So, how do you lead? What are your styles?
Every leader has a distinctive approach. You may not even realise it. You may not even know why you lead the way you do. However, reflecting on your leadership styles can help you lean into your values and strengths and become a more conscious leader.
Many leaders flex their approach – often using a combination of styles – based on their abilities, their confidence levels, the context, their team’s needs and the organisation's goals. Using the ‘right’ leadership styles can make a big difference. Leadership styles influence how empowered employees feel, how an organisation runs and, ultimately, how successful it is.
And empowerment plays a key role:
Leadership is about empowering other people as a result of your presence - and making sure that impact continues into your absence.
Taken from Frances Frei's and Anne Morris's book Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You.
➡️ Psst...this 👆 is one of our must-read leadership book recommendations for 2025.
This article explores different types of leadership styles, how you can discover yours and why being aware of how you show up as a leader matters.
Contents
Different Leadership Styles
There are many different types of leadership styles. They are as diverse as leaders themselves. Some common styles you might encounter, recognise or embody include:
Autocratic Leadership
This style is characterised by individual control over all decisions, with little input from team members, for example, a dictator style leadership. While it can be used in crises that require fast decision-making, it ultimately stifles creativity, reducing autonomy, motivation and psychological safety where people fear the higher-ups leading to a culture of silence.
Coaching Leadership
Leaders provide less specific direction to employees while encouraging and supporting them to make decisions. Coaching leaders set clear expectations and create a positive, motivating environment. ➡️ Curious to know how to adopt a coaching leadership style?
Democratic Leadership
Similar to participative leadership, this style involves leaders empowering their team members to participate in decision-making and striving for consensus. The team goes with the majority vote, and the leader retains the final decision-making authority when there is an impasse. They welcome everyone's opinions and lead to robust solutions. This style is not great when leading an inexperienced team or in a crisis.
Inclusive Leadership
Inclusive leadership involves recognising biases, understanding diverse social and cultural experiences, and actively seeking diverse perspectives to collaborate effectively. It includes respecting team members, providing necessary resources and support, and fostering environments that enable individuals to perform optimally and reach their full potential. ➡️ Curious to know how to adopt an inclusive leadership style?
Likeable Badass Leadership
Alison Fragale advocates for a "Likeable Badass" approach in her book, which balances being assertive and competent with being warm and approachable. This contrasts with traditional views that often see these qualities as mutually exclusive - especially for women. ➡️ Check out our book review in our 25 must-read leadership books.
Participative Leadership
In participative leadership, leaders encourage employees to be creative, take responsibility, and share their ideas to help the organisation improve. This style of leadership promotes collective decision-making and teamwork and can boost morale and foster a sense of ownership among team members.
Servant Leadership
This style is the opposite of Autocratic leadership. Servant leaders serve their employees and distribute power among their team members. They align their team around a common goal, giving them autonomy and working with them as collaborative partners rather than resources (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). This style is often used in software organisations embracing Agile practices, which promote empowering, aligned and autonomous teams. It can create a positive work environment, engaged employees and loyalty.
Transformational Leadership
These leaders inspire and motivate their teams to exceed their own expectations and achieve extraordinary goals. They create an environment for personal growth and development, and focus on empowering their team members to drive a vision. They engage with followers by paying attention to their needs, raising their motivation, and providing an ethical decision-making framework.
Empowering Leadership
Empowering leadership is gaining traction in modern organisations, and it’s clear to see why. Empowering managers fosters employee autonomy, trust, and growth and uses a blend of some of the styles above, such as coaching leadership.
It's all about giving your team members the tools, authority, and confidence to make decisions and take action. When done right, it can have a profound impact on both individuals and the organisation as a whole, significantly impacting performance.
Employee Engagement and Leadership
Employee engagement refers to employees' emotional connection and commitment to their organisation. In what way must a good leader approach different leadership styles? Employee engagement and empowering leadership are closely intertwined concepts that significantly impact organisational success. ➡️ See our Top 10 Employee Engagement Statistics.
