Management styles. What styles are there and how are they different?

The concept of management style refers to the habitual pattern of behavior of a manager in relation to his subordinates. Since there is no perfect way to achieve job satisfaction and maximize team productivity, managers use different options.

The choice is made taking into account the current situation in the company, the characteristics of the manager’s character and other factors. The key abilities of an effective boss are the ability to manage a project and employees in general, adapting a management style to the employee’s personality type and the circumstances that arise, an appropriate form of communication with the team, and leadership qualities.

German psychologist Kurt Lewin classifies management styles as follows:

authoritarian – when the leader does not take into account the opinion of the team, including valuable employees, when making decisions. The method is harsh and often causes demoralization of the team, resulting in staff turnover and constant absenteeism;
liberal - the team is given complete freedom of action, the boss supports it in every possible way and gives recommendations. The deadlines for completing tasks are set by the team. Used by managers who do not control their affairs, or who seek to increase job satisfaction among the team;
democratic - joint work of the boss and employees involved in decision making. Creativity is encouraged here, but impeccable leadership skills are required.

Liberal management style examples.

Each of the listed models will be discussed in more detail below.

Engineer and psychologist Douglas McGurgor proposed a different classification. He believed that the main management styles are techniques based on theories X and Y.

The first model (X) is adhered to by tough managers, whose word should be law for the team and is not subject to discussion, because:

a person is lazy by nature and tries to avoid work;
In order for the team to work successfully, everything needs to be kept under strict control and constantly forced to do something;
people like to shift responsibility to others and do not like to make important decisions themselves; their boss should do it for them.

Theory Y is based on the basic principles of a democratic management style: the manager delegates authority, takes into account the opinion of the team, and controls only the result.

Here is another position of the head of employees:

people are active by nature, strive for work, love to work;
the main motivation of a person is to achieve a goal, he is capable of self-control and self-government;
people are responsible and capable of making their own decisions.

McGergor's idea was continued in the works of the American social psychologist Rensis Likert, who identified leadership styles:

exploitative-authoritarian - characterized by rigidity, when the boss motivates the team with threats, he does not trust employees, keeps a great distance from them;
benevolent-authoritarian - a strict distance is maintained, but the leader’s attitude is lenient (as towards servants), punishment and reward are more balanced here;
consultative-democratic - built on the boss’s high trust in team members, motivates with rewards, rarely punishes, distance is maintained, but relationships are warmer and more trusting;
on participation - there are warm (sometimes even friendly) relations between the team and the boss, mutual trust and confidence, motivation of the team with material rewards, bonuses and other incentives, punishment - only in extreme cases (rarely).

Today, management style is the generalized data discussed above. Scientists Blake and Mouton placed them in the management grid they developed. The latter is a table with two scales about care: one about the production process, the second about people.

Each has 9 divisions and, accordingly, a score in the range of 1-9 for the expression of the leader’s strategy.

Primitive leadership

A management style when the manager is minimally involved in the process of caring for staff and building successful production. The manager is practically not interested in the question of whether his employees are satisfied with their work.

The boss himself is not particularly zealous or productive; he has one desire - to continue to occupy his position.

This management style leads to poor organization of the team, and deadlines for completing tasks are regularly missed. The outcome of this practice is the decline or complete ruin of the company.

According to the Blake-Mouton lattice, the model receives 1.1 points, hence the name - a primitive guide.

A manager who practices a primitive management style is not involved in work processes and is not interested in production and the team as a whole. Often attracts experts to solve various problems, and is nominally the boss. As a result, such activities have a detrimental effect on the success of the enterprise; often more active, proactive people “pick up” the would-be boss.

If a leader does not change his management style to a more effective one, he will lose his position. And this will be a more profitable outcome for the organization, provided that a person with a better strategy takes his place.

