Participative Leadership

While researching the realm of leadership theories I stumbled upon a new theory that I have not heard of, participative leadership. Participative leadership assumes the following:

• involvement in decision making improves understanding
• people are more devoted to a decision when they were involved in the process
• people are less competitive when working towards joint goals
• several people deciding together make better decisions than when people act alone

I believe the participative approach is a good approach for small teams, but completely impossible when leading a large group. With a large group it is logistically impossible to get everyone's input and that why with large groups, such as the entire US population, a leader is voted on.

As with all theories, there are multiple stages of participative leadership. From least participative to most participative, the stages, according to Changing Minds are:

• autocratic decision by leader
• leader proposes decision, listens to feedback, then decides
• team proposes decision, leader has final decision
• joint decision with team as equals
• full delegation of decision to team

A balance is what I see fit in most situations. Most of the time when making a crucial decision, the leader is not the one directly affected. For example, when a teacher makes a decision to postpone an exam the students are the ones affected. In this instance, participative leadership would be the most logical form.

Leaders shy away from using participative leadership for the following reasons according to Suite 101:

• "they think they need to be strong, tough, independent and decisive to be seen as an effective manager"
• "they feel that being participative might make them seem weak or indecisive"
• managers want to be in control
• time pressure 

  
  
    More from Suite 101

           More info from Changing Minds

I see participative leadership as an important tool in an arsenal of leadership theories. Keeping your leadership balanced, while still involving your team is important. Suite 101 also explains its importance and relevance with the following, which I think are all very applicable to hospitality:

• your employees are intelligent, highly skilled professionals
• people feel valued when you ask for their advice
• the best form of motivation and buy in is involvement

Participative leadership is sure to play a role in my future career. As a part of a constantly evolving industry, involvement is important from top to bottom.

"If there is no worker involvement, there is no quality system.”
~Lloyd Dobens