People Oriented

A people-oriented leader is focused on building relationships and making their employees feel valued, included, and motivated at work. Sum up this style of leadership, “Take care of your employees, and they will take care of your business. It’s as simple as that.”

Unlike a task-oriented leader who prioritizes the work itself, a people-oriented leader prioritizes the people doing the work and their well-being. They do this by investing time and energy into earning the trust and respect of employees, monitoring for signs of burnout, providing coaching, encouraging an employee’s professional development, and creating a positive team culture. They also value the insights and perspectives of their employees and seek them out when making decisions, even though they ultimately hold the authority and power to make such decisions on their own.

While the benefits of people-oriented leadership are significant and include increased job satisfaction, loyalty, creativity, innovation, and engagement, you should still be wary of relying solely upon this leadership style as that can cause its own problems, such as impaired decision-making and power imbalances.