Participative leadership that involves all members of a team in identifying essential goals and developing procedures or strategies for reach those goals. This style of leadership can be seen relies heavily on the leader functioning as a facilitator rather than simply issuing orders or making assignments.
One of the main benefits of participative leadership is that the process allows for the development of additional leaders who can serve the organization at a later date. Because leaders who favor this style encourage active involvement on the part of everyone on the team, people often are able to express their creativity and demonstrate abilities and talents that would not be made apparent otherwise. The discovery of these hidden assets help to benefit the work of the current team, but also alerts the organization to people within the team who should be provided with opportunities to further develop some skill or ability for future use. This also expands the range of possibilities for the team. When leadership styles that essentially leave all the direction and decision making in the hands of one individual, it is much more difficult to see a given approach from several different angles. When the leadership style encourages others to be involved in the decision making process, a given course of action can be approached from a variety of perceptions. This can often point out strengths or weaknesses to the approach that would have gone unobserved and thus unresolved without this type of participatory brainstorming and decision making.
One potential disadvantage of participate leadership is the time factor. This leadership style does often involve the need for more time before action is taken. This is only natural, since the very nature of participative leadership means allowing input from every member of the team. However, the extra time necessary for this process often leads to decisions that ultimately benefit everyone to a greater degree than faster decisions that are more limited in scope.
