LEADERSHIP: FOUR STYLES

W. C. HOWARD, Ph.D.

Overview of Leadership Styles

Personal Leadership Style

The Four Styles narrative of Leadership is written in three sections, which are
Overview of Leadership Styles, Analysis
of Leadership Styles, and Applications of
Leadership Styles. While the primary foundation for its development was generated
from more than 30 years of research and
studying leadership styles in education, the
secondary foundation is generated from
clients and colleagues representing more
than 100 schools, colleges, and universities. This article is designed to facilitate
awareness and provide instruction for leaders struggling with identification of their
own leadership styles, as well as the identification of the most appropriate leadership
style of subordinates. Perhaps, the most
important work that influenced the author's
position was the brain quadrant research
conducted by Ned Herrmann. Ned Herrmann, who mentored the author during
the late 8O's in North Carolina, provided
the cognitive framework for the styles of
leadership based upon his extensive work
with research on brain quadrants. Additionally, data were generated from various
research/case studies done by the author at
The University of Alabama, Harvard University, Fort Valley State University,
Talladega College, Atlanta Metropolitan
College, Miles College, Stetson University, The Citadel University, Webster
University, and numerous school districts
and technical colleges. It is from these
sources that this classification system for
preferred leadership styles has emerged.

There are key questions that must be

answered when defining personal leadership style. They are: What is leadership?
What is your preferred leadership style?
How does your style impact the people,
tasks, and environment that you are leading? What is the preferred leadership style
of the members of your leadership team?
What tasks are best assigned to team members based upon their preferred leadership
style? Can you change the preferred leadership style of your leadership team
members? These and additional questions
will be answered to aide you in enhancing
the quality of your institutional/organizational effectiveness. In an easy to read
narrative format, you can leam more about
your preferred leadership style. Even more
importantly, you will leam how to identify the leadership styles of your leadership
team members. You will also be able to
identify the most appropriate tasks to assign
leadership team members based upon their
preferred leadership styles. Thus, you will
enhance your ability to increase the productiveness of your organization.

Leadership in General

Leadership and leadership styles have

been a subject of considerable debate and
discussion for as long as people have
worked in groups. Leadership has as many
definitions as there are writers of literature
on the subject. Some writers include one
of the following: behavior, personal char-

384

Leadership Styles.../ 385

acteristics, and leadership situations. After

three decades of experience and research,
it is the author's opinion that leadership
must include all three elements. Leadership is the process of communication
(verbal & non-verbal) that involves coaching, motivating/inspiring, directing/
guiding, and supporting/counseling others. This results in the timely production
of predetermined organization goals. Warren Bennis, noted author and researcher,
believed that all leaders of effective groups
have four characteristics in common. First,
they provide direction and meaning to the
people they are leading. The leaders are
responsible for keeping team members
aware of important stated goals and objectives. Second, they generate trust. They act
in an honest manner that creates an environment of trust. Third, they prefer action
and risk taking. They are willing to operate outside of the safety circle of tradition.
Fourth, they are communicators of hope.
Using effective communication skills, leaders encourage others to believe that the
expected behavior will result in successful
realization of stated goal. Fred Fiedler, a
noted author, concluded that a leader could
be effective or ineffective depending on
the situation. He concludes that a leader's
style is based upon his/her personality.
Thus, it would take an enormous amount
of time to modify his/her personality. Neither a graduate class nor a series of
workshops would change an individual's
personality. Ivancevich and Matteson, in
their book entitled. Organizational Behavior and Management, concluded that
individuals respond to the world around
them through their perception, the cognitive process of selecting and organizing

the external environment. Over time, an

individual's perceptions of the best
approaches to address the stimuli in their
environment combined with their predisposed genetic makeup result in preferred
leadership styles.
Goleman (2000) stated that in organizations around the world, from massive
conglomerates to new economy dot-coms,
the same lament emerges: Where are the
leaders?
Jack Welch at General Electric, Lou
Gerstner of IBM, Andy Grove at Intel, and
John Chambers of Cisco Systems are recognized as holistic leaders because of their
ability to appropriately use four leadership
styles. Certainly, not everyone has the skill
to use four difl'erent leadership styles such
Welch or Chambers and others listed
above. The tme measure of effectiveness
of any leadership style is tied to results,
which means the actual realization of predetermined goals achieved by the leader
and team members.
Jack Welch, Lou Gerster, Andy Grove,
and John Chambers are among the minority of leaders who are able to use all four
leadership styles effectively. They are very
rare indeed. The unique ability to analyze
diverse people, complex tasks, and a variety of different cultures in the work
environments is seldom mastered by average senior leaders. Every person that the
leader interacts with has a different personality, perception of the world around
him or her, abilities, attitudes, and skills.
Additionally, the task and the environment
take on different connotations for each person because of his/her individual
differences. Type-A (Fact Based) leaders
are comfortable with people, tasks, and

386 / Education Voi. 126 No. 2

Anaiysis of Leadership Styies

Leadership styles are divided into four types, which are reflected in the chart below.