Planning principles

Planning should follow the following principles (rules):

— flexibility, providing for constant adaptation to changes in the operating environment of the enterprise. Changing it requires adjusting the plan for various changes in the external and internal environment;

— continuity, which assumes the sliding nature of planning, primarily in terms of systematic revision of plans, “shifting” the planning period (for example, after the end of the reporting month, quarter, year);

— communication, which means coordination and integration of efforts. Everything must be interconnected and interdependent;

— participation, which implies the importance of involving all possible participants in the process of functioning of a cultural institution;

— adequacy, i.e. reflection of real problems and self-evaluation in the planning process;

— complexity, as the relationship and reflection in the plan of all areas of the financial and economic activities of the enterprise;

— multivariate, allowing you to choose the best of the alternative possibilities for achieving the goal;

— iterativeness – provides for the repeated linking of already compiled sections of the plan (iteration). This determines the creative nature of the planning process itself.

— the principle of unity — predetermines the systematic nature of planning, which means the existence of a set of structural elements of a planning object that are interconnected and subordinated to a single direction of their development, focused on common goals. A single direction of planned activity, the commonality of goals of all elements of the enterprise become possible within the framework of the vertical unity of divisions and their integration.

When developing plans, it is necessary to use such planning principles as:

1) Timeliness

2) Validity

3) Focus

4) Information content

5) Rationality

6) Complexity (organizational, technical, personnel aspects)

Planning sources

When planning their future activities, cultural institutions must take into account some social aspects, namely:

— requests, interests and needs of the population;

— educational and cultural level of the population living in the cultural service area;

— free time of potential visitors;

— real possibilities of the cultural institution itself;

— various trends in the development of cultural institutions and its role in the system of cultural and leisure activities.

Obviously, these tasks will be helped by collecting, analyzing and processing various planning sources, which include:

— various types of research (free time budget, education, range of interests, needs, etc.);

— financial plan of the cultural institution for the coming year (estimate of income and expenses);

— analysis of the activities of a cultural enterprise over the past year;

- social and creative orders coming from public organizations, enterprises and firms located in the cultural service area of a cultural institution, municipal authorities, veterans and youth organizations, etc.;

— holidays and significant dates in the life of the country, region, city, district of a separate work collective, etc.;

— federal and regional cultural programs;

— plans for the work of departments, club formations of the cultural institution itself and other sources.

Authoritarian leadership

A management style built on caring for the company with a complete lack of interest in the team.

A boss who adheres to this leadership model is distinguished by a high level of intelligence and responsibility, and has good organizational skills.

In relationships with subordinates, he strictly maintains his distance, does not trust decision-making, and connects the productivity of the team with a clear organization. An authoritarian management style can increase productivity, but in the long term it becomes a cause of dissatisfaction among the team.

According to the Blake-Mouton lattice, it gets 9.1 - the exact opposite of the primitive model.

To understand, this technique was widely practiced in the USSR, but in modern realities it shows complete inconsistency.

Companies under the leadership of such authoritarian bosses do not develop, operate “the old fashioned way,” and suffer from staff turnover. This management style is also common among the younger generation. They are distinguished by a paradoxical requirement: they want the team to perform tasks flawlessly, but they do not trust them at all.

Roughly: a step to the left, a step to the right - execution.

It is extremely difficult for creative modern people to get along with such an authoritarian boss who does not tolerate any deviation from instructions.

However, this management style cannot be completely discounted, since it has advantages:

iron discipline - complete obedience, no violations (the slightest mistake is punishable by a fine or other serious punishment);
clarity and transparency of the company - all processes are strictly controlled;
stability in a crisis situation - a “trained” team will cope with any force majeure quickly, with minimal losses.

So how should it be done?

We found our own flaws in each of the three styles. So what management style should you choose and how to behave with subordinates? Much, of course, depends on your personality and character type. A dictator by nature will never “deliver snot” and care about the personality of each employee. But a quiet, intelligent woman is simply not capable of slamming her fist on the table and forcing her subordinates to work.

