Four Types Of Leadership Styles

People know who great leaders are. Ask people to name great leaders, and they throw out names such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, for example. However, when asked to define leadership, or what characteristics a person must exhibit to be an effective leader, they often struggle to offer responses. This is because who a leader is and what a leader does changes with each situation. That is to say, the concept of leadership carries different meanings depending on time, place, and purpose. Sometimes, some people’s leadership styles contradict the way other people perform their leadership roles, making understanding and defining the notion of leadership challenging. However, a survey of literature on the topic of leadership can help us to understand how people perceive and perform leadership in various contexts, providing a broad multi-disciplinary understanding of the topic.
The notion of leadership, then, carries various and sometimes …show more content…
Malloy and Penprase (2010) discuss three styles of leadership: One described as laissez-faire, which is passive-avoidant; another as transactional, involving task management by means of a punishment and reward system; and yet another as transformational, involving influencing peoples’ attitudes and actions through relationship building. Dove and Freely (2011) discuss a democratic style of leadership that is rather egalitarian. These name four of many styles of leadership. One style of leadership may sometimes be more effective in one situation than leadership in another, such that a responsive leader can adapt to various situations by selecting an effective style to fit a particular need. Thus, there is no one leadership definition or style to fit all situations, and this makes it challenging for those in the field of education to “effectively instruct students how to best practice leadership” (Rosch & Kusel, 2010, p.