Saturday, February 10, 2007

Leadership styles

We were discussing how different leaders behave with their people, how some favour a consensual style whilst other prefer a more autocratic approach.

I wondered whether it is even possible to adopt elements of best practice in organisations where the emphasis is on telling people rather than asking. My colleague for this discussion is an HR professional with the Ministry of Defence. He quite rightly pointed out that military leaders very often have to lead from the front and that consensual leadership would be inappropriate in some circumstances.

Certainly it would be hard to imagine a 360 degree appraisal of Sir Winston Churchill for example. It seems that a key aspect of the more authoritative leadership styles is that people are convinced that the leader is right. So called ‘conviction’ politicians are revered precisely because of their convictions.

I wonder if this applies in commercial organisations.

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