What to do? Combine management styles depending on the situation. This is called situational management. For example, if force majeure occurs, you need to turn on the dictator mode and give clear instructions that can save the situation. If you see that an employee is not coping with his job, use an individual approach, talk to the person personally, find out what worries him. If you need to solve a new problem, stick to a democratic style, find out the opinions of all employees and solve the problem together. Moreover, even when interacting with the same person, it is possible to use different management styles, again depending on the situation. Somewhere to be a tough leader, somewhere to be a wise mentor, sometimes to provide the necessary fatherly support. Here's a chart to help you skillfully navigate between multiple management styles.

Of course, to do this you need to be an experienced leader and a fairly flexible person. All this comes with time. Good luck to you, may everything work out!

Industrial and social leadership

A relatively balanced management style, when the boss is interested in a successful result and shows concern for employees. The manager discusses decisions with the team and is distinguished by his progressive views. In general, the manager manages to maintain a balance between production efficiency and the interests of the team.

The production-social management style often allows one to achieve average results, since new criteria for completing tasks are not used. The boss doesn't insist on them. Situations also often arise where the needs of the team and the job are not fully met. On the Blake-Mouton grid, this management style is located in the middle and scores 5.5 on both scales.

The golden mean in the table characterizes the main principle of the model under consideration. The manager is in a constant search for a compromise: to take into account the interests of the team and production there will be tangible benefits.

The advantages of the production-social methodology include the adaptability and flexibility of the leader, which ensures its effectiveness. Practicing the management style under consideration, the manager makes decisions himself, but motivates team members to express their opinions.

Visionary Leadership

Visionary leadership is comparable to Lewin's authoritarian leadership style. Visionary leaders have a clear long-term vision and know how to inspire and motivate people.

This type of leadership is best suited when a company is undergoing major changes or when there is a need to receive clear direction. In these conditions, people are looking for someone they can trust to follow them into the unknown.

This style may be less effective when other team members are experts with ideas and opinions that differ from those held by the leader. Such specialists will not want to blindly follow a leader with whom they do not agree.

Read about how to build expert authority (and improve your leadership skills)

Benefits of Visionary Leadership:

Members of the organization receive the necessary inspiration and understand their responsibilities.
Temporary problems do not depress the leader because he is focused on the ultimate goal.
Visionary leaders are able to provide backup options for solving problems associated with external factors, such as politics or the global situation.

Disadvantages of Visionary Leadership:

There is no short-term vision of the situation on the part of the teams.
Vision can be lost if it is too closely tied to the leader's personality.
Visionary leaders tend to push away the ideas of other team members.

Read about how a group differs from a team

Social leadership

The social model of leadership is a management style in which the boss focuses more on caring for subordinates and less on production tasks. The atmosphere at work is warm, friendly and pleasant. The manager is confident that he creates optimal conditions for employees to be productive and promotes their self-motivation.

A management style where the main focus is on the interests of the team leads to controversial results because it interferes with high productivity. It is pleasant to work in such a team, but the efficiency of work is a big question. According to the Blake-Mouton grid, the social management style is at 1.9.

Subordinates treat their boss well and are confident in his help and support. The microclimate in the team is excellent, the leader is highly regarded by the team. However, there will always be individuals who take advantage of the manager’s excessive softness. In certain situations, this management style is acceptable, but for a successful company aimed at development, this approach is ineffective. A boss who is too attentive to other people’s problems can also forgive missed deadlines for completing tasks or constant delays (for “good reasons”).

Discipline suffers and productivity drops.

Planning methods

In the cultural sphere, several groups of planning methods have developed:

1. Analytical planning

The analytical planning method involves analyzing the content and results of the activities of a cultural institution in the previous period. The analytical method involves studying the labor process, studying factors influencing labor costs, calculating the time to complete work, developing measures to create conditions for more efficient activities of workers and cultural institutions

2. Regulatory planning

The method of normative planning consists in justifying planned indicators using norms (financial, material, labor, etc.) and standards (as a set of produced or consumed services and goods per unit of consumer, financing, area, equipment, etc.)

