Module 3

Leadership Styles
Peter G. Northouse explains, “It is important to recognize your personal style of leadership. Your leadership
style affects how others respond to you, how they respond to their work, and, in the end, how effective you are
as a leader.” 1 In this module, we will explore leadership philosophy, various leadership styles, and examine the
factors that can influence leadership styles.

Learning Objectives
• Compare and contrast different leadership styles.
• Identify your prevalent leadership style and evaluate its effectiveness in relation to three key factors: the
organizational environment, team dynamics, and your ability to be successful as a leader going forward.

Required Readings
• Peter G. Northouse, Chapter 3 (pp. 55–67) and Chapter 4 (pp. 77–86).
• George Natar, “The Leader Always Stands Out,” So Easy Insurance, September 19, 2022,
[Link]
• The Systems Thinker, “The Ladder of Inference,” [Link]
inference/.

Optional Readings
• Brené Brown, “Brené Brown Reveals Which Four Skills Sets Make the Best Leaders,” The Tonight Show
Starring Jimmy Fallon, November 12, 2020, [Link]
• Kai Grünewald, “Effective Insurance Leadership: Bring Values and Emotions into the Workplace,”
McKinsey & Company, December 16, 2019, [Link]
services/our-insights/effective-insurance-leadership-bring-values-and-emotions-into-the-workplace.

1 Peter G. Northouse, Introduction to Leadership, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2025), p. 55.

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Leadership Styles
There is no “one size fits all” model when you consider workplace traits or leadership styles. A highly
bureaucratic work environment will differ in many ways from a highly innovative one—you may need to apply
more of one trait or style than another. A newly formed or less experienced team may have different
requirements from its leader than a highly experienced one. What we can say is that a leader needs a
combination of soft and hard or technical skills and must be able to use these skills appropriately in any given
situation. The good news is that soft skills are highly transferable, and when they are continuously developed,
they are a significant asset for your career. Getting to know people and the requirements of the organization
will help determine the style that best fits an entire team, or an individual on that team, and the situation.

Theories on leadership styles are much broader than what is described in the Northouse textbook. The
textbook focuses on three leadership styles—authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire—but you may have
heard of some of these other types of leadership: transformational, inspirational, situational, transactional,
bureaucratic, charismatic, and authentic. The objective of this course is not to simply feed you various theories
but to help you recognize that there are many ways to lead organizations; there is also a lot to learn about your
own style and the style that is needed in your workplace.

Factors That Influence Leadership Styles

Leadership styles are influenced by the leader’s environment and followers, as well as the leaders themselves.

Environment
The environment plays a significant part in determining the leader’s style. As noted before, different tasks and
team environments may dictate the style of leadership that is needed. A highly regulated environment, such
as a manufacturing plant, may require more supervision and control, whereas a university department needs
leaders who are more hands-off to allow professors academic freedom. The particular industry, its focus on
technology, the strength of its competitors, and the globalization of the marketplace may also have an impact
on leadership style. In high-demand and low-supply environments, retention could be an issue; keeping
employees may require more adaptation to employee needs. The organizational culture and history may also
require different styles of leaders. An organization that has undergone significant challenges may need leaders
who are able to rebuild confidence in the team, while a high-growth organization may need leaders who are
able to quickly form teams when they are needed and then delegate tasks to them. You may have worked in
organizations where it’s all about the bottom line or there has been significant downsizing. During the Jack
Welch era, GE Capital would frequently eliminate the bottom 10 percent of its employees, keeping people on
their toes. 2 People can quickly become aware of the unspoken messages that indicate “how things are done
around here.” Gaining an understanding and being sensitive to history can help you adapt your leadership
style to the situation.

In our current turbulent environment, leaders in most organizations need to become much more open,
flexible, interactive, and systems-oriented. That means they have to significantly alter their directive and
authoritarian styles of leadership to more developmental, network-building, and innovation-oriented ones.
Developing followers to become future leaders and being able to derive the best from followers are increasing
in importance. In “Knowledge Work and the Future of Management,” Thomas Davenport recognized how the
styles of leaders needed to change from

• overseeing work to doing it too;

• organizing hierarchies to organizing communities;

2 Edward E. Lawler, “Getting Rid of the Bottom 10%, Sounds Good But…” Center for Effective Organizations,

Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, January 2002, [Link]

content/uploads/2018/03/8_Getting_Rid_of_the_Bottom.pdf (accessed November 5, 2024).

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3 Module 3 Leadership Styles

• imposing work designs and methods to understanding them;

• hiring and firing working to recruiting and retaining them;
• building manual skills to building knowledge skills;
• evaluating visible job performance to assessing invisible knowledge achievements;
• ignoring culture to building a knowledge-friendly culture; and
• supporting bureaucracy to fending it off. 3

Followers
Followers are another influencing factor in our styles of leadership. In a diverse environment, what is
important to one employee may not be important to another. Therefore, learning how to understand your
team to better influence outcomes becomes key. Motivational theory offers many ways to understand how we
incentivize people, including theories on needs, expectancy, and equity. 4 Expectancy theory tells us that
people need to value the outcome of their work, believe that they have a role to play in achieving the outcomes,
and have the capabilities to do so. This means that as leaders we need to understand if our individual followers
and our teams have the right skills and support to accomplish tasks and whether they are receiving incentives
that they value.

Leaders
As leaders we bring with us several traits and styles drawn from our prior experiences, including what we may
have learned through our education or from others. We may have biases and as such need to consider our own
assumptions. Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline explains Chris Argyris’s concept of the “Ladder of
Inference,” and it is an excellent way to delve deeper into the foundations of our thinking. 5

Another interesting dimension to add to leadership styles is the idea that bringing your true self to work can
help you become a better leader. In the documentary Brené Brown: The Call to Courage, Brown shares stories
about living with vulnerability, and the optional YouTube video in this week’s readings is her short but
insightful answer to the question “What is the future of leadership?”

Self-Assessment
There are three optional self-assessment assignments for this module:

• Application 3.3: Leadership Style Questionnaire on pp. 72–74 of Northouse.

• Application 4.3: Task and Relationship Questionnaire on pp. 92–94 of Northouse.
• Apply the Ladder of Inference: Reflect on a past or current challenge you have faced in the workplace.
Using the Ladder of Inference from the required reading, analyze this challenge. Use the general
guidelines to test your assumptions and focus on how to use this tool effectively in the future.

3 Thomas Davenport, “Knowledge Work and the Future of Management,” in The Future of Leadership, ed. Warren
Bennis, Gretchen M. Spreitzer, and Thomas G. Cummings. San Francisco: Wiley, 2011.
4 Kendra Cherry, “What Motivation Theory Can Tell Us About Human Behavior,” Very Well Mind, updated

September 12, 2023, [Link] (accessed November 5,

2024).
5 The Systems Thinker, “The Ladder of Inference,” [Link]

(accessed November 5, 2024).

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