12. Leadership styles

Leadership is certainly a very important human quality that does not have many people. And it has a few styles that I now want to talk about. Before I begin, there is another important thing – leadership styles are not something to be tried on like so many suits, to see which fits. Rather, they should be adapted to the particular situation, the particular requirements of the collective, people, who are involved and the particular challenges that the organization is going to face.

And there some leadership styles, which I want to highlight:

The first type – is visionary type. This style is most appropriate when an organization needs a new direction. Its goal is to move people towards a new set of shared dreams. The main task of visionary leaders is to articulate in which direction a group must to go, but not how it will get there – so such leaders give people the freedom to innovate, experiment, take calculated risks and so on.

The second type of leader is coaching. This style focuses on developing individuals, showing them how to improve their performance, and helping to connect their goals to the goals of the organization. Coaching leaders work best with employees, who show initiative and want more professional development. But it can backfire if it’s perceived as a small employee, and undermines his or her self-confidence.

The third type is democratic. This style draws on people’s knowledge and skills, and creates a group commitment to the resulting goals. It works best when the direction of the company should be taken as unclear, and the leader needs to become a center and to tap the collective wisdom of the group. This consensus-building approach can be disastrous in a time of crisis, when immediate events demand on quick decisions.

And the last leadership style is commanding. This is classic model of «military» style leadership – probably the most often used, but the least often effective. Because it rarely involves praise and frequently, uses a lot of criticism, it undercuts morale and job satisfaction. It is only effective during a crisis, when an urgent turnaround is needed the most.

And as for me, the real leader shouldn’t strictly follow one of these styles. The real leader should mix them and use best parts of each in different situations and groups. And in this way this leader can be effective always and his authority will be great and won’t depend on conditions or situation, in which he is in this moment.

13. The founder of ikea as an example of a leader.

Ingvar Kamprad is the perfect example of charismatic leader. And IKEA is the perfect and unique example of a successful family business.

Kamprad has always been the visible head of the organization. Therefore, IKEA is a family business with a very unique company culture, influenced by Ingvar Kamprad. From this we can understand, that Kamprad as the leader plays a major role in the success of IKEA.

As father and head of the family Ingvar has based his leadership style on the concept of family, when every employee feels like a part of a big, happy community. And Kamprad as a head of the family takes care of his workers and give them an example by his behavior. Because although he is very rich, but he lives like the average worker of his firm He is best known for his extremely modest lifestyle. For example, he washes plastic cups to recycle them. Also he never travels in business or first class in aircrafts and lives in 3 stars hotels when going abroad. Some people think that he is greedy, but I think that it is very worthy and shows that he does not boast of his wealth.

Clearly, Kamprad is in line with Transformational Leadership. There are four key elements that are characteristic it:

- The first is intellectual stimulation

- The second is inspirational motivation

- The third thing is individualized consideration

- And the last is idealized influence.

In addition, Kamprad has some of a democratic and paternalistic leadership style, where employees’ input is important because it makes them feel needed in the company. This called the feel of «togetherness» and it can be one of the reasons of IKEA’s high productivity rate. However, Kamprad also has some features that belong to a more autocratic leadership style where the ultimate decision belongs to him following his vision, probably because this is a family business with a strong entrepreneurial character.

So, as a conclusion, I want to say that, since 1986 he has been slowly withdrawing from the business and it’s impossible to my mind to predict the future of IKEA without him.

As for me, Ingvar Kamprad is the real leader because he inspires his employees to work and appears as a role model for people, who work for him.