TYPES OF LEADERSHIP: THE 10 CLASSES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS - JOB - 2025

There are different types of leaders in groups and companies, with different functions and characteristics, each class with its advantages and disadvantages, pros and cons. In this article we will explain them to you, with examples, so that you learn to differentiate them or know what your style is.

Sometimes business leadership within an organization is determined by the position held in it. For example, those who occupy the managerial positions or those with greater responsibility are those who carry out the functions of directing, motivating or supervising employees or collaborators.

But that is not always the case. At other times, leaders appear informally and thus influence other members of the organization. Therefore, the leader does not have to be determined by a senior management position; there may be "bosses and leaders."

What is leadership?

We could define leadership as the way in which employees are influenced to voluntarily pursue the objectives of the organization.

It is a process in which a person exerts social influence to change the behavior of other people, making them work harder to achieve a goal.

Leadership is not related to academic titles, job positions, or management styles. Simply put, a leader is someone with followers and who can influence other people.

Different meanings

Leadership can be understood in different ways. However, in organizations, different meanings have been given depending on the orientation, specifically three:

1. First, leadership as an attribute of a position in the organization.

2. As a personal trait, according to the characteristic of the person himself.

3. As conduct, according to the way the person acts.

According to the influence exercised by the leader, we can establish the interaction of three variables: the leader himself, with his personal characteristics, the followers, who also have personal characteristics, and the context where the relationship is framed.

"I suppose leadership once meant having muscles, but today it means getting along with people." -Mahatma Gandhi.

The 10 most normal types of leadership in humans

Autocratic or authoritarian leadership

North Korean citizens paying homage to statues of leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il

One of the types of leadership that can occur within the organization is autocratic or authoritarian leadership. This kind of leader has centralized authority, limiting employee participation and making decisions unilaterally.

Furthermore, he expects obedience from his followers and exercises power over them through rewards and punishments.

The autocratic leader, since he makes decisions and holds power unilaterally, is the one who decides all aspects of the organization (objectives, procedures, work goals, etc.).

Real examples: Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, Donald Trump.

Democratic or participatory leadership

In democratic leadership, the leader does tend to involve "lower-ranking" employees in decision-making. In addition, he is the one who encourages them to participate in deciding on procedures, objectives, work goals, etc.

However, we must emphasize that it is he who also makes the last decision or who has the last word in it. This does not mean that he makes decisions unilaterally or without taking the rest of the team into account.

In this way, it tends to invite others to participate in decision-making, which makes members develop their capacities and abilities, feel part of the team and are more satisfied at work.

By feeling part of the group, team members work harder. It is a type of leadership that, taking into account all the members, can take more time, however, great results are achieved.

If you need teamwork and you need quality above all else, this is an ideal style. The participatory leader uses consultation with team members when delegating.

This does not mean that they delegate decisions to others, but it does mean that they listen to other ideas and, as far as possible, accept outside contributions.

Real examples: Obama, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John F. Kennedy.

Liberal or laissez-faire leadership

This type of leader is the one who offers absolute freedom when it comes to acting to the members of the organization, so that he stays on the sidelines and does not intervene. In this case, the leader leaves the group members to work freely without accountability.

It can be effective when the team members themselves have a lot of experience or, for example, have a lot of initiative when carrying out projects.

The liberal leader, unlike the participatory, does delegate decisions to his followers, who take responsibility.

Actual examples: Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover, Warren Buffet, Queen Victoria.

Bureaucratic leadership

Bureaucratic leadership is one that ensures that its employees / people in charge follow the established rules to the letter.

This kind of leadership is appropriate in some circumstances. For example, when we encounter safety hazards at work (operators work with dangerous machinery or toxic substances, for example).

The leader makes sure that everything they do is accurate and necessary. We could say that the bureaucratic leader has a performance sheet under which he or she is governed at work.

Following it, it does not take into account anything different and things cannot be changed, having to be done in the marked way. When unforeseen things arise, the bureaucratic leader will have the solution prepared in advance.

He is not an empathetic leader, he is not concerned with the motivation of his team members or their personal development. As we have already commented, it could be useful in those cases where the work is dangerous and this type of leadership can bring certain benefits.