Chart 1
Type-A (Fact Based)
Expects others to perform at a high level,
with emphasis on the bottom line.

Factual
Formal
Logical
Conservative
Technical
High Task
Analytical
Quantitative
Mathematical
Theoretical/ Scientific

Type-B (Creativity Based)

Provides an open and creative work
Environment, which provides opportunity for suggestions and clarification.

Artistic
Flexible
Imaginative
Synthesizing
Spontaneous
Holistic

Type-D (Control/Power Based)

Type-C (Feelings Based)

Provides specific and detailed instructions

and does not tolerate deviation from
assigned sequence.

Makes decisions based upon how he/she

feels about the issue.

Controlled
Detailed
Planned
Sequential
Conservative
Organized
Dominant
Highly Structured
High Task
Formal

environments that require facts, logic, theories, scientific applications, analysis,

quantitative, mathematical, and technical
processes to resolve. They establish high

Emotional
Talker (without reservation)
Emphatic
Intuitive
Interpersonal
Flexible

quantitative standards of behavior and

expectations for employees and themselves. They rarely show emotion because
they are more interested in the bottom line.

Leadership Styles.../ 387

Moreover, they are constantly seeking facts

and the logical order of things. They are
very organized, research oriented, and data
driven in decision-making. Conversely,
they are extremely critical of individuals
who do not meet their expectations and
standards. They continuously seek perfection in themselves and others. They are
fonnal in appearance, while maintaining a
conservative style. They prefer to think
about problems before attempting to solve
them. They are slow to act. They place
major emphasis on the job or tasks related to the job. Accuracy, above all else, is
the number one priority.
Unlike Welch, Gerster, Grove, and
Chambers, most senior leaders resort to
the use of one or two leadership styles for
situations dealing with people, tasks, and
environments. The Type-B (Creativity
Based) leader prefers problem solving techniques that involve artistic, flexible,
imaginative, spontaneous, and holistic
responses. Like Feelers, they are open and
direct in communicating with others. Their
thinking and behavior reflect a creative,
casual, and relaxed style. They are confortable talking with anyone at any time,
and they will often talk while they are
thinkng. With some exceptions, the TypeB leadership style was all but ignored as a
preferred leadership style by the majority
of CEO's until the 195O's. From 1950 to
about the late 198O's, the United States fell
behind Japan in the production of quality
products such as electronic and vehicles.
Due to the proliferation of high-quality
popular Japanese electronics and vehicles
that were produced by the imaginative,
artistic, and flexible Japanese leaders,
American industry leaders demanded the

use of Type-B leadership styles by CEO's.

Thus, SUV's, PT Cruisers, and non-gasoline cars are the by-products. Currently,
boards of trustee are recruiting and selecting holistic leaders because of the demands
for quality and productivity from regional accrediting groups and the Federal
govemment.
J. M. Juran and W. Edward Deming are
Americans who contributed to the Japanese transition to holistic leadership. This
transition placed emphasis on quality and
flexible leadership that focused on meeting the customers' needs and expectations.
The formula for success, as described by
Juran and Deming, necessitated the holistic approach to and constant use of holistic
leadership. Quality is an imperative
according to Deming and Juran, even
though one used statistics and the other
used quality principles to advocate holistic leadership styles. The Japanese
incorporated Deming and Juran's concepts
into holistic leadership, which transformed
the electronic and automobile industries.
By implementing this same need for innovation, there is still hope for education in
the USA.
Educators in the United States still lag
behind the business community in adopting change as dictated by the consumers.
At the secondary education level, educators are struggling with the challenge of
how to change the educational systems to
meet the No Child Left Behind law regulations. This law requires a new approach
to educational leadership, which includes
standards-based curriculum, formal State
achievement tests, and school ratings based
upon student performance and overall
assessment of each school. Some excep-

388 / Education Vol. 126 No. 2

tional educational leaders have discovered

the benefits of holistic leadership. This
style of leadership involves the effective
use of all leadership styles in the transformation of ineffective school districts to
effective school districts. Boards of trustees
must recruit and select leaders who are
capable of using all leadership styles, based
upon appropriate analysis of the people,
tasks, and environment. Boards of trustees
must select leaders who are comfortable
using the Type-B (Creativity Based) and
other leadership styles if creative solutions
are expected to solve current problems.
The leader that prefers Type-C (Feelings) leadership style makes decisions
about how he/she feels about the people,
tasks, and environment, often ignoring
research and facts that are contrary to
his/her decisions. Even more important,
they may prefer to use emotions, empathy,
intuition, and interpersonal relationships
to guide their decisions. They are uncomfortable with data as a source for making
decisions, unless the data are compatible
with their feelings. They do not use the
principals of science to analyze and solve
problems. They prefer intuition to science.
They are open and direct in their communication style, which causes others to feel
relaxed with them. They are prone to think,
act, and respond to stimuli in a fast-paced
manner. They exhibit extreme flexibility
in both their personal and professional
behavior. They seek approval and recognition from those in control.
The leader who prefers to use Type- D
leadership style (Control/Power Based)
wants to use power and control over people, tasks, and environment. They lack
imagination and creativity. Often, they

