The Advantages of Participative Leadership and When to Use It
Two brains are better than one. Correct?
This old adage gets to the heart of why Participative Leadership Styles deliver results, but this is not always the best leadership style. Let’s dig in!
What is Participative Leadership?
If we look at a continuum from “Low Organizational Control” to “High Organizational Control,” the entire left half of the chart is collectively known as Participative Leadership Styles.
This ‘more democratic’ section of the continuum includes leadership styles that delegate some decision-making authority directly to individuals or teams. These styles include on the higher end, a regimented facilitation style, where the leader guides a process whereby the team explores the topic and recommends actions.
As we move to the left on the continuum, we see greater and greater participation and autonomy over not just the exploration of the topics, but also in making the actual decision on how to proceed. The very popular Empathetic Leadership is an empowered style. Servant Leadership resides primarily, but not exclusively, in the realm of more democratic styles as well.
Why Use a Participative Leadership Style?
It is commonly held that more participative leadership styles are best for the longer-term results as they promote broader empowerment, thereby promoting higher levels of engagement and employee development. Greater participation, or inclusivity, also ensures that more perspectives are heard, and therefore better answers to problems may become apparent.
Employee engagement drives results. Research by Gallop demonstrates that companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable and that highly engaged workplaces saw 41% less absenteeism.
While anyone can argue with cited research and how relevant it is to their situation, I have personally seen dramatic results by moving workplaces from an autocratic leadership style to a more participative style. At one plant, simply gathering a team of employees to work together on a key productivity problem saw an over 30% increase in output in just a couple of short months! This result literally saved the plant from closure.
This team approach was not rocket science, but it was a novel idea in a facility where Union and Management were at complete odds with one another, and where each side had trouble seeing past their self-righteous anger! Using a participative leadership style – and getting out of the way as the blended team coalesced and started generating results, made a huge difference in measurable results as well as the general feel in the workplace. The team members were hungry for more participation and better support! Some people on both sides actually started to smile! How powerful!
When to Use a Participative Leadership Style?
There are times when a participative leadership style is not a great option. These generally boil down to emergencies or when the consequences of a misstep are extremely undesirable. Times where a more participative style of leadership is appropriate include;
The team is mature and has the knowledge to make decisions independently, or with minimal guidance, understanding the full breadth of consequences.
There is adequate time available to involve more people in the decision process.
The consequence of failure is lower, thereby giving the leader comfort that their direct involvement isn’t as critical.
If in doubt, try it – it’s better than a ‘high-control,’ autocratic leadership style in most situations!
An interesting point can be made about the speed of decision-making. I can recall defending participative management in an interview once with my future boss who was purporting to believe that it would be very slow to ‘manage by committee.’ I got the job and proved a participative style could be very rapidly deployed and results would move fast!
While initially, an autocratic style may seem to enable faster decisions as fewer people need to be consulted, a truly empowered team - well out to the left on the continuum - can deliver faster decisions and actions, because any member of the team can act independently with a strong belief that they are acting as their leader would respond. This is an advantage found in high-trust environments that typically are enabled by empathetic or servant-leader styles. This multiplication of actions taken through empowerment is one way that we can create value through servant leadership – which is, of course, primarily a participative style.
As employees gain this decision-making empowered state, they become very invested in the results and want more ability to resolve long-standing issues. The momentum builds and the speed of progress grows rapidly.
Conclusion
Participative styles of leadership range from facilitated group discussions all the way to a complete abdication of leadership authority to the masses, in a laissez-faire model. The maturity and skill level of the team members will dictate which sub-style in that range makes the most sense in each situation.
Participative leadership styles drive trust, empowerment, inclusivity, and ultimately, engagement. Employee engagement has been correlated strongly to vast improvements in results, including profitability.
If you are in doubt as to whether a participative style is right for your team, try it! Give up some control and move gradually to the left on the control continuum. People will respond and you will be developing the organization for stronger results and better adaptability in the future!
