Reflections of your management style.

Reflections of Your Management Style

As a supervisor, you can influence the climate or atmosphere in which your employees work. To a large extent, the climate of the workplace is determined by your leadership style and by your assumptions about your people and why they work.

Climate can be either autocratic (thunderstorms), democratic (sunshine), or permissive (cloudy). The autocratic climate starts with a supervisor who says in no uncertain terms, "My way or the highway." In a permissive climate, the supervisor is passive--there is a lot of freedom but almost no control. "Wake me when it's over" is the philosophy of the permissive supervisor. A democratic climate …