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Participative Leadership

Stephen Rampur
Getting to know what is participative leadership may help you become an efficient manager at your workplace. Here's more.
It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.
― Nelson Mandela
Leadership is a very important aspect that is prominent in our professional life. If a team is led by an effective good leader, they are more likely to perform well as per the expectations of the project.
On the other hand, if the leader is a person who just issues orders and commands the tasks to be done, the team is demotivated and does tend to perform less than they actually can. The working and managing style of a leader plays a very important part in making the leadership role effective.
There are various managers who adopt different leadership styles and methods for employee and process management. Each leadership style has its own methods, behavior, effects, and aspects. Participative leadership is a very significant leadership style that is most beneficial to employees and managers alike.

What is Participative Leadership Style?

As the name suggests, this leadership style relates to a method of having things done by involving team members in goal-setting and decision-making.
Since there is an involvement of team members and employees, this is by far the most useful management style in the business world. Though there is employee participation, the leader is handed over the responsibility of taking the final decision.
In this corporate leadership style, the manager works with the team and not over the team, which is why he can determine even the minutest errors of the processes that have to be executed.

Advantages

There are many apparent and proven advantages of participative leadership. A very important advantage is that employees and team members are motivated to work, because they realize that the management is ready to consider their suggestions and viewpoints.
Secondly, since the manager becomes like a team member and takes part in the decision-making process, it has a good impact on teamwork.
And if there is such employee motivation, the team members happen to work more effectively than expected. This eventually has a good effect on the company's revenue.
Thirdly, as more than one mind is working on goal-setting and decision-making, there is an all-round analysis of the possibilities of failures. Therefore, the manager can majorly rule out any errors and possibilities of failures in the project. You can say that there is a broader assessment of the situation which is to be worked upon.
The result of participative leadership can also be effective decisions suggested by experts in their respective field. In this kind of business leadership, the manager does not only involve team members, but can also take guidance from his peers.
One of the most suitable participative leadership examples can be when a manager divides project work among his team members including himself, discusses the project requirements and expectations with the team leader and other members, and then they work on it collectively.
Participative leadership surely increases employee satisfaction, reduces the workload of managers, and creates better teamwork; with all this eventually contributing to good work on the project.