A Case Study in Leadership Styles and Approaches – Based on content from the graduate leadership courses I taught at FDU (2003-2018)
Donald Trump has done it again. Just when we thought he’d reached the limit of his capacity to shock, he moved the chains for more yardage downfield. Just when we thought he’d use a little restraint – if only temporarily as he faces four indictments – he once again blew through the bounds of reason, unity, and purpose. Just when we thought he might try to get his facts straight, he demonstrated that it still doesn’t matter in the least to him. Just when we thought the rule of law might be starting to mean something to him, we saw the foolishness of that hopeful thought.
Assessing the Trump Leadership Style and Approach
Last week, Donald Trump, in conversation with a journalist in front of other journalists and the world, for that matter, as the cameras were rolling, said that if any NATO member was not living up to its responsibility to contribute 2% of its GDP to the alliance, and was attacked by Russia (or anyone else), that he, as president, would not only refuse to defend that country, but also encourage the aggressor to “do whatever the hell they want.” The ex-president thereby took a position neither we nor any other member nation ever took or even contemplated, apparently.
Say what you will about any or all of former President Trump’s policies or positions, this column is not about that. The theme here is leadership styles and leadership approaches.
Leadership Styles
Broadly, there are three leadership styles: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. Plain to see and usually distinct from one another, it’s pretty easy to characterize leaders. JFK was democratic and so was George Washington; George Steinbrenner was autocratic, as was Steve Jobs; Dwight Eisenhower was, for the most part, laissez-faire as president, but as a general, he was perhaps the most effective autocratic leader we’ve ever seen. Which brings up the hybrid leader: FDR, for example, who was a powerful autocrat when needed and openly democratic whenever possible.
Leadership Approaches
The four kinds of leadership approaches are: directive, charismatic, participative, and political.
Directive leadership focuses on gathering information, carefully assessing data, developing clear-cut objectives, and compelling subordinates to achieve these goals.
The charismatic leader has extraordinary interpersonal qualities, is entrepreneurial, has radical vision, and uses emotional appeal to motivate followers.
Participative leadership is marked by shared power and shared leadership, democratic management, and 360-degree communication.
The political leader is savvy and manipulative, keeps goals flexible and vague, advances patiently, and coordinates resourcefully, even cleverly.
So, who’s Donald Trump?
With his typically brash remark, Donal Trump indubitably identified as an autocrat – with not even a hint of anything else. So much for leadership style.
The leadership approach identification is more interesting. Mr. Trump’s ability to compel others is well documented and is the only characteristic of a directive leader that he can come close to calling his own. As for the rest, he and data are strangers, and so on. To boot, he doesn’t seem to understand that NATO is a treaty into which we have willingly entered, and in this country, a treaty is law, thereby making his statement of denying defense to any fellow signatory, brazenly unlawful.
Lists of charismatic leaders have included Ronald Reagan and Joe Namath, but also Fidel Castro and Charles Manson. Their effectiveness depended on their audiences. Preaching to his choir, Mr. Trump is, in part, a charismatic leader.
Participative leadership was on full display when President George H. W. Bush organized and led 40 nations in answer to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait: Desert Storm. Mr. Trump had no such thing. In fact, his careless disregard for alliances falls far short of a determined “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead” approach that it seems like he is taking. Truth is, it has scared our NATO allies, in nervous anticipation of our upcoming elections, to begin drawing up plans that do not include the U.S. NATO was founded in 1949 and is one of the best examples of participative leadership ever seen in this world.
Donald Trump lines up most closely with political leadership: manipulative, vague, and clever. That serves personal goals but works against collaboration, conciliation, and cooperation.
Analysis made easy
It often takes considerable study to determine the leadership styles and approaches of any one figure. In one phrase – “whatever the hell they want” – Donald Trump made it easy.