Real examples: Winston Churchill, Colin Powell, Alfred P. Sloan.

Charismatic leadership

Charismatic leaders inspire their followers or teams to achieve goals and to work, with inspiring visions. However, it presents some problems.

For example, this type of leader tends to trust himself over the members of his team, so that success seems to be marked by the presence of the leader. It is something committed, because if the leader leaves, the projects or the company itself could be affected.

He is an innate leader who attracts people, who generates enthusiasm and satisfaction in the members, so much so that he can become the person without whom things do not go forward.

Real examples: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, Jack Welch.

Natural leadership

The natural leader is one who has not been officially or formally recognized, but has been elected by the group. It is one who leads at any level of the organization and meets the needs of the group itself.

They tend to be communicative leaders, motivating and meeting the needs of their team members. They lead without impositions, unlike the authoritarian leader, and decisions are carried out under the participation of the group members.

Some authors consider that the natural leader within a group is the person with the best abilities and who ends up making the decisions for the whole group. It would be the employee who knows his job best and who is asked by others.

In addition, this kind of leader is a person who understands the rest of the group, knows the strengths and weaknesses of its members and develops personal relationships.

Therefore, it is not enough for the natural leader to know his job well, but he must also have social skills.

Real examples: Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Jordan, Lebron James.

Transactional leadership

This type of leader implies that his followers or members of his team obey him. They are paid in exchange for the effort and tasks they perform. All this implies that the leader directs and can punish those who do not carry out the work in the desired way.

To do this, they ensure that group members fulfill the proposed tasks through external incentives, that is, rewards and punishments.

They do not intend to change things, rather they seek stability. They establish goals or objectives that they communicate to their followers, to whom they also specify the rewards and punishments derived from their work.

It is an optimal type of leadership when you want to achieve a certain goal in a specific way. They focus on the efficiency of an activity, hence it is appropriate in situations where procedures are already in place and no changes are sought.

This type of leadership seeks to be an extrinsic motivation for employees. They are leaders who accept the structure and culture of the organization in which they operate and are usually task-oriented.

Examples: Bill Gates, Norman Schwarzkopf, Vince Lombardi, Howard Schultz.

Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership is one that motivates and inspires members permanently, they are enthusiastic and they transmit it. They look for new initiatives and add value.

He is similar in some characteristics to the charismatic leader, since he transmits courage, confidence and enthusiasm to his team members. However, in contrast, the transformational leader puts that of the group above his personal benefit.

He is a leader who meets the objectives set by the organization, but instead of staying there, he proposes new ideas to everything already achieved. He does not seek stability, but change, he implements new ideas. It promotes stimulation in its followers, promoting new creative and innovative ideas when solving problems.

They are leaders capable of changing an organization, as well as the expectations and motivations of the members that make it up. In this type of leadership, both the leader and the followers work together at a higher stage (the group above the individual).

This kind of leader is respected and has earned the trust and admiration of the members, since he encourages them to do things differently, to seek new opportunities.

It uses open communication, individually and collectively, with all its members, thus sharing new ideas. The characteristics of the transformational leader could be summarized as follows:

- They are leaders with charisma. Their followers identify with them and pretend to imitate them. The emotional aspects of their relationship weigh heavily, because they are very optimistic and enthusiastic leaders.

- The leader encourages them through high expectations and encouraging them to explore their points of view to reach innovative solutions.

- They are leaders who motivate and inspire confidence.

- They are leaders who show individual consideration in their followers, establishing personal relationships based on the needs of each one.

Real examples: Alexander the Great, Marco Aurelio, William Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, John D. Rockefeller, Simón Bolívar.

Leadership oriented to people or relationships

The leader who is people-oriented focuses on organizing, supporting, and personally developing his team members. They are more participatory, tend to encourage their participation and take into account those around them.

It began as a dimension of leadership as opposed to task-oriented leadership. However, we can find leaders who are oriented both to people or relationships and to tasks.

The people-oriented leader takes into account the feelings of the followers, helps them with their personal problems, and is friendly and close. He is a leader focused on generating mutual respect and trust, and cares about the needs and desires of the members of his group.