expect all subordinates to play a submissive role with them, and they provide
rewards accordingly. They choose control,
details, planning, sequencing, and strict
organization to respond to people, tasks,
and environment. They are inflexible,
unimaginative, and lack spontaneity. Ideally, you want your Chief Finance Officer
(CFO) to use Type-D leadership style. You
would not want your CFO to use creative
accounting methods. A creative accountant is not a positive contributor in any
organization. There are many aspects of
an accountant's job that require many of the
elements of a Type-D leadership style.
Audit trails must be established and maintained for all incoming fiscal resources,
which require a sequential and orderly
process by the chief financial officer. Consequently, different people, tasks, and
environments need different styles of leadership to accomplish desired results.
Leaders of this type are advocates and firm
supporters of tradition because, " This is
what worked yesterday." They neither
encourage nor do they use creative problem-solving primarily because they are
afraid of failure. This approach is positive
for accountants, but it could prove to be
problematic for a leader attempting to motivate teachers and students to improve
school ratings. Therefore, the leadership
style must be dictated by the situation.
Applications of Leadership Style

Leaders develop perceptions, attitudes,

values, and a way of thinking and ranking
systems of values for the stimuli in the
world around them based upon their genetic predisposition and the results of the
environmental impact during their forma-

Leadership Styles.../ 389

tive years. Using this template, potential

leaders develop a preference for a particular way of processing stimuli and making
decisions. For example, an A-Type (Fact
Based) leader could be an individual who
has a predisposition for logic and reason,
has parents with doctorate degrees in science, has continued exposure to learning
environments that reinforce the importance,
and use of the scientific principles. Thus,
the leader would have a strong preference
for the elimination of feelings and emotions when solving problems pertaining to
people, tasks, and environment. This type
leader is strongly opposed to showing emotions and considers it inappropriate to do
so in his/her work environment.
To assist an A-Type leader with accessing the opposite leadership style, which is
C-Type leadership (feeling), training must
be designed from a fact based point of view.
They will leam, over time, and they will
transfer to other ways of perceiving and
responding to stimuli. They are most receptive to fact-based leaming. Consequently,
a fact based leaming technique should be
used with them. Consider the following
scenario. Fact one, an individual can feel
and think at the same time. Fact two, you
eliminate the appearance of being human
when you do not show emotions. This perception will cause staff to feel alienated,
and it becomes increasingly difficult to
develop a shared reality with them. Fact
three, Nedd Herrmann concluded that feelings are a different form of thinking, which
can improve the quality of leaders' thinking. Fact four, accessing and using feelings
develops additional tools to gather information needed to lead the organization.
For example, a leader with the ability to

access and use appropriately the feeling

leadership style can sense when staff is
feeling fear, hate, and anger. While staff
may make contrary or incongruent statements with their demonstrated emotions
as compared to their verbal statements, an
effective leader will continue to probe so
that the real issues are addressed.
Pamela Shockley-Zalabak concluded
in her book entitled. Fundamentals of
Organizational Communication, that sensitivity is one of four basic components of
communication competency. She states
that sensitivity, the ability to sense or
become aware of a variety of organizational meanings, is fundamental to
developing shared meaning among leaders
and workers.
It is most difficult to get leaders to develop skills in a leadership style that is
opposite of their preferred style. For example, it is extremely difficult to move either
a preferred A-type leader to a comfortable
C-type. It is much easier to move vertically. For example, it is easier to move an
A-type leader (Fact Based) to a D-type
leader (Control/Power Based).
The key to success is for leaders to have
the range of skills that allows them to use
the appropriate leadership styles according
to the situation or assign tasks to leaders
based upon their preferred leadership style.
As an initial step, the author supports the
latter position of assigning tasks to leaders based upon their preferred leadership
style. Additionally, a long-term staff development system should be planned and
implemented to assist leaders in developing a holistic leadership style, the ability
to use all four styles based upon the situation.

