How to Transform Your Management Style

In terms of business management, there are so many different types of management style to choose from, and the type of business you run, what motivates your workers, and what you want to achieve as a business can dictate the best approach. Some management styles are inherently less productive than others, and the trick is to adopt a leadership strategy that promotes productivity and wellbeing within your organization. If your current style isn’t working then there are a variety of strategies that can help you to transition from one management style to another; in this article we’ll take a look at how to go about transforming your own management style without disrupting your everyday business or affecting your staff.

Establishing your style

Leaderships styles can vary from the dictatorial to a more hands-off approach. Each style can affect the wellbeing of your staff, and will hopefully increase productivity. However, productivity can also decrease if the right style isn’t adopted for a particular environment. Let’s take a look at a few well-recognized management styles and see how they can affect the workplace. You may recognize your own style, or perhaps draw inspiration to move to a type of management that might boost your team and increase profitability.

Autocratic

Amongst the more Dickensian management styles, the autocratic leader tends to lack empathy for his team, communicates poorly, and isn’t good at collaborative working. An autocrat (also referred to as an authoritarian) can leave their staff feeling undervalued and you can expect to be organizing leaving parties with increasing frequency.

Paternalistic

Just like working for your dad (this is not always bad, of course), being under the control of a paternalistic manager can have a similar effect to that of an autocratic boss; although, like parents, they tend to have a more empathetic approach when demanding that tasks are done their way.

Democratic

Like the name suggests, under the rule of a democratic boss, you can expect the whole team to get a say in the decision-making process, which is, of course, great, as people tend to feel more included, valued, and engaged when their voice counts. This can lead to better overall communication and a happier workforce. In a democratic office it’s good to have a wise chairperson, however, as a lack of experience can mitigate this extra level of responsibility for outcomes.

Laissez-Faire

You need to be careful with this one, as it can be seen as a little lazy to let the team take over all the decision-making, and without a strong captain at the helm to imbue a little experience into proceedings, problems can easily occur. If you go down this route it may be worth investing in some corporate training courses to up-skill your key team members.

Servant Leadership

Google are known for being good at this style of leadership; removing the focus on the needs of the business and reassigning it to the needs of the workforce. The idea is that a happy team will naturally be more productive. This style of leadership requires a hiring process that can find the kind of staff that are likely to respond best to this sort of working environment.

Changing it up

Moving from one style of management to another needs a stoic attitude, a determined and brave approach, and preferably a collaborative strategy. It might be a change in leadership style but the consequences affect the entire organization and the employees, so they should be kept in the loop and consulted throughout the process in order to get useful feedback and check that they are adapting to the plan.

Think hard about making a change for the better as it can be disruptive, but make sure it’s an egoless process, and everything should go to plan.