Members of groups with a people-oriented leader tend to be more satisfied workers, who miss less work, that is, they have less absenteeism and also produce fewer complaints at work.

Task-oriented leadership

Task-oriented leaders focus on the task itself, on achieving the objectives and the job well done. Sometimes, if the leader focuses exclusively on the task and neglects the orientation to people or relationships, he can tend to be autocratic or authoritarian.

It is a type of leadership that focuses on defining what are the objectives, goals, the roles necessary to achieve them and orders, plans, organizes and controls in order to achieve those objectives.

They are leaders who do not focus on the well-being and satisfaction of their team members, since what matters is productivity and the achievement of objectives. They do not focus on the motivation of the team members.

This kind of leadership is effective when a company or group has to achieve certain objectives in an important way, in a short period of time or with barriers that are difficult to overcome.

On the contrary, if it is maintained for long periods of time, employees can get tired, feel discomfort by not developing personal relationships and leave work.

Leadership theories

Within the leadership theories, we find:

The theory of personality traits

For the authors who focus within this theory, the leader is the person who presents a series of qualities or personal characteristics that lead him to achieve a dominant position.

Leadership would be a personality trait that are innately part of people, varying in the degree to which they possess this trait and can be average and evaluated.

Empirical support for this theory has not been found, but it can be argued that some personality characteristics such as extroversion, intelligence, empathy or self-confidence are characteristics that are related to achievement and leadership.

The theory of behavior

According to this theory, leadership is explained based on behavior, so these authors consider that in order to correctly analyze and define leadership, we must focus on what leaders do, on the behaviors they carry out.

To do this, they propose to focus on leadership styles. Within this approach, for example, studies at the University of Ohio identified different factors in the behavior of leaders.

The final results indicated that followers or employees perceived the behavior of their leaders based on two dimensions related to behavior: work-oriented and people-oriented.

When we talk about orientation to people we refer to the degree to which the leader takes into account the feelings of the followers. That is, the degree to which it takes them into account, is close, helps them.

Work orientation refers to the degree to which it facilitates group interactions to obtain the proposed goal and defines the tasks to achieve it.

Humanistic approach

McGregor, from the humanist approach, was an author who proposed two styles of leadership: a more authoritarian style, which he calls theory X, and a more egalitarian style, which he calls theory Y.

Theory X states that human beings are reluctant to work and that they have to be forced to do so, while theory Y tries to integrate both the objectives of the organization and those of the worker.

Theory of the contingency model

These models propose that for a leader to be effective, the interaction between the behaviors carried out by the leader and the situation in which the group / team he leads is found must be taken into account.

The interactionist model

This theory emphasizes the followers and the role they play in explaining the leader's behavior.

Leadership would be defined by the behavior of the followers; when they are more adversarial followers, leaders adopt authoritarian positions.

On the other hand, when followers are not confrontational, the leader tends to adopt a more friendly stance.

Leadership as an attribution process

These theories focus on the attribution that the person makes when following a leader.

In this way, when a person perceives certain behaviors in another that he considers to be part of a leader, he usually attributes the role of leader to that person.

Differences between men and women

There is research that has studied the differences between men and women in leadership in organizations.

For example, some differences are as follows:

- Men tend to opt more for leadership focused on tasks or production.

- Women focus on more people-centered leadership.

- Men tend to use a more directive and autocratic style.

- Women tend to use a more democratic style.

- Women obtained (rated by their peers and direct followers) higher scores in effectiveness.

References

1. Kinicki, A. and Kreitner R. (2003). Organizational behavior: concepts, problems and practices. Mexico: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 14, 348-365.
2. Mallma-Vivanco, JC and Córdova-Marcelo, JL (2015). The natural leadership. Cuaderno Empresarial Magazine, 1 (1), 66-72.
3. Rivas Cuéllar, ME and López Fernández-Escandón, M. (2014). Social and organizational psychology. Manual of preparation for Internal Resident Psychologist.
4. Rodríguez Nova, AM (2014). Leadership and work environment. Militar University of New Granada. Colombia.