Normative planning presupposes a system of quantitative indicators, labor standardization: time standards, production standards, service standards, controllability standards, production resource consumption standards, financial resources standards, etc.

3. Balance sheet planning methods.

These methods are an important aspect of justifying the reality of plan implementation and bringing into compliance (balance) of available resources and costs. To solve this problem, three main types of balances are used: material (natural), financial (cost), and labor.

— Labor balance helps to identify and plan the degree to which a cultural institution is provided with qualified personnel capable of implementing the plans of the enterprise.

— Material balance helps to compare the planned amount of work and the possibility of its implementation using available material resources.

— The financial balance allows you to compare the income and expenses of a cultural institution. If there is a discrepancy between income and expenses, they are adjusted: either they reduce the amount of expenses, or they plan revenues to cover the missing financial resources.

Team leadership

A leader who has chosen a team management style focuses on the needs of the team and production. In the Blake and Mouton classification, it is marked at position 9.9 and is considered optimal. However, such a model is very rare, but all managers are recommended to focus on it on the path of professional self-improvement.

Traits of the leader of the style in question:

provides ample opportunities for team members;
confident in the dedication of the team;
treats subordinates with trust and respect;
involves the team in management and decision making;
successfully copes with complex tasks through joint efforts with employees.

This approach leads to high productivity and a sense of job satisfaction among subordinates. There is a synergy effect here, when 2+2 in total gives more than 4 - individually, the team and the manager are able to achieve less results than acting together.

What to read on the topic

Sydney Finkelstein, 2022 - Superbosses
Ray Dalio, 2022 - Principles
Tony Hsieh, 2014 - Delivering Happiness
Jim Collins, 2014 - Good to Great
Radislav Gandapas, 2022 - Charisma of a leader
Richard Branson, 2014 - To hell with everything! Take it and do it
Lee Kuan Yew, 2013 - From the third world to the first
Dennis Bakke, 2022 - Work is a joy
Jim Collins, 2022 - How the Great Die
Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, 2022 - Great by Choice

Six emotional leadership styles

The classification of management styles was proposed by the American psychologist Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Leadership”.

Visionary leadership style

This model is characterized by a precise designation of the goal set for subordinates. The boss describes the task in detail and interestingly, sets the vector of movement, but does not talk about implementation methods. The style is used in a situation where the company needs to develop in a new direction. The team has complete freedom of action in terms of developing new ideas and ways to achieve goals, including experimental ones.

Mentoring leadership style

A feature of the mentoring style of personnel management is the emphasis on employee development. The manager demonstrates to subordinates ways and options to improve their performance.

A mentor combines the personal goals of each team member with the goals of the current project or the company as a whole. Daniel Goleman believes this model is effective with a proactive team that is committed to professional development.

But the mentoring style of personnel management does not always achieve the desired result. The opposite effect is possible when the team perceives the leader’s actions as a desire to control everything. In this case, subordinates develop self-doubt.

Affiliative leadership style

The model is characterized by an emphasis on cohesion among team members working on a project. Allows you to increase the morale of subordinates, establish trusting relationships, and improve communication. But in an effort to bring the team closer together, it is important not to relegate productivity to the background.

Management styles - democratic

The basis of the democratic style of personnel management is the skills and knowledge of subordinates working to solve a common problem. Suitable for situations where the exact vector of development has not yet been set, but you need to get the opinions of all team members.

The model is based on collective decision-making, but in a crisis it has negative consequences, since you need to act quickly.

Advantages of the considered personnel management style:

strengthening team spirit - subordinates become like-minded people united by one goal;
minimizing errors - the more personnel involved in the work, the higher the likelihood of finding an optimal solution;
a small percentage of staff turnover - you don’t want to leave a team that shares values and goals. With this model, team members feel involved in a common mission and goal.

Management Styles - Directing

A boss who uses this style sets high standards for himself and his subordinates. Everything can be done faster and better – this is what the manager’s behavior model is built on.

The author of the book believes that excessive use of the method leads to an erosion of morale in the team; employees begin to doubt the correctness of tasks. This style has a negative impact on the team.

