Different Types of Leadership Styles

Posted on May 10, 2012 by admin

There are many different types of leadership styles – to name just a few, there are inspirational leadership styles, situational leadership styles, autocratic, democratic and bureaucratic leadership styles and more!

Inspirational Leadership Styles

Inspirational styles are very popular in political and cultural leaders. Inspirational leaders do not direct the detail, nor do they let themselves get bogged down in the nitty gritty affairs of practical management. Instead, a practical leader provides the vision for the organisation and inspires those beneath them to work to incredible levels that only high states of motivation would allow.

Situational Leadership Styles

Situational leadership is allow about flexing and adapting ones leadership behaviours and characteristics based on the situation you find yourself in. This involves giving great focus to some of your strengths and minimising the effects of other qualities when you believe that the situation requires it.

Autocratic Leadership Styles

Autocratic leaders are defined by their decision making method. Autocratic leaders are what is known as ‘top-down’ leaders. In other words, they make the decisions solely by themselves, and push the decision downwards through layers of management. It is in essence the basis of the traditional management structure. It discourages upwards feedback

Democratic Leadership Styles

Upwards feedback is the mainstay however, of the democratic style, which encourages employee participation, either directly or through larger and broader surveys which can tap into a massive pool of knowledge previously ignored by an autocratic leader.

Bureaucratic Leadership

Bureaucratic leadership is about creating a system that works. Providing the oversight to a function which includes building in controls, designing tasks and sculpting reporting lines to ensure that quality or speed of service is upheld. Bureaucracy is often known for being slow and unyielding – but that all depends on how the system itself is designed. A system designed to ensure queries are responded to quickly, will do just that!

How much should leaders know about Finance?

Posted on April 24, 2012 by admin

Do leaders need to be knowledgeable in finance to enable them to run a business effectively? If is enough to have a very qualified and appropriately skilled finance director/CFO at a leaders side, or it core knowledge absolutely essential for any leader?

Saving Face

One reason why leaders do need a base grounding in finance is in their image as a reputable and knowledgeable leader. Although we all know the opposite to be true, we like to think that our leaders are great all-rounders who can make decisions brilliantly on their own because they have the knowledge. If a CEO brought the CFO to a key meeting with a big prospective client, and the CEO wasn’t able to field any questions whatsoever of a financial nature, then the clients impression of the CEO may reduce. Delegation is one thing, but it could appear to border on incompetence if it is done excessively.

Another reason is that the leadership of a business and the understanding of its numbers are very closely linked. One could argue that even the most hands-on operational leader would still need to understanding the accounting reports to be able to collect feedback on their operations. Businesses are so intertwined with elements of finance, such as reporting, risk and shareholder returns, that a leader who does not understand finance will surely struggle to perform their duties.

Courses Available

It would seem that the educational sector has responded to this learning need by providing leadership courses and leadership videos. The CIPD offers a finance course for ‘non-financial managers’ which promises to tackle financial topics relevant for business leaders without the need for prerequisite knowledge in financial areas (for example; an accounting degree). These types of courses sound like the perfect platform from which a leader can ‘fill the gaps’ in their knowledge.

These courses are quite expensive though, relative to a salary and therefore if you are a manager, you should encourage your company to send you on a course, and state the business case for doing so to win support from the purse-string owners!

Many Different Leadership Styles

Posted on April 1, 2012 by admin

If you lead a major corporation, manage a team at work or are a captain of a sports team; it is important that you choose the right leadership style according to the situation. There are many different leadership styles that people use throughout their life. It is important that you understand each style and when it should be use to come up with your own personal leadership style that is used to bring you and your team success.

The first leadership style is the transactional leadership. In this leadership style the leader focuses on the exchanges that occur between the leader and the follower. So the leader exchanges promotions, pays and bonuses for the work that is performed by the follower. The other similar leadership style in this category is transformational leadership. In this leadership style, the leader engages the follower as a whole and not what he or she has to offer. The leader focuses on the potentials the follower has to offer so that they can form a relationship to reach both organization and personal goals.

The other three types of leadership styles that are widely used are; autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles. Autocratic leadership is not highly preferred as it can cause many problems between the leader and the follower. This is because all the decisions are made by the leader and imposed on the followers without allowing opposition or questions. But in situations where decisions need to be made quickly, autocratic leadership can be used. The democratic leadership style is widely used when team agreements matter during a project. In this style the leader makes sure that everyone that is affected by the decision has an input or saying on what they should do. Even though this style is favored, managing everyone’s idea can be difficult and some may feel disheartened if their ideas are not taken into account. Lastly, the laissez-faire leadership is used when the leader is sure that his or her followers are capable and motivated to do all the complete on time and effectively without close supervision. Sometimes this type of leadership tends to occur when the leader is lazy or is busy in something else.

These are the main types of leadership styles that leaders tend to use but it is important that the leader uses all these styles according to situation and what needs to be done. So as leader of the organisation or a team, be sure to incorporate all the leadership styles when working with your followers.

Are Business Leaders Good at Investing & Saving?

Posted on March 25, 2012 by admin

Business leaders such as CEOs, CFOs, COOs and presidents are often thought of as being ‘wealthy’, ‘rich’ and ‘well off’. Is this true though? These descriptions actually infer that business leaders are good at accumulating wealth, and not just simply spending.

But business leaders certainly do spend, and in large quantities. A private jet from NetJets, which are sometimes used by the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies will set you back at a pay-as-you-go price of $30,000 for a single trip from the United Kingdom to Continental Europe. This is an astonishing cost, and so if business leaders are spending money on such large ticket expenses – would there be anything left to actually save?

