Democratic leadership has been described as behavior that influences people in a manner consistent with and conducive to basic democratic principles and processes, such as self-determination, inclusiveness, equal participation, and deliberation [101]. Democratic leadership is easily contrasted with authoritarian leadership styles and laissez-faire or free-rein styles.
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LEADERSHIP STYLES
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DEMOCRATIC
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AUTHORITARIAN
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LAISSEZ-FAIRE
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• Share understanding of the problem with team members
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• Solve problem or make decisions sometimes with, sometimes without, consultation with others
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• Are hands off and allow employees to make the decisions
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• Distribute responsibility and empower other members
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• Expect team members to provide information, not to generate alternative solutions
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• Are good at delegation of responsibility
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• Facilitate deliberative, participatory process
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• May or may not tell team members what the problem is in getting information from them
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• Tend to avoid conflict
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• Aid the group in its deliberations
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• Work “by the book”, ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly
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• Wait for a solution to a problem to emerge on its own
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• Help group reach consensus
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• Impose strict and systematic, sometimes punitive discipline
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• Are flexible and can be influenced
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• Do not use position to influence the group
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• Are empowered via the office they hold: position power
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• Are willing to implement group solution
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• Favor individual over group decisions
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• Are best in situations where employees are organized, competent and need little oversight
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• Exercise discernment and self-awareness
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• May hold power through personal charisma
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• Determine the “how” not the “what”
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• Tell others what to do
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• Are relationally transparent
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• Expect unquestioning obedience
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• Hold the mission and guiding values as central concern
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• May be guided by mission or may be dominated by self-interest
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Deliberation is at the heart of democracy; therefore, high-quality deliberation requires effective democratic leadership [101]. Democratic leadership aids the deliberative process through constructive participation, facilitation, and the maintenance of healthy relationships within a positive emotional setting [86]. Constructive participation means defining, analyzing, and solving group problems through deliberation. This means that problems must be carefully analyzed so that all relevant information and perspectives are put on the table for consideration. Possible solutions must be generated and assessed through creative reflection and critical evaluation. Careful listening and the respectful acknowledgment of others’ views can help move the discussion forward. A particularly important form of listening, sometimes called “discernment,” consists of carefully listening to group members’ ideas and values, then tentatively attempting to identify the “public voice” or the solution that best represents the group’s collective interests.
Organizational managers who are naturally inclined toward participatory practices may find the transition to more democratic environments relatively easy, a confirmation of deeply held and long-standing beliefs. Managers who have adopted more autocratic styles, however, may find the demands of facilitating participatory structures to be exceedingly anxiety-provoking because of the fundamental redistribution of power and authority. It’s important to recognize, however, that becoming more democratic does not mean abdicating responsibility for decision making. When programs begin adopting the Sanctuary Model, people in leadership positions may not act when they need to act simply because they think they are “being democratic.” Becoming more democratic means that leaders will not abuse power, but it should not mean that they will not use power—the power to witness, inspire, clarify, and facilitate. Relatively few people have had experience working in participatory environments, so it is likely that managers will underestimate the time and training that are necessary to support and encourage democratic practices.
Moving Away from Authoritarianism
We live with the delusion that we are all experts in democracy when in reality we are complete novices. When moving from a system that has been very authoritarian, it is better to gradually open up participation, keeping the goal of a more participatory organization as the aim, moving in careful and planned steps to get there. A sudden or forced transition is likely to raise so much anxiety throughout the organization that something will happen to sabotage all progress in a participatory direction. Managers may pull back too quickly, leaving a vacuum in the authority structure that employees are not yet ready to fill. Since nature abhors a vacuum, this vacuum may rapidly be filled with problems that the most resistant and skeptical members of the organizational community have predicted. Then the “failure” of democracy becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Earlier we discussed reenactment as an impediment to change. These forces are always at play in the organization and will seek to maintain the status quo. An unfortunate result is that those organizations that could and should benefit the most from the democratic process are exactly those that will have the most difficulty in implementing it.
