Strengths and Weaknesses of Participative Leadership

Entrepreneurs and managers struggle from day to day with finding different ways and approaches to effectively lead their teams. With such a diverse workforce it becomes a challenge determining what management style works the best given the strengths and weaknesses of each employee on the team. There are generally four different types of leadership styles; Directive Leadership, an authoritarian type style where one gives orders and the subordinates simply follow the orders; Support Leadership, the leader creates relationships with subordinates in order to accomplish a goal; Participative Leadership, the leader is a part of the group and everyone is involved in the decision-making process and every contributes to thoughts and ideas; and Achievement Oriented Leadership, in this style the leader gives the team members a goal and steps back to allow them to work independently. This paper will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Participative Leadership (Shahani, 2012).

Advantages of Participative Leadership

Participative leadership encourages everyone on the team to become leaders as well. This leadership style has the ability to groom future leaders that may move on to become leaders or a part of the management team within the organization. Participative leadership encourages employees to express their creative thoughts and ideas which could be beneficial to the organization. This style also helps managers discover talents and skills of employees that may otherwise would have not been apparent. It also helps management to determine what type of training should be provided to hone skills that an organization could benefit from in the future. This style also allows leaders to have two-way communication with their employees. They have the ability to take and give feedback freely. Employees will be more committed to projects in which they were involved in the decision-making process ("Wisegeek; Clear Answers For Common Questions", 2003-2012).

Disadvantages of Participative Leadership

Although that are only a few disadvantages of participative leadership, these disadvantages can cause major issues if not used effectively. One potential disadvantage is time management. Because input is condoned from all team members, it takes time to disseminate everyone's ideas. This could lead to a missed time schedule on an important project. The nature of this leadership style is so democratic; the leader virtually has no control over the actions of the subordinates and this could lead to chaos within the team. This style can also be overwhelming to some people because they are not used to making any decisions. When people are not used to making decision, there can be confusion and also ineffective decisions ("Wisegeek; Clear Answers For Common Questions", 2003-2012).

Successful Utilization