The leadership style that would be most comfortable for me would be delegation. One of the first signs of good supervision is effective delegation. Delegation occurs when supervisors give responsibility and authority to subordinates to complete a task and let subordinates figure out how to complete the task. Effective delegation develops people who are ultimately more satisfied and productive. Managers become happier and more productive when they learn to rely on their staff and are freer to deal with more strategic matters. Delegation is a critical skill for supervisors. Delegating involves working with an employee to set goals, granting them sufficient authority and responsibility to achieve the goals, often giving them substantial freedom in deciding how the goals will be achieved, remaining available as a resource to help them achieve the goals, evaluating their performance, addressing performance issues and/or rewarding their performance. Ultimately, the supervisor retains responsibility for achieving goals, but chooses to achieve them by delegating to someone else. True delegation means giving up a small part of what we would like to keep, while maintaining what we would rather give up. A participative leadership style would be less comfortable for me. A participative leader, instead of making decisions, tries to involve other staff in the process. Often, however, because it is up to the manager to decide how much influence to give to others, this style can only work well when both managers and staff understand and agree on which tasks are important. Staff expertise, experience and intuition must be encouraged, not stifled, if difficult situations are to be negotiated. The goal of the participatory leader is to persuade followers to share their values and connect with their vision. It seems obvious to me that most large organizations, the federal government, the military, etc., require leaders and followers who have the same core group
tags