Laissez-fair leadership is where the leader will use more delegation and practice a non-authoritarian style of leading individuals and teams. Leaders like Herbert Hoover provided the least amount of guidance to their subordinates and achieved control through less obvious means. This leadership style believes that people should be left alone to respond to their obligations and responsibilities in their own ways.

Autocratic leadership is the opposite to Laissez-fair and is considered the classical approach and managers retain as much power as possible. Bureaucratic leaders use the “by the book” method and everything needs to be done according to process or policy. Servant leadership prefers power-sharing models. Martha Stewart was well known for her Autocratic Leadership style.

Transformational leaders are considered to be the most desirable employee as they will inspire staffing through effective communication and create a work environment that promotes intellectual stimulation. Some of the well-known historical leaders that used this style include Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Alexander the Great, Aristotle to name a few. One well-known Transformational Leader today is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.

Transactional leadership is one that is most commonly enforced throughout many organizations today. Transactional leadership focuses on group organization and the establishment of a clear chain of command that rewards “good” or high performers and punishes “bad” practice and non-performers. The concept of it makes sense, reward the “good”, punish the “bad”, but what I had experienced was that the definition of what was good versus what was bad ultimately became a matter of opinion. Employees see themselves one way, the managers may see them another way and then HR may question the manager. I am one who finds that form of management or the rather the enforcement of this style seems to have some level of inaccuracies.