several different styles of leadership.

1. Coercive--the leader demands compliance.
2. Authoritative--the leader moblizes people toward a vision.
3. Afflitative--the leader creates harmony and builds emotional bonds.
4. Democratic--the leader forges consensus through participation.
5. Pacesetting--the leader sets high standards for performance.
6. Coaching--the leader develops people for the future.

These styles and defintions were taken from the book we are using for class Educational Leadership the 2nd edition from the chapter called Understanding Change by Fullan.

I would use each one of these depending on the situation in which I am given. I use afflitative and coaching the most. These are natrual talents or strengths which I try to work on every day. I try to use both of these to build trust when I am talking with students and colleages. I also think it is important to remember with coaching even baby steps in the learning process are critical. I would be coercive if I just need people to get a small task done such as turning in one paperwork form. I do believe if you are coercive all the time this will hurt the change process. Authoritative is important when trying to get an organization on board with the future plan or vision. I would like to be more of a pacesetter in that I believe this style can produce results at a higher level because it pushes people past what they think they are capable of accomplishing.

I believe each one of these can help or hurt an organization depending on how it is perceived by those with who I work. Coercive and Authoritiative tend to be negative in my mind because most of the time when I use them it is me trying to use force or power to get people to do their jobs. The other for I believe lead to an environment of trust and respect where communication and results blend well together.