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What is Democratic Leadership Style?
Democratic leadership style includes the participation of the employees in every productive decision of the company. Democratic leadership is very open leadership it engages the employees and asks their opinions, in order to get the best decisions for the company.
Democratic leadership style becoming trends nowadays, managers are using these methods because they know the value of the participation of the employees.
Advantages of Democratic Leadership
Encourage creativity and innovation
The democratic leadership style leads to more creativity and innovation within the business organization. Managers invite their coordinates for decision-making where they individually present their ideas. The team members work mutually and respect each other leading to the creation of fresh new ideas. Everyone collectively employs innovative ideas which enable them in reaching the desired business results.
Strengthen team relationship
It plays an effective role in strengthening the relationship between the team members. Under a democratic leadership style, workers work collectively on a specific task where they spend most of the time together. This way their understanding with one another is improved, the bond gets stronger, and builds more trust in one another. Democratic leaders are also unbiased where they show no sign of favoritism. Each and every decision is taken based on actual results avoiding any conflicts within the business enterprise.
Raise staff productivity
Employees deliver maximum results when their overall morale is high and engaging efficiently towards their roles. Democratic leaders by considering the ideas and facts of their subordinates make them happy. Workers know that their opinions matter and work is identified fairly for promotions and growth. This motivates them to work with full efforts toward their allotted tasks resulting in increased productivity.
Easily solve complex problems
Democratic leadership style works better towards solving the complex problems within the organization in an easy manner. There is a huge difference between solving the problem and being able to solve it with the best possible solution. The democratic leader can find many creative resources around them and innovative methods. People, when working together in a group, share their knowledge and experience, thereby coming up with the best possible solution. All this eventually ease the process of dealing with complex situations.
Improve job satisfaction
People are more satisfied and happier with their work under the democratic leadership style. Team members are aware that their opinions matter and their talent is recognized fairly within the organization. All are equally responsible for running the organization, which develops a sense of empowerment among them along with specific responsibilities. Democratic leadership style makes people feel that they are a really important part of an organization which naturally enhances the rate of job satisfaction.
Increase team knowledge
Democratic leadership style plays an effective role in improving the overall knowledge level of team members. When people work in a group together, they share diverse opinions and ideas with one another. Each one of them is expertise in their own field and contributes their personal expertise to the conversation. This way all team members get an opportunity to learn new things which expands their knowledge base. This way, a greater degree of competence is achieved within the process of decision-making.
Disadvantages of Democratic Leadership style
Lack of secrecy
A major limitation of the democratic leadership style is that their lack of secrecy within the organization. Every member is a part of organizational decision-making where they actively participate and also present their opinions. They are informed about all key policies and future plans of the organization and strategies on how to achieve them. Under such a scenario, there may be chances of leakage of crucial and confidential information regarding the organization causing great harm.
Delay in decision making
Democratic leadership style slows down the decision-making process of an organization. Everybody is required to give their opinion and input during the process of making decisions. This way coming to a final choice by the leader will take a longer time. The workflow will eventually slow down leading to a delay in project completion.
May create disharmony in team
Under this leadership style, many times there may be disharmony among team members causing low productivity. Everyone here is given a free platform to raise their voice and share their opinions. There may be chances where leaders may choose the opinions of one person over other team members regularly and that too due to logical reasons. The other members do not understand this point and feel demotivated, not sharing their ideas anymore. Over the period of time, this disharmony among people may cause people to feel undervalued thereby adversely affecting their performance.
Dealing with rejections
The democratic leader always needs to deal with challenges in the form of rejecting the opinions of team members for choosing the most appropriate one. Almost each of the member puts great effort and time into coming up with their opinions in decision making. The viewpoints presented by them may be best or not. Herein such situations, leaders make tough decisions for choosing the best approach. Such rejection of opinions may bring down the enthusiasm and morale of employees.
No guarantee of best possible solution
Another major limitation of the democratic leadership style is that it may not always provide the best possible solution. It is more likely that the best solution will be found in diverse opinions and feedback but there is no guarantee for this. Many opinions from the team may not be good and even be invalid. Under this leadership approach, there is nothing like the best idea always win but an idea that garners the maximum votes does. In many cases, such an idea may not be appropriate bring negative consequences for the organization.
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