Trust drives employee motivation
Empowering leaders place trust in their employees and grant them authority to make decisions. They align their teams on the vision and strategy and empower team members to problem-solve.
According to meta-analytic research by Harvard Business Review:
Employees were more likely to trust leaders who they perceived as more empowering.
Creates a rich work culture
Empowering leaders are skilled communicators who adapt to various methods of communication to ensure clear and open lines of dialogue with their team. They focus on cultivating self-confidence, autonomy, and responsibility in their teams. This includes providing coaching, mentorship, and growth opportunities.
Aligns and empowers employees to drive the vision
Empowering leaders consistently remind others of the vision and goals, helping employees understand the importance of their roles. They inspire through both words and actions, leading by example.
Creates psychological safety and drives innovation
Leaders create space where everyone’s voice is heard without fear of negative consequences. They encourage employees to feel comfortable expressing their opinions or challenging ideas, even those from authority. Inviting teams to experiment and problem-solve rather than micro-managing them means that teams feel empowered to take risks without fear. This promotes innovation.
According to Forbes:
Organisations that foster psychological safety lay the foundation for a culture bursting with creativity and innovation
By incorporating these elements, empowering leaders can create an environment where team members feel valued, capable, and motivated to give their best.
Leadership - One Size Does Not Fit All!
Like shoes, leadership isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. Flexibility is a key characteristic for all leadership styles.
The effectiveness of your leadership style can vary greatly depending on the context and your leadership maturity; for example, you could be interested in exploring how to be a more inclusive leader, or maybe you're a first-time manager. The most effective leaders adapt their style based on the context.
Adapting your leadership style
Your leadership style might need to shift based on:
The challenge or opportunity at hand
A crisis might require a more directive style, while a brainstorming session will benefit from a more collaborative approach.
Your audience
Are you leading peers, direct reports, or a mix? Each group might respond differently to various leadership styles.
Your position in the room
Are you the 'only' in the room (e.g., the only woman, the only person of colour, the only junior staff member)? This can impact how your leadership is perceived and received.
The culture you’re working within
Even empowering leadership, which is often seen as universally positive, can have different effects in different cultures. Research shows that empowering leadership is actually more effective at influencing employee performance in Eastern cultures compared to Western cultures. This doesn't mean empowering leadership isn't effective in Western cultures. However, it does highlight the importance of the cultural context in which you are leading.
Discover Your Leadership Style
The pivotal question. How you see yourself and how others see you is often different. Reflecting on your leadership style is a journey of self-discovery, and there are some key areas to explore.
Leader self-awareness
Self-awareness is crucial for effective leadership. However, leaders are not always as self-aware as they might think. In fact, research suggests that there’s often a significant gap between how leaders perceive themselves and how others see them.
Research suggests that:
95% of people believe they are self-aware, but only 10-15% actually are - Tasha Eurich
This gap can be risky. If you’re not aware of how you come across, you might not realise the impact you’re having on your team. You could be demotivating people without knowing it. You could also miss opportunities for improvement, fail to leverage your own strengths effectively and create a disconnect between your intentions and actions.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EQ) plays a crucial role in leadership. Leaders with high self-awareness, a key component of EQ, can better recognise and manage their own emotions. This leads to more effective responses in challenging situations. They’re also better at reading and responding to others’ emotions, which is important for building strong relationships and motivating teams.
For example, a leader with high EQ might:
Remain calm under pressure, setting a positive tone for the team.
Recognise when they're feeling frustrated and take a step back before responding.
Understand how their mood affects their team and adjust accordingly.
Be open to feedback and use it for personal growth.
Personality Assessments
Personality assessments can be useful tools for self-reflection and understanding your natural tendencies. However, it's important to approach them with a critical eye and consider whether they're scientifically valid. For example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is very popular but has been criticised for its lack of reliability and predictive validity.
