I was listening to an ABC Radio National

Rear Vision podcast on the way home the other day about the 2020 summit and the history summits in Australian and Australian politics. There was one snippet that discussed the different styles of leadership Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Bob Hawke’s style was based around getting a consensus on what should be done while Paul Keating was more about this is my vision come on board.

Leadership has always been a topic of interest to me and I have spent a bit of time reflecting and thinking about what leadership means? Who are good leaders? What makes good leaders? What can I learn from this person’s leadership? etc. I have found myself becoming increasingly frustrated in my current setting at work and the process I find myself in. As a result I have tried to step back and reflect on what is getting me frustrated.

The father of leadership styles appears to be Kurt Lewin a psychologist that proposed in 1939 that there are 3 broad styles of leadership. Those 3 being:

1. The Authoritarian (Autocratic);
2. The Participator (Democratic); and
3. The Delegator (Laissez-faire).

The authoritarian (rule by ones self) leader provides clear expectations for what needs to be done, when it should be completed and how to complete it. They provide vision and direction and then try to convince people to get on board. The Participator (majority rule) encourages the group members to participate, offers guidance but retains final say over the decision making. They spend time building consensus amongst the group, using that consensus to drive the direction. While the delegator (let do) offers little or no guidance to the group and leaves decision making up the group members. Kurt Lewin studied the three styles of leadership and discovered that members of an authoritarian leadership are the most productive, though members of participator leaders contributions while less productive did produce higher quality output. While members of a delegator leader often lack motivation and have poorly defined roles.

I think my personal style is part authoritarian and part participator. Properly more authoritarian then participator but I think that is a result of my drive from being goal and outcome driven. Though I also recognise the need to be a participator and get people involved and owning what they are doing. I lean away from the delegator style mainly due to the fact I believe it is important for a leader to have the answers.

Reflecting on my current frustrations I boiled my frustration down to the meetings about meetings about meetings. Did I mention there are a lot of meetings. It seemed that everything was being done through committee, which appeared to be an ineffective use of time. So when I was listening to the Podcast the comments about Bob Hawke being a leader of consensus it rang some bells and I decided to do a little more reading on leadership styles. As I reflected more on it I realised that it was the lack of productive outcomes, outputs and an apparent poor utilisation of time. The group dynamics where lending themselves towards the delegator style, causing me to have an undefined role and tasks within the group. Making me increasingly frustrated.

In the name of balance and yin yang a good leader most be able apply all three styles and be able to identify when it is appropriate to use which style. They must be able to use the authoritative style when the group lacks knowledge, use the participative style when the group clearly understands their objectives and there roles in the task and use the delegative style when the members know more about the task at hand then they do. Participative leadership is said to be the most effective style of leadership though I think it can easily become a delegator style, the least effective, if the leader does not retain the final say over the decision making.