Participative Leadership Style “Democratic Leadership”

Background Kurt Lewin classified management styles and cultures into three categories - autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. He conducted an experiment on a group of children who were guided by leaders, following the three leadership styles. He concluded, at the end of the experiment, that the democratic leadership style is the most effective one as all the group members participated in the final decision-making process.

Assumptions People are more committed to actions where they have involved in the relevant decision-making. People are less competitive and more collaborative when they are working on joint goals. When people make decisions together, the social commitment to one another is greater and thus increases their commitment to the decision. Several people deciding together make better decisions than one person alone.

Leaders Role a participative leader enables the employees to play a major part in any decision-making process, which makes employee performance better. Therefore, instead of the leader just throwing direct, stringent orders to the employees, he acts like a guide and a mentor to the employees, helping them in achieving their goals.

Attributes This style creates and maintains healthy relationships between the employees and the leader. This is probably the best type of corporate leadership style, that necessarily allows employees to give suggestions and take some of the crucial decisions, along with their manager.

Benefits This increase in participation of the employees, makes them feel more driven to work, thus increasing the company's output. The main advantage is that this technique promotes the development of potential leaders, amongst the team members. There are many minds involved in the decision-making process, and hence the decision is certainly well-thought upon from all angles, ruling out the possibilities of taking a wrong decision. With the involvement of so many people, a lot of alternative ideas can be generated. These ideas may prove to be beneficial in increasing the output efficiency. It gives the employees more than one reason to stay back in the firm, thus increasing the retention rate.

Down Sides might slow down the process of achieving targets. It requires time for the brainstorming sessions to take place. Also, the participants of the sessions also need time to deliberate and come to an unanimous decision. This leadership style might not work for companies that have huge manpower. To involve so many people in the decision-making process, is not practically possible. If the project requires extensive knowledge in a particular area, the involvement of employees with no/less knowledge in the field will be of no use for the company. Instead, the entire decision-making process will be further delayed.