Democratic Leadership Style
The democratic leadership style is used to gain vital facts and information from the experts or those with the relevant knowledge in your team. It focuses more on listening than it does directing and encourages participation from employees. As a leader this leadership style is vital, you cannot be the best at everything and in a well motivated and engaged team, you will have specialists whose knowledge and experience will far exceed your own. Any leader that is skilled enough to park their ego and use their team and the individuals in their teams to their strengths is clearly going to outperform a leader who cannot.
Correctly Used
- Any situation that requires a big change from the entire team
- Seek expert opinions when your own knowledge is less than that of your team
How to Improve Democratic Style Leadership
Learn to quickly identify and communicate new challenges you want to overcome. Encourage participation from your team or the people you interact with by explaining the situation in a clear and simple way that everyone can understand and relate to. Give guidance about what you want from them and why their input is important. Doing these 2 things will ensure you are creating an environment where people feel safe to communicate their thoughts and opinions to you. From here the most important skill you need is to actively listen and continue to encourage input from your people.
The democratic leadership style would not be used with an inexperienced team or a group of people that lack confidence
Top Tips Using Democratic Leadership Style
- Quickly identify and communicate new challenges you want to overcome
- Seek feedback from the relevant people in your team
- Use expert feedback to form plan/strategy to overcome the challenge
Democratic leadership involves making plans from the team or key people within the team’s input. This gives the advantage of buy-in to any strategy that is made using this leadership style. Any situation requiring a consensus change from the team is very would be ideal for the Democratic leadership style. When used correctly and skillfully it has a positive impact on the climate.
Democratic Leadership Style Summary
Daniel Goleman’s 6 Leadership Styles
For more information about the advantages and disadvantages of each of the different leadership styles and to see examples of how each of the leadership styles can be used effectively click through each of the links below.
- Commanding Leadership Style
- Visionary Leadership Style
- Affiliative Leadership Style
- Democratic Leadership Style
- Pacesetting Leadership Style
- Coaching Leadership Style
Which is the best leadership style?