These assessments aren't the absolute truth about you. They're just tools for reflection. Use them as a starting point for understanding yourself better, not as a box to limit yourself.
Our Top 8 Leadership Style Assessments
We’ve compiled a list of leadership style assessments which are evidence-based. Many of which we use ourselves.
PrinciplesYou
Adam Grant collaborated with Ray Dalio, Brian Little, and John Golden to create this comprehensive assessment. It provides insights into archetypes, thinking styles, interactions, and leadership skills. It's particularly good at highlighting potential blind spots. Kinkajou are a solutions provider for this, and there is a free version.
DISC Assessment
This assessment focuses on four behavioural traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. It's useful for understanding how you might interact with others and adapt your communication style. Kinkajou uses this in our EMPOWER leadership coaching programme and there is a free version.
AtMyBest 360
This isn't just a self-assessment - it gathers feedback from colleagues, giving you a well-rounded view of your strengths and areas for development as a leader. Kinkajou also uses this in our Leadership Development coaching programmes.
Positive Intelligence
This assessment focuses on identifying and strengthening your mental fitness to enhance leadership effectiveness. It's premise is that activating your inner sages, or positive emotions, and intercepting your saboteurs, or negative emotions, helps promote creativity and big-picture awareness. It's research-based and offers a free assessment to help you understand your prominent saboteurs. Kinkajou also uses this in our Leadership Development coaching programmes.
Big Five
Also known as the Five-Factor Model, this scientifically robust assessment measures Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. It can provide insights into your leadership tendencies.
Hogan Personality Inventory
Another scientifically valid assessment, this is particularly good at predicting job performance. It looks at seven primary scales that influence how you relate to others and approach work.
VIA Strengths
Focused on character strengths, this assessment can help you understand the positive traits that you can leverage in your leadership. Again, it's evidence-based and free to complete.
Strengths Profiler
This tool helps you identify realised and unrealised strengths, learned behaviours, and weaknesses. It's great for understanding where you might want to focus your leadership development efforts. They offer a free starter profile to start your strengths journey.
The value of these assessments lies not just in the results, but in the reflection and discussion they spark. Use them as a starting point for deeper exploration of your leadership style.
Leadership Development
Finding your leadership style is just the beginning. Developing it is an ongoing process that never ends. As well as our evaluation of leadership development strategies - we've compiled a quick review list below:
Formal Education
Leadership development training, courses, workshops, and degree programmes can provide structured learning opportunities.
Leadership Mentoring
Working with an experienced leader can offer personalised guidance and insights.
Reverse mentoring
Equally, reverse mentoring - working with someone more junior in the organisation to give you unique insights
Leadership Coaching
Professional coaching, either 1:1 or in a group can help you identify blind spots and develop specific leadership skills. Peer coaching circles are also an empowering, collaborative leadership development approach.
Experiential Learning
Taking on new challenges and responsibilities can help you discover and refine your leadership style. Leadership development camps coupled with group coaching are a novel way to do this.
Feedback and Reflection
Regularly seeking feedback from peers, superiors, and team members, and reflecting on your experiences, can provide valuable insights.
Reading and Self-Study
Exploring leadership books, podcasts and case studies can expose you to new ideas and approaches.
Networking
Engaging with other leaders can provide opportunities for learning and benchmarking.
Conclusion
Finding your leadership style is a personal journey of self-discovery and continuous learning. It's about understanding your natural tendencies, developing self-awareness, and adapting your approach to different contexts and cultures. And, there's no one 'right' leadership style. The most effective leaders are those who can flex their style based on the needs of their team and the demands of the situation. They are also those who are committed to ongoing growth and development.
Take the time to explore different leadership styles. Reflect on your strengths and areas for development. Seek feedback from others. Try out different approaches. And most importantly, stay open to learning and growth.
➡️ Interested in Leadership Development?
Check out our 1:1 leadership coaching, leadership group coaching, and leadership coaching for women or first-time managers services to enhance your leadership development journey.