The participative style – perhaps better described by its original name, democratic – is the fourth topic in our series. Its goal is to create commitment, consensus and innovation. “This is a style that leaders use to get support and buy-in, to come up with ideas or to invite other people’s input,” says Graeme Yell, a director of the consultancy Hay Group. “Many brains are better than one.”
While the six styles are best viewed not as either/or approaches, but as tools to be drawn on in particular situations, if leaders are going to lean heavily on any one particular style then this isn’t a bad one. “It’s a pretty good all-round style. Research suggests that it has an overall positive effect on the business.”
Defining attributes. Someone who leans on this style is likely to hold a lot of meetings and ask people for their ideas and opinions on what should happen next. The participative style is more about people than tasks, meaning that people who use this style heavily may be uncomfortable dealing with task or performance-related issues.
Here’s one we prepared earlier. Lord Coe. “He uses other styles as well, but in his chairmanship of the London Olympic bid we saw a lot of the democratic style,” Yell says. “He was very open to getting other people involved and letting them take the limelight.” This built huge commitment from his team. Another example is Brian Ashton ( right), the England rugby coach. He held meetings with senior players during the World Cup and told them that they were experienced enough to figure out what should happen next. “The short-term impact was that they played as if they did not have a clue – one danger of the style is that the players think that the coach does not know what he is doing – but in the end they galvanised and formed their own plan, which is more powerful.”
It’s useful when... You’re not in a rush. “It’s not really an instant result style,” Yell says.
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It can be a good way of getting fresh ideas from a team of people who know what they are doing, because it encourages everyone to speak up and it can help to create buy-in because people feel that they have a real say in what’s happening within the company.
Does more harm than good when... It’s not genuine. Asking for people’s input on a decision that you’ve already made is deceitful and will damage your credibility and any trust that people may have in you. It’s also terrible in a crisis. “If a fire breaks out in the building it’s not the time to sit down and say ‘OK team, what will we do about this?’ ” And managers need to show people that they aren’t using a participative style to mask their own weaknesses. “If you use the style all the time the danger is that people will think ‘why is this person our manager when he’s always asking us what to do?’ ” Yell says.
Effect if overused. Achievement-motivated staff – investment bankers, say – can quickly become impatient and frustrated with having to attend meetings about what they think should happen next when what they really want is to be left alone to get things done.
What to avoid when working for a participative leader. The best way to annoy a participative leader is to be overtly negative about the democratic process. Refusing to attend meetings – or attending with poor grace, failing to contribute and generally making things unpleasant for other participants – will also do the trick.
How to impress a participative leader. Share your ideas early, listen to other people’s ideas with an open mind and don’t take over meetings.
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Next: the pacesetting style