Essay on Compare and Contrast Two Leadership Styles

Furthermore, there are different theories which give insights about why some leaders lead the way they do. One of these theories is the behavioral theory, it emphasized on what leaders do and their leadership styles. The behavioral theory explains three different types of leadership styles namely: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. An autocratic leader makes plans, gives direction on how to execute them, and makes decisions for the group. These type of leaders are highly power control. They give little or no freedom to the members. Whatever they say is final. On the other hand, democratic leaders allow members to participate in the decision making. They seek opinions of the members. On the other hand, laissez-faire leaders allow members to do whatever they like. This type of leaders does very little planning or decision making thus fail to encourage others to do it (Weiss and Tappen, 2015 p.

There are different leadership theories developed throughout the history. Most popular ones are trait theories, behavioral theories, contingency theories, and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. The author of the post will briefly discuss two theories, Fiedler contingency theory and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), and compare and contrast their strengths and weakness.

What are the key strengths and weaknesses of the supportive, directive, and participative styles of leadership? Substantiate your response.

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).

Leaders have a “the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals” (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 402). In the past leaders have been described by certain traits or characteristics. These traits can help an organization identify potential candidates who may be strong leaders. Later behavior approaches of leaders were identified that could be taught. In short, leaders could be made. Situations have an impact on which leader behaviors will be most effect at any given time. Several contingency theories have been formulated over the years to identify how situations influence leadership behavior. Each style has strengths and

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

Leadership comes in different forms and in different aspects of life from private business to government entities (Wren, 1995, p. 5). The models of leadership used are dependent upon the individual attributes of the leaders, for example traits, values, self-identity, skills, and competencies (Yukl, 2013, p. 136). A close look at select leadership models and how they compare and contrast with each other provides insight into the types of leadership that might be employed within organizations as they face various leadership issues and challenges.

After conducting the experiment, 76% of cadets within Delta Company stated that a democratic style of leadership is most effective compared to the 23% of cadets who believed autocratic leadership is better. When specifically asked questions about autocratic leadership, 58% of the cadets stated that autocratic leadership is not effective when used by the cadre. When asked whether the cadets respected the autocratic leader 65% said that they respected the leaders and 69% stated that they trusted those same leaders. Surprisingly for those cadets who voted for their disapproval for autocratic leadership, 81% stated that they would continue working on a task if an autocratic Delta leader left the workplace for a period of time before returning

Leadership Evaluation and Philosophy: An Appraisal of Angela Merkel’s Leadership during the Euro Crisis and My Leadership Philosophy

When comparing the roles of a leader in conjunction to the roles of a manager, one can easily see that both roles are very distinct. The difference between managers and leaders lie in the conceptions they hold. Managers embrace process, they also seek stability and control to try and resolve any problems that may arise in an effective manner, even before they get a firm understanding grasp of any ongoing situation, whereas leaders welcome a lack of structure in a sense where they are willing to delay closure in order to understand issues in a much more in depth manner. However, despite the differences of each role, both hold some similarities in terms of qualities or characteristics that allow each role to interplay with one another, but most

Effective leadership demands that a leader be able to adjust his/her style according to the circumstances. Our textbook states that Authoritarian leadership is more effective with large group sizes, or when the leader has a larger degree of task knowledge. Laissez-faire is most effective when a group is composed of motivated intelligent people who function best when given a task and left alone. When these situations come up, blindly holding to democratic, even though overall the most effective style, can cause a group to be less productive. This also applies to Theory X and Theory Y. Many people believe that these styles are rigid, polar opposites. However, the book states that the theorist, Douglas McGregor, believed that they ??are not polar opposites but, rather, independent dimensions isolating options from which a leader might select depending on the situation and the people involved.? (p48, Leadership) Holding on to all the qualities that classify one?s leadership as being ?X? or ?Y? prohibits effective leadership when situations change.

When I think about the type of leader I would like to be, there is one supervisor that always comes to mind because of the positive environment she cultivated. In researching the different leadership styles for this assignment, I believe that this is the style that she used with her staff. I was interested in learning more about transformational leadership and how I can cultivate this style in the way that I lead my current team as well as the way in which I lead future teams.

In any organization, the role of leadership effectiveness depends on either if he/she has total controls of the decision making process and supervises work done in the group called autocratic leadership style (Greenberg, p.456), if the leader has minimum supervision and allows group participation in decision making known as delegation leadership style (Greenberg, p.456) and lastly a leader who prefers half of each styles called participative leadership style. (Greenberg, p.456)

For decades, social psychologists and management professionals have studied numerous approaches to successful leadership and the motivations behind them. A leadership style can be defined as a leaders characteristic behavior when directing, motivating, guiding, and managing groups of people (Cherry, 2006). In order to lead people more effectively, it is critical to understand the assumptions and influences of different leadership styles. Additionally, one must comprehend what motivates the team members involved and how their behaviors can drive a certain style of leadership. We will begin our analysis by discussing Theory X and Y and then look into three other styles: authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire. Lastly, we will decide which style is most often needed in today’s fast-paced world.

¡§LEADERSHIP IS A DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIP BASED ON MUTUAL INFLUENCE AND COMMON PURPOSE BETWEEN LEADERS AND COLLABORATORS IN WHICH BOTH ARE MOVED TO HIGHER LEVELS OF MOTIVATION AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT AS THEY AFFECT REAL, INTENDED CHANGE.¡¨