I am going to talk about two kinds of leadership: Inspirational and Autocratic. I will show my bias now by stating that I favor the inspirational kind.

To achieve inspirational leadership, you must ask the people you are charged with leading to believe in what you are mutually trying to accomplish. You are asking them to devote their best efforts and creativity towards achieving the common goal. The principle way to make this happen is talk with your folks about the importance of the tasks before them and the methods to be followed. This kind of leadership only requires broad oversight once buy-in is achieved. The staff will bring about the appropriate results with periodic reporting.

Autocratic leadership commands people to do what the leader wants. This method of leadership follows the path that if staff does not meet the sought after result then negative consequences will occur. Heads will roll. An autocratic leader seeks to instill fear and anxiety in the staff to insure that the job at hand is done. There is no room for questioning the methods to be followed to make the directed result happen.

Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that at the end of the day both leadership styles get the job done. However, just how long, if you are a staff member, are you likely to work long term for the autocratic as opposed to the inspirational leader? ~ Tom