Types of Leadership

Something I found quite fascinating in the Small Group Communication book by Dan O’Hair and Mary O. Wiemann was the different types of leadership. There are four types of leadership and they include, “authoritarian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire” (33). An authoritarian leader is someone who is in control of the group; they are the head and make the decisions and relay it back to the rest of the individuals. No one else in most cases are able to have their input in a decision or choice made. For example, one of the organizations I was a part of, we had a leader who was an authoritarian type because she was always in charge of everything our group would do and would be in charge of everything going on. However, they did ask for our opinion however in most cases, they would just relay every decision they made to the rest of us and we would just go from there.
A consultative leader is someone who values feedback and is open for comments and suggestions from other group members and then after the individuals had their input the leader makes their final decision.
A participative leader is someone who works “with other group members to achieve a desired goal. This leadership is used by leaders who work together with a group in solving a problem or performing a task” (34).
Last, but not least there’s the laissez-faire leader who is someone that “involves little or no direct leadership. The group simply proceeds with no task” (34).
I have heard of these types of leadership but never knew them in detail until now so I found the concept a helpful tool especially since it relates to small group communication.