Autocratic leadership is a classical leadership style with the following characteristics: manager seeks to make as many decisions as possible, manager seeks to have the most authority and control in decision making, manager seeks to retain responsibility rather than utilise complete delegation , consultation with other colleagues in minimal and decision making becomes a solitary process managers are less concerned with investing their own leadership development, and prefer to simply work on the task at hand. Whereas Democratic Leadership is the leadership style that promotes the sharing of responsibility, the exercise of delegation and continual consultation. The style has the following characteristics: manager seeks consultation on all
Reduction of friction and office politics: by allowing subordinates to use their ideas and even more importantly – gain credit for them, you are neatly reducing the amount of tension employees generate with their manager. Reduced employee turnover When employees feel empowered through leadership development, a company will experience lower rates of employee turnover which has numerous benefits

Disadvantages of autocratic leadership Style Disadvantages democratic leadership style
Short-termistic approach to management. While leading autocratically will enable faster decisions to be made in the short term, by robbing subordinates of the opportunity to gain experience and start on their own leadership development, and learn from their mistakes, the manager is actually de-skilling their workforce which will lead to poorer decisions and productivity in the long run. Lengthy and ‘boring’ decision making, Seeking consultation over every decision can lead to a process so slow that it can cause opportunities to be missed, or hazards avoided too late.
Manager perceived as having poor leadership skills. While the autocratic style has merits when used in certain environments (as highlighted below), autocratic leadership style is easy yet unpopular. Danger of pseudo participation. Many managers simply pretend to follow a democratic leadership style simply to score a point in the eyes of their subordinates.