Leading with the Team: Democratic and Participative Styles

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Leading with the Team: Democratic and Participative Styles

Principles of Management · Chapter 9: Leadership Styles and Sources of InfluenceSection 9.5 · lesson 49 of 11710 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Democratic and participative styles, and how much to involve the group.

  • Describe democratic and participative leadership
  • Explain the 5 degrees of participation
  • Weigh the benefits and costs of participation
  • Choose the right degree for a described decision

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,385 words). Read along, or search it.

Leadership Styles and Sources of Influence

Leading With the Team

Every leader faces a recurring question. Should I decide this myself, or bring the team in? This section is about answering that question well. We'll define democratic and participative leadership. Then we'll lay out the five degrees of participation, because involvement isn't all or nothing. We'll meet a finding about honesty that makes fake consultation worse than none at all. We'll weigh the benefits and the costs, and the five factors that set the right degree. And we'll finish with a case where a consultation went badly wrong. By the end, you should be able to pick the right degree of participation for a described decision.

Democratic Leadership

Involving the Group in the Decision

Democratic leadership is defined by involving the group in decisions the leader would otherwise make alone. One clarification matters immediately. Participation is a continuum, not a binary. It's tempting to label a decision as participative, or not participative. But that label hides most of what matters. A decision can involve the group to one of several distinct degrees. And each degree transfers a different amount of actual influence over the outcome. So the useful question isn't whether to involve the team. It's how much influence you're actually handing over, and whether you're honest about it. Keep that second part in mind. It turns out to be the one leaders get wrong.

Degrees of Participation

5 Steps, From Least to Most

There are five degrees of participation, running from least involvement to most. At the first degree, the leader decides alone, with no group input at all. At the second, the leader consults individually, then decides. Input comes from members one at a time, but the leader makes the decision herself. At the third, the leader consults the group, then decides. Now the input comes from the assembled group. But the leader still makes the decision. At the fourth degree, the group decides within limits set by the leader. The group makes the actual decision, constrained by boundaries the leader established in advance. And at the fifth degree, the group decides. The decision is fully transferred, with no leader-imposed limit at all.

Figure 9.5.1

Influence Is Not the Decision

Figure nine point five point one lays the five degrees along a continuum. Under each one, it shows what's actually transferred. When the leader decides alone, nothing is transferred. When the leader consults individually, or consults the group, the group gets input only. That input may genuinely shape what the leader decides. But the leader keeps the decision authority throughout. Then comes the sharp break, marked by the dashed line. When the group decides within limits, the decision itself is partly transferred. When the group decides outright, it's fully transferred. This distinction is easy to blur in everyday language. So be clear, with yourself and the team, about which side of that line a decision sits on.

The Honesty Requirement

False Consultation Costs More

A specific and important finding governs how participation should be used. Call it the honesty requirement. A leader who consults, when she has already decided, damages trust more than a leader who simply decides openly. Going through the motions of consultation, with the outcome already settled, is not a harmless middle ground. In its effect on trust, it's worse than deciding openly and saying so. And teams detect this reliably. A team can usually tell, often quickly, whether a consultation is genuine. Or whether it's theater, performed around a decision that's already been made. That's why the honesty requirement isn't merely an ethical preference. It's a practical one. False consultation tends to fail at concealing itself. So if the decision is made, say so. That costs less than pretending it isn't.

The Benefits

What Genuine Participation Produces

Genuine participation produces four benefits. The first is better information. Group members often hold relevant knowledge the leader alone doesn't have. The second is better decision quality on complex problems. That follows from the improved information, especially where a problem benefits from more than one perspective. The third is commitment to the outcome. People who help shape a decision tend to feel more invested in its success, more than people who simply receive it. The fourth is development of the participants. Members exercise judgment, and decision-relevant thinking, that they wouldn't otherwise have practiced. Notice that each benefit depends on the participation being genuine. Theater produces none of them.

The Costs

Participation Is Not Free

Participation carries real costs as well. Time is the most direct. Genuine consultation, and group decision-making, take longer than a leader simply deciding alone. The second cost is the possibility of a worse decision. That happens specifically where the group lacks the information, or the expertise, the decision actually requires. In that case, broader participation doesn't improve quality. It may even reduce it. The third cost is the risk of groupthink in a cohesive group, from Subchapter eight point three. Participation isn't automatically protective against poor group decisions. A highly cohesive group, asked to participate, can converge on a comfortable but poorly examined answer. It can do that just as readily as a group with no participation at all.

