7 Types of Leadership for Your Organizational Culture

What is the relationship between leadership and organizational culture? The answer is more complicated than you might think. On the one hand, I’d argue that it’s very difficult to impose organizational culture, taking a top-down approach. Organizational culture really needs to emanate from the team, and you’ll need widespread buy-in for any cultural changes to be effective. At the same time, I do think companies need leaders who set the tone, articulate a clear sense of mission, and embody organizational culture through the daily example they set.

Crucially, there’s more than one way to apply leadership within your organizational culture… and some leadership styles are more effective than others. As you consider the best way to lead a culture-building initiative, allow me to share with you seven basic leadership modalities, along with my comments on how effective each one is.

7 Leadership Styles for Your Organizational Culture

Democratic Leadership

We’ll start with democratic leadership, which is exactly what you probably think it is: A leader will gain feedback and insight…