Democratic Leadership

Also known as shared or participative leadership, the democratic leadership style involves group participation in the process of making decisions (Hendriks & Karsten, 2014). Accordingly, there is a power distribution among various ranks in an organization, such as managers and directors. Nevertheless, the leader still maintains control and the leadership role. In addition, even though power and authority are distributed, the leader has the most power and often makes the ultimate decisions. Taken to extreme levels whereby employees have total control over the process of making decisions, democratic leadership leads to chaos. Even though the distribution of power encourages innovation, eventually, everyone will want their input to be considered, which will result in most of them not being heard. Such a situation is a breeding ground for chaos. Therefore, it is crucial to have rules and regulations in place for how the power is distributed.

Conflict is one of the things that are expected to occur, especially in organizations. As such, it is important to have conflict management strategies. One crucial way to resolve conflict is determined by the type of leadership. Fortunately, democratic leadership is one of the best ways to resolve conflicts. Democratic leadership uses the collaborative approach to conflict management whereby all involved parties are brought together to find a resolution. Further, respectful communication, effective communication, and open-mindedness are also incorporated (Ronquillo, Ellis, & Toney-Butler, 2021).

No matter the magnitude, changes in an organization tend to provoke negative feelings, mostly fear of change. As such, it is crucial that the leader ensure that the negative feelings are overcome and that the changes made are a success. A democratic leader tends to take an approach whereby everyone is heard, engaged in the decision-making process and teamwork, and feels included (Raelin, 2012). This is one of the best approaches to a smooth transition regarding organizational changes.

References

Hendriks, F., & Karsten, N. (2014). Theory of democratic leadership. P.’t Hart & R. Rhodes (Eds.), Oxford handbook of political leadership, 41-56.

Raelin, J. A. (2012). Dialogue and deliberation as expressions of democratic leadership in participatory organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 25(1), 7-23.

Ronquillo, Y., Ellis, V. L., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2021). Conflict management. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.

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