Table 9.5.1

5 Factors That Set the Degree

So how much participation is right for a given decision? Table nine point five point one names five factors. The first is decision quality requirements. Where quality depends on combining several perspectives, push toward more participation, as with a complex product design trade-off. The second is where the information sits. If the group holds information the leader lacks, push toward more. Think of a process change affecting frontline daily work. The third is how much implementation depends on commitment. Where success needs genuine buy-in, push toward more, as with a significant change to team working norms. The fourth is time available, and it pushes the other way. Where a decision must be made quickly, push toward less, as with an urgent operational call. The fifth is the group's capability and alignment. Where the group is both capable and aligned with the organization's interest, push toward more. A well-informed, cohesive team designing its own workflow is the example.

When Participation Fails

4 Conditions to Recognize

Participation fails under four conditions. The first is when there's no real decision to be made. For example, the outcome is fixed by an external requirement, and only its implementation remains open. The second is when a decision has already been taken. Inviting participation then invites exactly the honesty problem we just described. The third is when the group doesn't have enough information to make the decision well. And the fourth is when the group's interests diverge from the organization's. Then broader participation risks a decision that serves the group's own interest, at the organization's expense. When one of these holds, broad participation is the wrong tool for the decision.

Closing the Loop

Explain the Final Decision

Whatever degree of participation a leader uses, one obligation remains. She must explain the final decision. That matters most when the decision goes against the view the group expressed during consultation. Picture a leader who consults, hears a clear group preference, and then decides differently, without explanation. That risks exactly the trust damage the honesty requirement describes. Now picture a leader who explains her reasoning, even while overriding the group's preference. She preserves the credibility of consultation itself, for the next decision. Overriding the group isn't the problem. Overriding it silently is. One more structural point. Where employees are unionized, or formally represented, participation takes on additional structure. Some decisions may carry formal consultation or bargaining requirements, rather than being left to a manager's judgment. Subchapter thirteen point twelve covers the specific obligations such an environment can create.

Case Vignette

A Decision Already Made, Consulted On Anyway

Here's a composite case, constructed for instruction. Farrukh, a department head at Harborline Manufacturing, had privately decided to consolidate two overlapping roles on his team. Then he announced a formal team input session, to gather views on the reorganization. During the session, several members raised specific, substantive concerns. They proposed an alternative arrangement, which they believed would preserve the benefits of splitting the roles. Farrukh listened attentively, and thanked the team for its input. Then he went ahead with the original plan, essentially unchanged, without explaining why the alternative was set aside. The team's trust in his future consultations declined sharply. Several members privately called the session theater. Consulting on a decision he'd already made was costly in itself. The honesty requirement tells us that. But his larger mistake compounded it. Proceeding with no explanation confirmed, for the team, that the consultation had never been genuine. Next, Subchapter nine point six turns to the far end of the continuum, autocratic leadership, presented fairly on its own terms.

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Leading with the Team: Democratic and Participative Styles

What is democratic or participative leadership?
Democratic leadership involves the group in decisions the leader would otherwise make alone. Participation is a continuum rather than a yes-or-no choice, running from the leader deciding alone, to consulting individuals, to consulting the group, to the group deciding within limits the leader sets, to the group deciding outright. Each degree transfers a different amount of real influence over the outcome.
Why is fake consultation worse than simply making the decision yourself?
Consulting a team after a decision has already been made damages trust more than deciding openly and saying so. Teams can usually tell whether consultation is genuine or theater, so false consultation tends to fail at hiding itself. If the decision is already made, announcing it honestly costs less, and a leader who overrides the group should explain her reasoning.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of participative decision making?
Genuine participation brings better information, better decisions on complex problems, stronger commitment to the outcome, and development of the participants. It also has costs: it takes more time, it can produce a worse decision when the group lacks the needed information or expertise, and a highly cohesive group can still fall into groupthink and settle on a poorly examined answer.
How do you decide how much to involve your team in a decision?
Five factors set the right degree of participation. Push toward more involvement when decision quality depends on several perspectives, when the group holds information the leader lacks, when implementation depends on buy-in, and when the group is capable and aligned with the organization. Push toward less when time is short. Participation is the wrong tool when the outcome is already fixed or decided.

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