6 Leadership Styles

George Litwin and Robert Stringer of Harvard Business School studied the behavior of managers as leaders in various settings. They concluded that managers exhibit a variety of patterned behaviors that can be described generally by one or more of 6 fundamental managerial styles.




The Coercive Style

From my experience in the corporate world, this is the most common style. It is the “do what I tell you to do” technique that many people rely on because it seems easy. It's also the style that junior managers or those that are frustrated will fall back on. The unfortunate result is that in most situations, coercive leadership inhibits the organization's flexibility and dampens employee's motivation. I would argue that this is a good technique for leaders and managers to use with junior personnel who simply don't have the knowledge to make informed decisions.

The Authoritative Style


The Affiliative Style

I'm not too familiar with the pure affiliative style of leading and managing, but I have seen the negatives that such a technique can have. This style believes that “people come first” and is particularly useful for building team harmony or increasing morale. The negative? Its exclusive focus on praise can allow poor performance to go uncorrected. I don't know about you, but having a happy-go-lucky manager who doesn't cut people that aren't pulling their weight doesn't make want to work particularly hard.

The Democratic Style


The Pacesetting Style

On paper the pacesetting style sounds quite exhilarating (to me anyway) since the leader who sets high performance standards and exemplifies them himself has a very positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent. The problem is that many employees who are just at work because they need to pay their rent tend to feel overwhelmed by such a leader's demands for excellence–and to resent his tendency to take over a situation. I think this style shouldn't be confused with the “just do it” attitude that some managers exhibit without providing any direction, resources, or time.

The Coaching Style


The good news is that the research indicates the flexibility to switch between different styles can be learned. So what style do you use? What style does your manager use?



  1. Personally, I like the coaching style best. Define goals for your employees and coach them to get there. This works pretty well. I get done what I want to get done and the employee gets a feeling of success. A classicla win win.

  2. I'm not sure Litwin and Stringer did identify these styles. These are taken straight out of Golemans seminal work on Emotional Intelligence...

    • It's the other way around L & S did their work in the '60s. Goleman is following their work.

  3. Interesting article. Could you please cite your research? You refer to "according to research" but I don't see where you're cited it and I'd like to check on that research. Some of the ideas here are provocative and I wonder about their source...


  4. While this summary is accurate, Hay Group has refined the notion of Leadership Styles and you can purchase proprietary leadership style and emotional intelligence assessment tools from them.

  5. Can you give me an idea of how much it is to buy the assessment material

  6. I would like to take and possibly purchase some leadership assessment forms relating to the (6) styles outlined.

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