How to Develop Your Leadership Style

Embarking on the journey of becoming an effective manager is both challenging and rewarding. Your leadership style is one of the most powerful levers you have for helping your team do great work and feel good doing it. When you can name your style and explain how you operate, you reduce ambiguity, build trust, and make it easier for people to collaborate with you.

What’s tricky is that “style” can feel abstract. Many managers know how they prefer to work, but struggle to describe it or see where they have room to grow.

This post will help you understand your current style, locate yourself in a research-backed framework of styles, and intentionally flex your approach to fit your team.

Step 1: Build Real Self-Awareness

Every manager benefits from having a clear picture of how they already show up. Self-awareness is the foundation of any sustainable leadership style because it helps you see both your strengths and your unintended impact.​

Try starting with two simple practices:

• Capture a quick “leadership log” for two weeks. After key meetings or decisions, jot down what you did, how you communicated, and how people responded. Patterns will emerge.

• Notice your default under pressure: When things get busy or stressful, do you tend to take control, speed up, slow down and involve others, focus on relationships, or coach?

By the way, your “stress default” is often the clearest signal of your current style.

Step 2: Use a Practical, Evidence-Based Framework

There are many ways to categorize leadership, but some are more useful in day-to-day management than others. Psychologist Daniel Goleman, writing in Harvard Business Review, identified six styles that are distinguished by clear, observable behaviors and linked to measurable effects on team climate and performance.

What I like about this framework is that leadership style isn't positioned in terms of "good" or "bad" styles. All of them have value for a certain context and the framework guides you on what to emphasize.

Having the ability to know which style is best for the situation and flex that style accordingly is like a leadership superpower.

The six styles are: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, and what he originally called Coercive. Some experts reframe "Coercive" to "Directive". This is to emphasize clarity and control, not harshness. You'll see "Directive" referred to here.

Don’t bother memorizing these as a theory. Think of them as distinct “tones” you can recognize in yourself.

Step 3: Find Yourself in the Styles

Use the table below to see which style sounds most like you in a normal week—not just on your best or worst day. The Pros/Cons are there to help you see where each style shines and where it can create friction if overused.

Leadership Styles in Everyday Behavior, with Pros and Cons

Style	Core focus	What it looks like (day to day)	Pros	Cons
Visionary	Setting direction and connecting work to a clear purpose	You often talk about the bigger picture and where the team is headed. You explain why changes are happening and give people freedom in how they contribute to the vision.	Inspires and aligns people; helps teams navigate change; supports autonomy because the “what and why” are clear while the “how” is flexible.	Can feel vague or high-level if not paired with concrete plans; may overlook operational details or individual needs if overused.
Coaching	Developing people for the long term	You use 1:1s to talk about goals and growth, not just status updates. You assign stretch work, give feedback aimed at learning, and tolerate short-term dips in output if someone is developing.	Builds capability and bench strength; increases engagement and ownership; supports long-term performance and retention.	Time- and energy-intensive; can feel slow or frustrating in urgent, high-volume environments; not everyone wants intensive development all the time.
Affiliative	Relationships, belonging, and harmony	You check in on how people are doing, not just what they’re doing. You celebrate wins, acknowledge efforts, and actively smooth tensions or misunderstandings.	Strengthens trust and psychological safety; helpful during stress and recovery; fosters loyalty and collaboration.	May avoid necessary tough conversations; can prioritize harmony over clarity or performance if not balanced with other styles.
Democratic	Participation and shared decisions	You regularly seek input, ask “What do you think?” and give people a real say when time allows. You use the team’s ideas to shape decisions.	Improves buy-in and quality of decisions; surfaces diverse perspectives; helps people feel heard and valued.	Can be slow and cumbersome when speed is essential; may create frustration if input is gathered but not clearly acted on or explained.
Pacesetting	High performance and leading by example	You set ambitious standards, work at a fast pace, and often jump in to do complex tasks yourself. You expect others to match your pace and quality.	Useful with highly skilled, self-motivated teams; can drive rapid improvements and strong short-term results; signals competence and high expectations.	Others may feel pressured or micromanaged; learning can suffer if you frequently “take over”; risk of burnout and narrow focus on output.
Directive	Clarity, control, and immediate execution	You give clear instructions, set specific expectations, and closely follow up, especially when stakes, risks, or ambiguity are high. Day to day, you’re comfortable saying “Here’s what we’re going to do and how we’ll do it,” and you step in quickly when standards slip.	Helpful in high-risk, compliance-heavy, or time-critical situations; reduces ambiguity; can be reassuring when people need structure or are new to a task.	Can reduce autonomy and creativity if overused; people may become dependent on your direction; may dampen initiative and open dialogue over time.

All six can be practiced in a way that is respectful and effective. The key is knowing which one feels most like your default and when you may need to reach for something different.

 Step 4: Turn Your Style into a “User Guide”

Once you know your default style or blend (“I’m mostly Visionary with a strong Coaching streak”), make it explicit for your team. You can literally create a short “user guide” to working with you that covers:

• What I’m aiming for: “I try to lead in a way that is clear about direction, and focused on helping you grow.”

• How I typically operate: “In decisions, I’ll often propose a direction and then invite input. In 1:1s, I’ll ask about your long-term goals and offer feedback to support them.”

• What you can expect from me / what I expect from you: “You can expect clarity and regular feedback. I’ll expect you to raise issues early and bring your perspective, even if you disagree.”

  
  

Sharing this in a team meeting and inviting questions turns your style into a shared, discussable part of how you work together.

Step 5: Practice Flexing Beyond Your Default

Goleman’s work and later discussions of his model highlight that leaders who can draw on several styles—especially Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, and Democratic—create better climates and performance than those who rely on just one. The goal is not to abandon your natural style but to expand your range.

You might experiment with small, deliberate shifts like:

• If you are strongly Directive, choose one decision this week where you slow down, ask for input, and use a Democratic tone.

• If you are naturally Pacesetting, pick one project where you resist jumping in and instead use a Coaching approach with the person leading it.

• If you are primarily Affiliative, identify one situation where clarity of expectations or standards (a Directive move) will actually help someone succeed.

Over time, your leadership style becomes a combination of who you are, the habits you’ve intentionally built, and the flex you’ve learned to use when your team or context demands something different.

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Until next time!

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Amy Drader is a management consultant and credentialed coach with over 20 years’ experience in HR and operations. She knows first-hand the joys and challenges of leading people and is dedicated to helping managers and teams advance their performance. She is the owner of Growth Partners Consulting, a boutique leadership and team development consulting firm that provides customized training, coaching, and professional development resources.