Leadership, a crucial element in business, can be defined as “a process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement” (Yukl, 2013, p.76). There are four main types of leadership styles: the autocratic, democratic, paternalistic and laissez-faire leadership styles. Daft (2008, p.44) suggests that “the extent to which leaders should be boss-centered or subordinate-centered partly depends on organizational circumstances.” After taking into account the organizational circumstances, companies should be able to select suitable types of leadership styles. Therefore, it is worth arguing that the democratic style of leadership should be applied more frequently than the autocratic style of leadership, for example, in …show more content…
Referring to the statistics, “most descriptive case studies support the benefits of democratic leadership style.”(Bradford and Cohen, 1984) A rigorous analysis of over 500 such studies by Johnson and Johnson (1989) showed that supportive processes are far superior to conflict-inducing processes concerning group performance and members’ satisfaction. Accordingly, it is wise for leaders to conduct a substantial amount of counsel and empower their followers. Although distinguished in the modes of processing, the autocratic and the democratic leadership styles should both be achievement-oriented. Two styles of leadership are supposed to serve the same objective, which is enabling companies to successfully accomplish the targets with a decent standard of performance. It is clear from above that, in terms of power separation, enthusiasm of followers and decision quality, democratic leadership style modifies better than autocratic leadership style, especially in companies having flat organizational structure. In fact, diverse kinds of companies may need to adopt special styles of leadership according to their specific organization structures, culture or industries. Nevertheless, it is an increasingly accelerating trend to combine and adapt the autocratic and democratic leadership styles to the needs of particular companies.
References
Bradford, D. L., Cohen, A. R., (1984) Managing
The theory of leaders can be autocratic, a person who doesn’t consider the person undertaking the task only getting the results. A democratic leader takes opinions of the staff and understands how they believe the best results can be achieved, whereas Laissez-faire style leaves the experienced staff to implement the work processes.
A democratic leader generally accept any opinion and voices which means that the team would feel free to voice their opinions and ideas without them being dismissed straight away. The positive side to this style is that the team/workforce can be highly motivated, skilled and experienced members can be used in decision making which makes them feel more committed and could less resistant to managerial changes it also help with communication between the workforce and the managers. The negative side to this style is that individuals can dominate participation or make disruptive contributions it can also be very time consuming for the leader because of the two communication it can also result in actions that are the most effective and also people may view this style as incompetent to handle the job responsibilities.
It is characterized by the collective decision-making of its followers. Democratic leaders offer their followers choices and support. They hold no formal position of power and gain their authority through active participation and delegation of tasks and responsibilities. This style reflects democratic principles that include inclusiveness and equal participation. Democratic style of leadership works best in a public university, a democratic nation or a close-knit neighborhood. As discussed during the presentations, some of the past leaders known for their democratic style of leadership are George Washington or Tommy
An advantage of the democratic style involves a considerable job satisfaction of subordinates, through augmenting their responsibilities which results in more interesting and diverse work (Ribbins, 1997). Bush (2008) agrees; when responsibility is shared the self-confidence of group members is enhanced, as they have a key role in planning and decision-making. The democratic leadership style provides high quality expert knowledge and skills are identified and implemented towards achieving targets (Dimmock and Walker, 2005). Grace (1995) supports this, and claims that goals are more likely to be reached since; they have been established by group consensus.
According to Huber a leader is "a process of influence by which the leader influences others toward goal achievement" (2014). With that being said, the role of key leader is null and void without the allegiance of a team. As part of this week’s module we were to complete an assessment to determine the category in which our leadership style mimicked. Furthermore, results determined that the leadership style I possess democratic. Moreover, the democratic style of leadership is primarily
Grojean, Resick & Diskson (2004) suggest that leaders are responsible for facilitating their follower’s to become capable and guide them to improving their capabilities and strengths. Differentiating between different leadership styles can be done in a number of ways. It was determined that the traditional styles of leaders include authoritian (autocratic), democratic, permissive (laissez-faire) and bureaucratic (Viinamäki, 2009).
the one that provides no guidance to the members of the team and fully let them make their own decisions. The fact that the author turned out a democratic leader was not surprising because the author believes this approach to be the most effective and focused on the members of the team rather on the leader.
Leadership styles have significant effects on organizations. For instance, it influences organizational culture and determines how leaders address conflict. Ultimately, it impacts organizational performance. Consequently, leaders must adapt their approach to achieve the desired outcome. Therefore, it is imperative leaders understand and can implement a variety of leadership styles. This essay will describe how an autocratic and participative leader’s style impacts organizational culture, summarize the strengths and weaknesses of each style, and explain how each leader would successfully resolve conflict.
In a democratic leadership style, the decision making process and overall responsibility among team members is shared. Decisions are made by the leader consulting each member of the team; therefore the outcome becomes a group effort. In the democratic leadership style, tasks are delegated to employees effectively, where the implementation is mostly in their hands. As opposed to the authoritarian leadership style, the democratic leader welcomes feedback from every team member. Team members are also encouraged to function as a
When using an authoritarian leadership style, close adherence to regulations and policies are the fundamentals of this leadership style. Workers are held to a specific standard, and the relationship is purely professional. In a democratic leadership style, the decision-making ability is shared. The superintendent relies on feedback from the foremen when making decisions.
Leadership can be defined as the ability to lead a group of people successfully in an organization. Hall, et al (2008) have mentioned that an effective leader has to be visionary, motivating and responsible in order to successfully run a business organization. In business the two key leadership styles, which are widely used in today’s corporate world are autocratic leadership and democratic leadership (Johnson, n.d.). Autocratic leadership may be explained as “a leadership style where the manager sets objectives, allocates tasks and insists on obedience” (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 401). Conversely, democratic leadership encourages “participation in decision making” (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 402). Whilst many people would consider autocratic
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
Murphy (2005) maintains that leaders are accountable for helping their follower’s to become efficient and support them to develop their strengths and abilities. Distinguishing and categorising between different leadership styles can be done in several ways, (Gopee and Galloway, 2009). In this essay traditional classification of authoritian (autocratic), democratic, permissive (laissez-faire) and bureaucratic styles of leaders will be discussed.
The control of all operation by the Autocratic management style is the use of power over employee and staff and forces them to deal with the customer. This type of leadership makes the decision alone and converts it to the employee which the employee has to work, for example, to deliver the best customer service manger instruct all employee to follow his guidelines for this process. The Democratic leadership style is an important way to give the opportunity for the employee in making decision in the
Democratic: In democratic leadership, this style is typically well-thought-out the finest decision for most businesses. The conflicting of oppressive leadership, this style highlights that management proposals guidance to its teams and subdivisions while compliant effort from distinct operate memberships. In GSK is fully controlled by democratic leadership because when GSK prepare any kind of vaccines or medicines they make up a decision by seeking with staffs.