Management Styles - Commander

The leader is more like a commander in chief. According to the psychologist, the least effective model, but used most often. Working with the team is based on criticism, no reward or praise. Subordinates experience job dissatisfaction. This technique is relevant in times of crisis, when you need to quickly improve the situation.

Theory X and Theory Y (Douglas McGregor's management theories)

In the 1960s, two innovative theories on business management emerged. Their author, Douglas McGregor, published a book, The Human Side of Enterprise, in which he described his own classification:

Theory X. The main provisions of this theory are based on the following assumptions:

people by nature are lazy, lack initiative and do not strive to work;
employees prefer to act as subordinates to be led, as they strive to avoid responsibility;
for a company to work, it needs a tough, authoritarian leader who will be responsible, fully control the situation in the enterprise and force people to work.

This type of management is not common nowadays: the leadership consists of rigid managers who do not know how and do not strive to delegate authority, the initiatives and ideas of employees are not taken into account, their opinions and aspirations for new endeavors are suppressed.

Theory Y has radically opposite foundations:

It is natural for a person to work, to show initiative, to want to work and develop;
management supports the employee’s aspirations to make decisions independently and take responsibility for the results obtained;
The company operates on the principles of self-government and self-control.

The principle of the manager’s work is to delegate authority when making decisions, while retaining the functions of monitoring the results obtained. This style is characterized by high trust in staff, great opportunities for staff to self-development and motivation to achieve goals.

What is the impact of the correctly chosen style of personnel management in an online store?

A professional leader uses different methods of influence. This policy allows us to organize work efficiently and achieve the following goals:

education of young personnel, which helps to develop qualified personnel focused on successful work in the company;
respect, unconditional discipline;
identifying ineffective employees, which prevents inappropriate spending of funds to pay for their services;
promotion of worthy team members up the career ladder;
organization of favorable conditions;
attracting narrow, valuable specialists;
formation of a friendly, responsible, purposeful team.

An irresponsible employee simply cannot be part of a motivated, professional workforce. By properly managing resources, the owner of an online store invests his time and energy in future stability and development .

Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership was first conceptualized by sociologist Max Weber. It was then refined by Bernard M. Bass as opposed to transformational leadership.

Transactional leadership uses the principle of carrots and sticks to motivate employees. Such a leader believes that a clearly structured management system increases work efficiency. At the same time, team members must strictly follow the instructions and be under close control from the leader.

Benefits of Transactional Leadership:

Transactional leadership is useful in situations where there is a clearly defined problem.
This leadership style can be useful in times of crisis, when everyone has clearly defined responsibilities.
Employees know what is expected of them.

Disadvantages of Transactional Leadership:

A transactional leadership style stifles employee creativity.
Leaders with a transactional style do not meet the emotional needs of team members.
Such leaders do not encourage individual initiative.
This leadership style is usually ineffective in the long term because it is overly focused on short-term goals.

Read 6 tips on building a strong organizational culture from Asana leaders

Which style should an online store owner choose?

Combining the above techniques is the ideal formula for maintaining authority and properly organizing work processes. There is no single formula; it is important to focus on the circumstances:

level of stressful situation;
complexity of the task;
characteristics of the work team: percentage of newcomers, experienced managers, performers;
direction of the company's activities.

In difficult situations, it is worth making a choice in favor of authoritarianism and democracy. During periods of calm, coaching, liberality, and your own example are suitable.

Main goals of HR management

The main goals of HRM include:

selection of managers to fully staff the company;
using tools to help improve operational efficiency and reduce the percentage of errors;
search and dismissal of personnel who cannot cope with the responsibilities assigned to them;
orientation of labor personnel towards collective activities and new achievements;
taking measures necessary for systemic development: advanced training, courses, seminars;
identification of promising employees.

HRM implies complete control of all work processes. The introduction of the basics of HR management into the work of an online store allows you to avoid negligence in duties, conflicts, and payment for the work of unqualified managers.