5 Unique Leadership Styles that Work

Is your sales team suffering from low-productivity? This may not be the symptom of poor work ethic, but rather your leadership style. Some leadership styles work great for businesses within your same industry, but they may not work well for your business. However, the great thing about leadership styles is that there are many, so you can borrow from any or all of them, to find the style that best suits you and your company.

Below are 5 unique leadership styles that you can emulate for success.

The Growth-Oriented Participative Leader

Participative leaders don’t seclude themselves from their team when making decisions about how to run their organizations. Instead, they work with customers and their team members to build the company as a participant instead of a leader. By bringing themselves down to their team members level, they can provide a sense of community and familiarity, which works to drive better results. Donald Trump is a great real-world example of a participative leader.


The Transformational Coaching Leader 

A transformational leader transforms their team. They don’t just delegate tasks, they inspire change and influence team members to become better at what they do. Transformational leaders always have a goal in sight, and they are excited to create ways to achieve that goal. Jack Welch has had great success in utilizing transformation leading at General Electric for the last 20 years.

The Charming Affiliative Leader

Charismatic leaders are great with words. Their words are used to bridge a connection between themselves and their teams. They rely on charm to inspire their team to continue achieving their goals while also bridging the gap between the sales teams and customers. Bill Clinton is a famous example of a charismatic leader.

The Customer-Centric Service-Oriented Leader

Service-oriented leaders focus on the customers and not themselves. They don’t make any decisions on how to achieve goals without the input of their team members. They also pay attention to their customers’ feedback, and create goals and strategies based on the feedback. Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com is an excellent example of a service-oriented leader.

The Ever-Changing Situational Leader

A situational leader can be any of the above. In essence, situational leaders adjust themselves to reflect the situation. If sales are at all-time high, a situational leader may appear more charismatic. However, if sales are at all-time low, a situational leader may appear to be more service-oriented or transformational. Businesses that have this type of leader are usually very successful. Dwight D. Eisenhower is thought to be one of the great situational leaders in recent history.