Psychology of management

1.4 Democratic strategy 
HOW EMOTIONAL IMPACT IS BUILT UP: the leader evaluates employees’ input in 
work and gains loyalty by means of active involving them into the managerial process. 
IMPACT ON ORGANIZATION’S CLIMATE: positive. 
APPROPRIATE FOR USING: to achieve support, consensus, to get proposals from the 
employees on business development. 
THE SOURCES OF DEMOCRATIC STYLE 
The democratic style is based on three skills of emotional intellect: the ability to 
teamwork and cooperation, the ability to settle conflicts, and on being influential. Leaders who 
perfectly master the art of communication are excellent listeners – and the ability to listen is the 

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most important merit of a democratic leader – this creates the employees’ feeling that the 
executive sincerely wants to find out their thoughts and worries, and besides is always available 
for a talk. Moreover, these are real team-mates who behave like full-fledged team-members, and 
do not stand away from the collective sending down orders to their subordinates. And finally, 
they can resolve conflicts and create the atmosphere of harmony in the group. 
In democratic leadership a significant role is played by another emotional intellect skill – 
the ability to empathy which is especially needed when a group is dissimilar. Without the ability 
of tuning in to psychological peculiarities of different people a leader will make mistakes more 
often. 
As you can see, the four styles of leadership – idealistic, teaching, companionate, and 
democratic – are reliable resonance “builders”. Each of them makes a strong positive impact on 
emotional climate in an organization. The final two types – ambitious and authoritarian – also 
take their place among the leadership instruments, but each of them should be used carefully and 
skillfully, only then will it have a positive effect. When ambitious or authoritarian leaders go too 
far in resorting to these approaches too often or using them awkwardly they, as we will see 
further on, create not resonance, but dissonance.