A manager’s skill in influencing others, guiding their efforts, and making them share the company’s goals while keeping in mind their own values is very important because it directly impacts the results a company can obtain.
Within any company, it is essential to understand the diverse leadership styles that exist and adopt the one aligned with their philosophy and goals. Developing leadership skills is also pivotal for managers looking to persuade others positively.
Leadership styles
The way of implementing leadership depends on each leader’s personality, their surroundings, and type of organization; however, there are other factors in leadership styles1 that can be learned and adapted to an organizational culture:
1. Authoritarian or autocratic
This style is exerted by managers who have tight control. Its core features include being unidirectional and centralized in decision-making, getting only indispensable personnel to work on a project. Despite that, it does not necessarily have to mean hostile leadership; it can also be considered an impersonal one.
2. Democratic
This style is contrary to authoritarian leadership and is characterized by giving every member the same importance. Personnel management takes a consensual, active listening, and communication approach whereas the company structure is decentralized and manager-employee relations are horizontal.
3. Bureaucratic
This style foundation consists of traditional procedures, rules, and strict adherence to daily practices. Bureaucratic leaders are prone to resisting innovative ideas since focus is set on efficiency. Nonetheless, employees clearly understand the actions to follow to reach company goals.
4. Transformational
This style is exerted by managers that see human capital as an asset for the company’s growth. The main feature is that it encourages partnerships between leaders and employees based on trust and common agreement.
5. Transactional
This style focuses on compensation and punishment mechanisms; for this reason, one of its most common practices is incentivizing employees to achieve the company goals.
6. Laissez-faire
This style is about delegating tasks and creating self-regulation in teams. Employees can choose how they will fulfill their duties and which methods they will employ to achieve their objectives.
What management skills make a good leader?
There are many essential management skills, but assertive communication and emotional intelligence stand out the most. However, the type of leadership a manager may lean toward will be influenced by these personal skills.
Therefore, whichever style is adopted, the good leader is the one who can identify the best qualities of each employee, knowing when to best use those skills and how to improve individual and team growth.
A leader could borrow, for example, the ability to offer decision-making certainty from the authoritarian style, assertive communication from the democratic style, strategies to foster motivation from the transactional style. well-defined rules from the bureaucratic style, and confidence in the self-management capacity and the potential of human resources from the laissez-faire style.
How to achieve persuasive communication?
A distinctive skill in a leader’s profile is persuasion, which consists of convincing team members in order to guide their opinions and actions. The one who persuades relies on emotion to understand and empathize with the other but never to force a specific behavior; that is manipulating.
Persuasive communication sets itself apart by respecting people’s free will and beliefs, inspiring them with examples, proven experience, and arguments grounded in science.
That is why it is also distinguished for providing just the right information to get the company’s members to make their own decision that will benefit their professional development.
In conclusion, persuasion attempts to reach a result that benefits both parties and, in doing so, achieves long-lasting changes based on the belief of work teams.
At Advance Real Estate, we strive to grow as a company of leadership committed to our employees and customers.
