What is Democratic Leadership?

Democratic leadership is an incredibly popular leadership model based on the theory that leadership, like democracy, should be ‘for the people. For leaders in executive positions, this leadership model is considered to be one of the most effective. Democratic leadership involves inviting participation in leadership decisions. Employees at all levels are encouraged to find their voice, share their opinions, and have their say on key company decisions. As a result, they feel heard, valued, and exhibit increased levels of employee satisfaction. Effective democratic leadership can be hugely beneficial in many circumstances, but it isn’t the right choice for everyone. Here’s everything you need to know about whether democratic leadership is the right choice for you or your business, and how to become a democratic leader:

What is Democratic Leadership?

Democratic leadership is sometimes also referred to as participative leadership. Democratic leadership is a very open leadership style where each team member is encouraged to participate in decision-making by sharing their opinions.  Democratic leaders work with their employees to set goals and evaluate their performances. They also motivate them to grow in their existing role and to move into additional roles within the company.

Democratic leadership is an incredibly popular leadership model and one that is used in a huge number of large corporations around the world and indeed within the majority of countries globally. It is often used in conjunction with other leadership models to make the most effective and efficient leadership approach.

Characteristics of Democratic Leadership

Democratic leadership is an immediately identifiable leadership style. One of the best things about the democratic leadership model is that anyone can be a democratic leader. Unlike other leadership styles, it doesn’t take any particular level of skill or expertise. This is because much of the burden of decision-making is transferred from the leader to the team. You don’t necessarily need to be a creative or innovative thinker. You just need to have a team, or a pool of employees, that are creative or innovative thinkers. You also need to be a practical leader who is able to implement ideas effectively and efficiently when they have been established.

Some of the characteristics that you will notice in the democratic leadership model include:

• A democratic leader is team-focused.
• A democratic leader is flexible.
• A democratic leader is adaptable to change.
• A democratic leader knows how to engage listeners.
• A democratic leader is honest and open.
• A democratic leader is communicative.

Positives of Democratic Leadership

Adopting a democratic leadership style can be beneficial for both employers and employees. Democratic leadership gives control to both the leaders themselves and to the employees that they work alongside, meaning that all members of the team feel valued and in control. This is an innate human need, and therefore employee morale under this leadership model tends to be high. Some of the main benefits of adopting a democratic leadership model include:

• Higher Levels of Staff Retainment. The democratic leadership model makes employees feel more valued by their leaders in the workplace, as well as gives them a deeper connection to the work that they are doing. This means that those employees are much more likely to stay in their position, or in the company, than employees with a more authoritative leadership model. There are many benefits to this: a well-established workforce tends to be a more productive workforce. What’s more, recruitment can be both expensive and time-consuming. The UK is currently experiencing a recruitment crisis, with 75% of managers reporting that their recruitment costs increased considerably throughout 2021. Focusing on staff retainment is a great way to mitigate these costs.
• Increased productivity. The democratic leadership model empowers employees. They are given the support and the confidence that they need to suggest out-of-the-box solutions, explore their own creativity, and collaborate with other team members. All of these elements can contribute to increased productivity. Collaboration and sharing in this way can often make employees feel more energised and can reignite their passion for what they do. This in turn will lead them to work harder, as well as smarter, with increased productivity the ensuing result.
• Higher Levels of Trust. The democratic leadership approach builds trust between leaders, their teams and employees, and the higher management team.
• Increased Team Commitment. When you pose an idea in front of your colleagues (including those colleagues that are more senior than you) and that idea is heard and discussed, this makes you feel much more involved in your team. Even if your idea isn’t implemented, you know that it was considered equal to the other ideas posted. This tends to increase not only morale but commitment; teams feel more involved, and therefore more committed to the success of a project.
• Healthy Company Cultures. Democratic leadership can foster positive and healthy company cultures. It shows team members healthy and replicable models of communication and means that employees feel happier within the culture of the company. This can only be seen as a positive because companies with a healthy culture are more likely to experience increased employee morale and employee retention levels.
• Complex Problems are Solved More Effectively. Democratic leadership works particularly well in high-level executive teams, or in teams where creativity is valued. This is because, in this approach, teams are encouraged to come up with creative solutions to complex problems, and this collaborative approach makes finding a solution more likely. This is because each member of a diverse, multi-faceted team is likely to be a new and unique approach to the problem. When combined, this approach will ensure problems are solved more effectively.