390 / Education Vol. 126 No. 2

Prior to employing leadership consultants, you should first identify your

preferred leadership style. You may be
among the ehte 3% of the leaders who are
able to effectively use all four leadership
styles. If you are not among the elite 3%
who are holistic leaders, you must expand
your own leadership styles to demonstrate
correct leadership technique to your leadership team. Consider the following
process: Make a list of the last nine decisions that you made, with a minimum of
three decisions pertaining to people, three
decisions pertaining to tasks and three decisions pertaining to work environment.
Starting with the first of the three decisions
pertaining to people, write a verbatim statement of your perceptions about the issues
prior to your decision. Write a concise
statement reflecting your rationale for the
perception. Write a concise statement of the
decision that you made. For example, Dr
Abraham Holy, President of High Point
State College, had the following perceptions: 1. Homosexuality is a sin. 2.
Homosexuals are immoral people. 3.
Homosexuals reflect negatively on the college. Rationale: 1. I learned from Bible
lessons that homosexuality is a sin. 2. I
have read cases in the newspaper of men
molesting children. 3. Dr. John D. Lovejoy, Professor of Humanities, was arrested
but not convicted of sodomy three years
ago. Decision: Dr John D. Lovejoy, Professor of Humanities, was fired without
stating a cause for his termination. Dr Holy
is making a decision primarily from a CType leadership style (Feeling). He is
without a doubt very religious and gives literal interpretations to his readings. His
perceptions are a direct reflection of his

early childhood teachings, which were

reinforced in a variety of means through his
environment. He uses only emotions to
make this critical decision, which has profound ramifications for Dr. Lovejoy, Dr.
Holy, and the entire High Point State College community.
All decisions made by leaders can be
traced to their perceptions/value, and rationale/ reasoning. However, it takes
tremendous insight to examine your decisions with this kind of analytical thinking.
It often reveals perceptions and values that
you are uncomfortable addressing at any
level. Conversely, the 3% of the leaders
who can comfortably use all four leadership styles are able to identify their
perceptions and rationale for each decision made. Most importantly, they have
developed the ability to assess the situation
and apply the appropriate leadership style.
Ideally, all leaders should aspire to acquire
the ability use all four leadership styles.
However, it is unlikely that this goal will
be reached without a firm commitment to
long-term staff development.
Let's consider how an effective leader,
who has the ability to use all four leadership styles, would have responded to the
same case. First, the effective leader would
analyze the case from all four-leadership
styles. Upon completion of the analytical
process, the effective leader would conclude that the most appropriate leadership
style is one that entails fact-finding, logic
(What are the legal issues?), and principles of science. There is only one
leadership style with these elements: AType (Fact-Based). Perceptions: 1.
Homosexuality constitutes one of expected diverse groups on a college campus. 2.

Leadership Styles.../ 391

Dr. Lovejoy was not found guilty of the

charge of sodomy. 3. Dr. Lovejoy has the
constitutional right of due process that is
guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, vi'hich
must be honored by state colleges. Rationale: l.The President is obligated to
accommodate diversity on the college campus. 2. Dr Lovejoy has neither broken a
college policy nor a state law. 3. Even if
Dr. Lovejoy had broken both college policy and state laws, he must be given due
process prior to terminating him. Decision: Dr Lovejoy will continue teaching
in his capacity of Professor of Humanities.
The ineffective college president could cost
the college millions in damages from a
lawsuit that Dr. Lovejoy would have
brought because of discrimination, failure
to follow college policy, and lack of due
process, etc.
John Dewey, an educational scholar,
concluded that, " To find out what one is
fitted to do and to secure an opportunity to
do it is the key to happiness." Leaders are
not only happy, but they are more productive when the tasks are correlated with their
preferred leadership style. For example,
Type-A leaders prefer positions like academic affairs, law, finance, engineering,
and other positions that require facts, logic,
and analytical thinking. The opposite type
leader, the Type-C leaders, prefers students
services, social work, counseling, teaching, nursing, and other positions that
require empathy, intuition, and flexibility.
Type- D leaders prefer to be computer programmers, auditors, fiscal officers,
bookkeeper, planners, and other positions
that provide control and power. While the
opposite is true of Type-B leaders. They
prefer positions such as strategic planning.

artists, musicians, and other positions that

involve imagination, spontaneous, and
holistic approaches to problem solving.

References
Bennis, W. (1997). Organizing Genius: The
Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Reading,
MA: Addison Wesley.
Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A Theory of Leadership
Effectiveness. New York, New York: McGrawHill
Ghiselli, E.E. (1971). Explorations in Managerial
Talent. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.
Goleman, D. (2000). Leadrship That Gets Results.
Harvard Business Review, 1, PP.78-90
Ivancevich, J. M. & Matteson, M.T. (2002). Organizational Behavior and Management. New
York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2002). Fundamentals of
Organizational Communication. Boston, MA:
Allyn & Bacon
Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook for Leadership.
New York: Free Press, 43-44.

About the author

Dr. W. C. Howard is Vice President for

Academic Affairs at Allen University,
located in Columbia, South Carolina. He
serves as President of Howard & Associates, an educational consulting firm,
located in Decatur, GA.