As one authority has pointed out: [It] is a common finding that resistant managers will undermine the transition to democratic process by subtly limiting the information available to decision-making teams, by holding them to unrealistic expectations, by failing to provide necessary resources, or by abandoning them as they attempt to work through their new tasks and responsibilities. . . .The challenges of moving from bureaucratic structure to democratic process are formidable enough to discourage even those managers who are convinced of the potential benefits. In fact, managers often become disillusioned with democratic process as transition obstacles and difficulties begin to emerge in earnest. Rather than work persistently through the inevitable complaints, anxieties, and performance glitches, they retreat to watered-down, half-hearted versions of their original objectives. The potential benefits are never realized (though many of the costs are), the hierarchy reasserts itself, and employees end up more cynical about management’s integrity and competence than before the experiment began. (p. 92) [94]
Moving Out of Chaos
Likewise, moving from a very disorganized and chaotic organization to a democratic organization will not happen overnight and needs to be a careful, planned, structured change. Our faculty members help organizations plan and pace this change to ensure that change occurs at a manageable rate. Organizations that are chaotic may have experienced leaders who have leaned too much in the direction of the laissez-faire style of leadership, the virtual opposite of the authoritarian leadership style.
In such a case, there may need to be a greater exercise of central authority in order to get the situation under control. Without such a progression, the introduction of the Sanctuary Model may flounder because there is too little leadership rather than too much. Like everything else, creating a more democratic culture is all in the timing.
And even when an organization has succeeded in becoming more democratic, that does not give license for a free-for-all, anything-goes attitude. Decision making needs to happen within the framework of the Sanctuary Commitments. Therefore, all change needs to be safe, nonviolent, nonsecretive, knowledge-building, emotionally intelligent, socially responsible, and mission-driven. Janie Hogue is the manager at Rose Rock Center, a substance abuse facility for women in Vinita, Oklahoma, and the first Sanctuary Certified agency. As Janie observed:
We function more democratically than we once did. Staff make more decisions and are accountable for those decisions. This is still a work in progress and probably always will be. Staff still look to leadership too often to solve problems. In recent months, budget cuts have reduced the number of middle managers, and I have discovered that some managers were masking their struggles with conflict by claiming to be democratic. Leaders have to be willing to make tough decisions guided by the Sanctuary Commitments.
Fitting the Leadership Style to the Situation
Organizational leaders who are committed to democratic participation discourage authoritarian structures but are not hands-off. They teach the skills necessary for responsible, more democratic participatory structures. But in real-life situations that confront human service professionals all the time, it is best to have a flexible range of responses to a wide variety of situations. After assessing their own leadership style, managers and supervisors should make efforts to develop different styles of leadership to match different situations.
There is no role for either petty tyrants or bullies in the human services environment. However, there is no one best leadership style for decision making, leading, and motivating. The “situational approach” offers leaders the most useful framework for leadership. Leadership styles can vary, depending on basically two factors: the quality of the decision, meaning the extent to which the decision will affect important group processes, and acceptance of the decision, or the degree of commitment of employees needed for its implementation. This theory suggests that when the decision will affect few members of the group and little commitment from others is required, the leader should use an autocratic style and just make a decision. But when the decision is likely to affect many people and can only be implemented if employees support to the decision and carry out the implementation, leaders should use a participative style [102].
Determining whether to move more authoritatively, or more democratically, or just let things emerge on their own is a balancing act for managers. It’s really a matter of constantly balancing different and often competing needs because that is what complex problems demand. Leaders need to be aware that the stress of their jobs may cause them to misjudge circumstances and, at times, select a leadership style that is inappropriate to the situation.
Effective leaders know how to match styles to situations and get things done. Ineffective leaders do not. Ineffective leaders are likely to employ only one dominant style and use that style in all situations. They are therefore ineffective in addressing the real complexities of the modern work environment. Although there may be innate qualities that lead to leadership, all leaders need on-the-job experiential training; we learn by doing.