Negatives of Democratic Leadership

Ideas flow freely and employees are generally happy in their working environment under the democratic leadership model, but there are also negatives of democratic leadership that should be taken into consideration. These include:

• Decision-Making Takes Time. When you seek the opinion of all team members before you make a decision, it stands to reason that the decision-making process will be much slower than if just one person is in control. Involving too many people in making a decision means you’re likely to be faced with a wide range of differing opinions Democratic leaders may have the final say, but they are committed to considering the input from their entire team before they do so. And this approach isn’t always practical.
• Not Every Idea is a Good Idea. Democratic leadership doesn’t always take into consideration a team member’s level of experience or expertise. Some team members may have expert-level knowledge on a specific subject, but their opinion will still be given equal weight to a new or inexperienced team member with very little knowledge of a subject. Democratic leadership requires that leaders approach all ideas and input with openness and curiosity. But this can sometimes be detrimental to team morale and communication, even though the aim of the approach is to boost morale and communication.
• Employees Can Feel Rejected. Every team member is given the opportunity to pose their ideas and suggestions, and every team member is likely to feel that their idea is the best. But when only one idea can be chosen, a large number of team members are disappointed in having their ideas rejected. Even when an experienced democratic leader blends some of the solutions posed by their team, there will still be some pitched ideas that will never be used. For team members or employees that are sensitive to rejection, this could prove difficult, and committing to then working on the idea that has been posed by their colleague or colleagues could build resentment.

Situations When Democratic Leadership Works

There are many situations where democratic leadership can be an incredibly useful tool. Democratic leadership works best in situations where group members are skilled and eager to share their knowledge. Because everyone is involved in making decisions, it is important to feel that you can trust the opinions and the expertise of everyone that is involved in your decision-making process. For this reason, democratic leadership is best used in executive teams, or teams where team members have a high level of knowledge, qualifications, and understanding.

Democratic leadership is also best used in situations where there are no time constraints. If you have the time to examine all the options, and your focus is on getting the right solution, rather than finding a solution quickly, then democratic leadership is likely to be the best solution for you. That doesn’t mean that deadlines aren’t important in the democratic leadership model, however. Without setting deadlines, your employees may never reach a cohesive consensus! Setting deadlines will help you to ensure that you get everyone’s input in enough time to act on it. It will also allow you to manage your employees’ expectations upfront, and make it clear what is expected from each team member.

You may not wish to implement democratic leadership in every area of your employee interaction, but there are ways that you can introduce elements of democratic leadership and use these to your advantage. Holding a weekly team meeting where employees are free to share their opinions and speak openly is a great example of this. During these meetings team members should be free to raise any issues they have and are given the opportunity to ask for input. They will feel heard and engaged.

When to Avoid Democratic Leadership

Whilst there are many situations where democratic leadership works, there are also many situations in which democratic leadership just doesn’t work. For example, a democratic leadership style is considered to be ineffective if the group members cannot contribute in a meaningful way. For this reason, it is a leadership model that should not be used in settings that are made up exclusively of new or inexperienced team members. Democratic leadership is also a leadership model that depends on creativity, so if you are working in a formalised and highly regulated industry, where outside-the-box thinking is highly discouraged, democratic leadership may best be avoided.

Democratic leadership will not work effectively in situations where teams are relatively small. You need to have several different ideas and opinions to be given a full range of perspectives on a situation. It’s also important to consider team dynamics if you use democratic leadership in a small business: if you are seeking opinions from three team members, for example, and then combine two of the proposed solutions then the third team member (whose proposal was not utilised in any way) is likely to be left feeling singled out due to their feelings of rejection.

The democratic leadership model should also not be used if the decision being made requires the dissemination of information that shouldn’t be shared on a large scale. If access to sensitive information would be required to make an informed decision, then that decision should only be made by those individuals privy to this sensitive information. Of course, that doesn’t mean that democratic leadership can never be used in these environments: just not in these situations.

Examples of Democratic Leadership

Of course, global governance is one of the key examples of democratic leadership. More than half of the countries in the world with populations over 500,000 people use a democratic leadership style. Some examples include the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands, although of course there are very many more.

In the business world, a core example of a company that uses democratic leadership on a large scale is Google. When asked to describe their leadership style, the founders of the company said that they were “proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!” Google is a great example of a company that employs highly skilled and creative individuals, so their opinions and ideas are trusted and sought out. Many high-level technology companies (including brands such as Twitter and Facebook) have similar employee demographics, and therefore also find that they have a skilled workforce that would benefit from demographic leadership. This freedom gives them the time and space that they need to innovate, create, and think outside of the box.