What Are Different Leadership Styles In Project Management?

The human mind needs a specific time to learn a new skill. It may be a duration of a few days or a few months to get a grip on a skill. If you are willing to start a career as a project manager, you must have some basic skill set and style to meet the challenging career.

If you take too much time getting this skill, you may have to say goodbye to the new project or even your whole team. This is so because you will be working so slow for your team and the project timings.

Moreover, you won’t get any two projects similar to apply the same tricks in both. You cannot use the same leadership style in all the projects and with all the teams. A good manager is always one who knows where to use which skill. Here’s a guide to let you know how managers can become leaders.

To have a high grip on the skill of project management leadership, we are going to provide you with a few amazing leadership styles in project management. Stay with us and absorb maximum information from this content.

Few Plausible and Tenable Styles to Use in Project Management

Here are various leadership styles that will help you a lot in handling different situations differently. So you may not use the same technique for all the projects.

• Coercive Leadership Style
• Pacesetting Leadership Style
• Authoritative Leadership Style – pros and cons
• Affiliative Leadership Style
• Coaching Leadership Style
• Autocratic Leadership Style – It has pros
• Visionary Leadership Style
• Transformational Leadership Style – Pros and Cons
• Free-rein Leadership Style

Coercive Leadership Style

The coercive leadership style is used mostly by the project leaders and applied in crises. Particularly it’s used when there is a risk of missing the deadline for a project. If we simply summarize this style of management, it would not be wrong to say that “Do what I have ordered you.”

So if you have only one direction of communication, go for this leadership style of project management. In this style, the leader gives a direct order to the team and the whole team has to move according to order.

Pacesetting Leadership Style

The pacesetting leadership style is the one in which the leader models excellence with his already skilled team. But if the team is not already skilled or hardworking, this style won’t work for the best and quick results. Here the team members can easily achieve the goals even with less supervision.

It won’t be wrong if we sum up this style in one sentence saying, “Do it now, just like I am doing it.” Moreover, there are high standards in this style on which the team and the leader have to do work.

Authoritative Leadership Style

When the team is in search of a new idea and new vision, then an authoritative leadership style is best to use in such circumstances. The leader has the authority to run all the team members according to his plan. So it would not be wrong to summarize this style in one sentence saying, “Come with me in each step.”

Affiliative leadership style

The affiliative leadership style is one of the most common and effective styles used in project management. Choosing this style can make a complete impact on the team. In this style, the leader works in such a way that it creates an emotional bonding with the organization. Mainly this style of leadership is needed in stressed conditions at the workplace when all the team members require rebuilding the trust.

Initially, the leader comes to know about the input of all the members and then utilizes all the input to make the decisions about the project. Such leaders conduct various effective workshops to rebuild the team and to share the common goals for doing the project amazingly.

Coaching Leadership Style

The leader with the coaching leadership style plays a main role in long-term professional development for the team members. The team members come to know about their weakness as well as their strengths. By knowing about the weaknesses, the members are made aware of the goals of the projects.

But if you as a project manager lack any expertise in the projects, never go with this style. Not just this, but this style is also not suitable when the team members need much development. You won’t gain anything spending all your time on your team members to make them trained to apply this style of project management.

Autocratic Leadership Style

In this leadership style, the leader has complete authority. He has to just give instructions on which tasks have to be done. And how to complete all the tasks. The members cannot perform the tasks with their chosen methodologies but all these things should be completed according to the instructions of the leader.

Visionary Leadership Style

The leaders using this style provide long-term direction to all the team members. A new clear vision is provided to the team and all the members work according to that vision. It moves all the eyes and all the minds towards that specific vision. Visionary leaders are those who tell others to work according to a vision but they are those who present their creative vision. With this style, the members are encouraged to take initiative when they are facing any issues in the projects.

Transformational Leadership Style

The transformational leadership style works when the team is going through various changes. Like if the organization is changing its members then the leadership style the leader should opt for is the transformational leadership style. In these situations, this style will motivate the team and will give new ideas.

Free-rein Leadership Style

As the name suggests, the leader using this style has to just assign the task. The leaders do not guide the team about the methodology and the policy to be used in the project. The leader just makes the members aware of the period within which the project should be complete. The team members are free to use any methodology to complete the project within the deadline.

Wrapping Up

All the above-mentioned leadership styles have different benefits and they all have to be used at different places and in different conditions. To understand the situation and apply the appropriate leadership style.