BCom Notes Part II Management Different Styles of Leadership

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Different Styles of Leadership

Briefly discuss various leadership styles and also refer to their advantages, disadvantages and conditions of use. Which is the best style in your opinion? Leadership Styles

Simply stated, the term Leadership style refers to the pattern of behavior, which a leader adopts in directing behavior of the followers towards the attainment of organizational goals. From another viewpoint, leadership style is the position that a leader usually takes with regard to how much decision making freedom he allows to his followers to have. Similarly, the behavior exhibited by a leader during supervision of his followers is known as leadership style. The nature and form of leadership style is affected by the following factors, existing circumstances, time period, personality of the leader, his experience, attitude and orientation, nature of followers, external environmental and so on. Most of the managers use several styles at one or the other point of time, but in which category a manager falls, is decided by the style that is mostly used by him. Basically and broadly, there are three important leadership styles as follows:

1. Autocratic Or Authoritarian Style

It is also known as directive style. It is basically treated as a traditional method of leadership. An autocratic leader centralize power and decision making in him and exercise complete control over the subordinates. He dominates and drives his group through coercion and command. He uses both positive and negative motivations, for example, reward, praise, fear of criticism or punishment. When he uses positive motivations that is called benevolent autocratic style and when he uses negative motivations that is known as dictatorial or oppressive autocratic style. The autocratic leader likes, Theory X-undemocratic thinking, he emphasizes work only.

The autocratic leader himself decides all policies. He gives orders to the subordinates and expects them to follow such orders completely without any grudge or question. Under this style, subordinate are thought to be inexperienced and wisdom less and therefore they are given no freedom – the autocratic leader decides the technicalities and modalities of the work and the course of action. Hence any one except the leader does not know the future action.

Autocratic style permits quick decision making provides strong motivation and satisfaction to the leader centralize power and dictates terms, yields positive results when great speed is required and needs less competent subordinates at lower levels. Its major disadvantages are, It leads to frustration, low morale and conflict among subordinates are induced to avoid responsibility, initiative and innovative behavior. Full potential of subordinates and their creative ideas are not utilized. In the absence of the leader, organizational continuity is threatened because subordinate gets no opportunity for development.

This style may be appropriately used where subordinates are uneducated, unskilled, unwise, inexperienced, where the company endorses fear and punishment as accepted disciplinary techniques and where the leader prefers to be active and dominate to decision making.

2. Democratic Or Participative Styles

The democratic leader decentralizes power. He involves subordinates in the decision making. Decision are made in consultation and participation with the subordinates. The style emphasizes group-discussion and group decision making. The democratic leader like Theory Y-fairness, equity and human relation. He emphasizes both work and worker. The subordinates are encouraged to utilize their full talent potential and capacities and assume greater responsibilities. The democratic leader shares power with subordinates, delegate adequate authority to them, keeps them well informed about matters of their interest and concern and allow adequate freedom for thinking, discussing, expressing and making suggestions. He has faith in the subordinates and their wisdom, skills and capacities. He holds objective approach. Communication pattern is multi-dimensional.

The major advantages of this style are, It improves job satisfaction and moral, develops positive attitude, reduces resistance to change, generates self-motivation due to participative decision making and freedom of thought and impression, increases productivity and develops better subordinates.

The major disadvantages of this style are, It is time consuming and causes delays in decision making; may fail when the communication pattern and skill are not strong enough is not workable where subordinates do not want to take extra responsibility of sharing in decision making and becoming part of every decision decreases productivity in some cases especially when decisions are diluted to appease or please everybody.

Democratic style is more appropriate where subordinates are educated, skilled, wise, creative and enthusiastic, where the company endorses self-direction and self-control and rewards and involvement as prime means of motivation and control and where leader desires to hear subordinates before making decisions and to develop a strong and capable force of followers.

3. Free Rein Or Laissez-Faire Or Permissive Style

There are several forms of this style. For example, in some cases the subordinates are given a goal to achieve in their own way, whereas in some other cases they themselves decide their group goals. In-fact, there is almost complete delegation of authority and the path leading to the goals is decided by the subordinates themselves. The leader behaves primarily as a member of the group and plays the role of a member only. He give his opinion or suggestion only when it is demanded from him. Under this style, the group members are educated and motivated by themselves, the leader is not required to educate but he acts, as a link primarily for arranging adequate resources needed for attaining the goals, for establishing contact between employees and the outside world, for collecting necessary information from external sources and for establishing coordination. The concept of management by exception promotes this type of style. Subordinates themselves plan, control, evaluate and decide.

The major advantages of this style are, It increases subordinates, freedom, develops their expression, compels them to work as group members, increases job satisfaction and moral, utilities subordinates potential to the maximum possible extent and promotes creativity or innovation.

The free-reign style is appropriate where subordinates themselves are well trained and highly knowledge about their tasks and un-hesitatingly ready to assume extra responsibility, where the company has a wide and effective communication network acceptable to the subordinates and it endorses complete freedom and full involvement as means of motivation and control and where the leader is ready to compromise with the status in the group and is interested in delegating the whole authority to the subordinates. It is mostly used in circumstances where the leader feels him in a position to leave the alternative or selection fully on the group’s choice.

Choosing a Leadership Style

Which leadership style is best or which to choose? Different scholar makes different suggestions in this regard. However, widely known for their effective management practices the Japanese favor participative leadership style. In actual practice it is difficult to hold my one style, is the best leadership style. As discussed above, each style has got its merits and demerits. Hence the choice of a style will depend upon several factors, such as suggested by Tannenbaum and Schmidt.

1. Forces in the Manager

Manager’s value system, confidence in subordinates, own leadership inclination and feeling of security in an uncertain situation.

2. Forces in the Subordinates

Their need for independence, readiness to assume responsibility for decision making, tolerance, for ambiguity (or strangeness), interest in problem at hand, understanding and identification with the goals of the organization, knowledge and experience to deal with the problem and learned expectation of sharing in decision making process.

3. Forces in Situation

The type of organization, group effectiveness, the complexity of the problem itself, pressure of time on the situation etc.

Effective manager should be expert enough to adapt or modify their leadership style as per the need of the moment. Sticking to one best considered style at all times in all situations with all people may not work well to be a good leader. Most suitable leadership style is that which fits with the situation the followers and the leader.