The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. You may associate private jets and large mansions and Bugatti Veyrons with CEOs, but in actual fact – these are actually items that Billionaires and Multi Multi millionaires own. These are also known as the ‘Ultra High Net Worth‘ category of individuals. CEOs are only paid a salary and stock options, which ultimately means they rarely reach the dizzing heights of $100m+ in terms of wealth.

This means that they are left with the choice of private jets… or (relatively) little retirement funds to enjoy their old age in.

In reality – CEO’s spend more modestly than you’d imagine. Sure, they may drive a jaguar, and have a reasonable sized house – but remember, their house is an asset, so they don’t actually incur a real cost (apart from interest on a mortgage) on that purchase.

Essential Business Leadership Skills: 3 – Strategy & Forethought

Posted on March 11, 2012 by admin

Leaders are either reactive or pro-active. Leadership books and leadership courses, particularly academic ones will go into this subject in great detail. However I will discuss the differences in this short article with reference to a few examples.

Reactive Leadership

A reactive leader develops a business response to an event after it has occurred. An example would be BP boss Tony Hayward who held the reigns of the British oil giant after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

In such situations, reactive leaders must assemble their best teams and achieve a careful balance between haste and sensibility. After the spill, staff from BP tried fruitlessly a number of schemes designed to close the broken valve and stop the flow of Oil into the sea. These ‘quick fix’ ideas did not work, and eventually a longer term project was required to stop the oil pouring out from the ocean bed.

The drawbacks of reactive leadership – however effective – is clear. Regardless of how quickly a disaster can be solved or mitigated, the damage to brand or relationships will already have irreparably occurred. For large corporations such as BP, this means a smear on their brand for the next 10 years at least. Whenever ‘BP’ is heard, people will think back to devastating effects on the local fishing communities and wildlife.

Pro-active Leadership

The pro activity of some leaders allows businesses to smooth navigate their way through the year without hitting the same level of scandals as other businesses. These are pro-active leaders.

ConocoPhilips for example is a comparable Oil giant to BP, however its annual report shows clearly that in 2010 it spent twice as much on safety precautions (as a % of revenue) as BP. With this level of variance between such similar entities – one wouldn’t be surprised to hear that out of the pair, BP was the major oil disaster headline of the ‘noughties’ decade.

Pro-activity is not necessary the best strategy in ever situation. In many cases, a little strategic foresight will help a company navigate rare, large costs associated with unexpected events. However this does come with a price – which the ConocoPhilips story illustrates nicely.

Which type of leadership do you think is best?

Essential Business Leadership Skills: 2 – Listening

Posted on March 9, 2012 by admin

It is better to spend more of your time listening than talking. This piece of advice is repeated in many different leadership and management books, including How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Your Personal Brand

It only takes a few meetings to form a sensible view on someones main characteristics and traits. With such a small window in which to make a first impression – it is important that you use the opportunity to demonstrate that you respect the opinions and objectives of others, and are a reasonable and like able person that they will want to work with the in future.

This might sound like a lot of hard work – but good listening skills will go a long way to achieve this. Simply paying sincere attention to what others say, and using this to communicate in a more informed and sympathetic manner will gain you much respect in a very short space of time.

The Strengths of Your Team

Effective leaders utilise and maximising the skills and potential of their team. Achieve great things in business is usually a team effort, and therefore the better you can work openly with others, the greater the financial and non-financial rewards will be.

A leader will implicitly encourage (or discourage) participation and feedback depending on their attitude towards their team. If a leader does give their team any chance to speak at length – they send a clear message that they are not interested in giving their team a chance to shine. On the other hand, a leader who actively challenges all members of their team (even junior staff) to participate in a discussion will be incentivising their immediate workforce to share their ideas and work hard to achieve a good word from their boss.

The Essential Business Leadership Skills: 1 – Passion

Posted on March 8, 2012 by admin

Hello everyone! Welcome to Business-Leadership.co.uk. This website will hopefully become a great source of leadership content and material, with a particular focus on the leadership of businesses. (Here are some excellent sources of Military leadership and religious leadership information if you came here looking for something else!)

Today I would like to begin by talking about the 1st in a series of articles about essential business leadership skills – skills that all leaders virtually need to have to be successful and well-rounded leader. Of course, exceptions to the rule will always exist, but I’m talking to the masses here, and not the outliers!

Essential Business Leadership Skill 1 – PASSION.

Passion is the energy, drive and enthuasiasm you have for something. Your train of thought will always revert back to the object of your passio. And it will positively enable leadership in the following ways:

1. Passion leads to credibility.

A love for a subject is intertwined with a deep knowledge of a subject. In a similar vein of logic, someone who is passionate about a process will usually have a comprehensive understanding of this. We see this link in so many different areas of our lives – from religious devotees, extreme hobbyists and intense romances. Passion means dedicated, and dedication leads to knowledge.

As a result, when we learn that someone is passionate about something, we automatically assume that they are both competant and experienced in the area.

Conversely, if we were to learn that a CEO is only leading a business because of the lucrative pay packet, and has no real interest in the activities in the business, we would place less trust in their ability to serve us as a customer.

2. Passion leads to Inspiration

Following on from something I mentioned at the beginning of this article – our thoughts and feelings tend to rotate around our passion, and it is never long before our attention returns to it. When a passion is constantly rotating around our heads – we tend to make brilliant connectons with other ideas, or imagine a new way of viewing the concept.

In other words, when you become totally immersed in a subject, you begin to have better ideas and creative development regarding the subject of interest. Whether this leads to new marketing campaigns, HR policies or manufacturing breakthroughs – inspiration is great for business.