Management Styles

The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work. – Agha Hasan Abedi

No doubt, many of us could – from an employee perspective – write the book on management styles. What’s betting that most of the anecdotes wouldn’t be particularly ‘glowing’ of our former bosses? Is it possible that we could identify traits within their management styles, and indeed, our own to evaluate the typical leadership methods our peers employ – whether by design or default.

It is mainly recognised that there are two sharply contrasting styles, Autocratic and Permissive An Autocratic leader makes all decisions alone. A Permissive leader allows subordinates to take part in decision making and also gives them a considerable degree of autonomy in completing routine work activities.

Combining these categories with democratic (subordinates are allowed to participate in decision making) and directive (subordinates are told exactly how to do their jobs) styles gives us four distinct ways to manage:

• Directive Democrat: Makes decisions participatively; closely supervises subordinates.
• Directive Autocrat: Makes decisions unilaterally; closely supervises subordinates.
• Permissive Democrat: Makes decisions participatively; gives subordinates latitude in carrying out their work.
• Permissive Autocrat: Makes decisions unilaterally; gives subordinates latitude in carrying out their work.

What style is your boss, and what style, more to the point, are you?

In what situations would each style be appropriate? Inappropriate? Managers must also adjust their styles according to the situation that they are presented with.

Being an effective director / manager means knowing when to use the right management style. Some styles, for instance, are more people-oriented, while others tend to focus on a project or product. The management style you select will depend on your people’s skills and knowledge, available resources (like time and money), desired results, and, of course, the task before you.

Your job is to select the management style that works best for any given situation. Managing without a specific style geared to a specific set of circumstances can slow you down and even lead to costly mistakes.

Add Directive, Teamplayer, and Participatory into the mix as management styles. They are less harsh sounding and are pretty self explanatory.

Perhaps experience would dictate that there is no defining style – as surely a mix of all five would be just perfect, but that would be the holy grail of managers. Are you lucky enough to have a boss like that, or are you staff lucky to have YOU?