A democratic leader places final authority in the group, functioning as one who collects opinions and takes a vote before making a decision. Such a leader may give away so much authority as to be classified as a free-rein leader.
The free-rein leader turns over almost all authority to group members and provides as little leadership as possible. Such a leader maintains a hands-off policy as long as the situation is one in which the work to be done by each subordinate is clearly defined. The free-rein style may be held by an abdicator who cares very little for achieving productivity or efficiency, while in other cases this may be an appropriate style leading to high productivity.
One dimension of this type of categorization is the level of decision-making authority. Hersey and Blanchard (1988) note that managers spend much of their time reviewing and acting on the proposals of associates, upper management, and nonmanagement personnel. It is common to hear some managers talked of as being "decisive" and others as "lacking prudent judgment." The authors find that decision making may seem like a very straightforward process and that there may seem to be simple steps for collecting and analyzing data, weighing alternatives, testing possible solutions, and arriving at a course of action. In actual practice, however, real-life decision are made in a pressure-packed environment in the face of inadequate input, conflicting information, budget restraints, time squeezes, scarce resources, and other elements that cloud the issues and threaten the quality of the decisions made. What the manager needs is a simple and logical framework for making decisions that will be successful.
The authors find that there are four basic decision-making styles--authoritative, consultative, facilitative, and delegative. Each style has a high probability of getting results depending on the readiness of the followers of the given situation, and the leadership style determines the relationship between the leader and his or her followers.
