Laissez Faire Leadership Paper

The first leadership style is "Autocratic" in which the leaders understand the strength of the authority and sees subordinates as important parts of a big machine. These leaders do not believe in opinion or suggestions.

Autocratic leadership, also known as authoritarian leadership is a leadership style characterized by individual control over all decisions and little input from group members. Autocratic leaders typically make choices based on their own ideas and judgments and rarely accept advice from followers. Autocratic leadership involves absolute, authoritarian control over a group. It can also be derived

Authoritarian leadership style is where a leader has complete control and power over their team. They demonstrate their 'power' and 'control' by dictating policies and procedures, deciding what goals need to be achieved, and directs all activities to be done by the team. An authoritarian is usually most successful when things are going well or when in a crisis and decisions need to be made quickly.

There are several factors that will influence the choice of leadership styles and behaviours in workplace situations, some of the factors may develop

The leader behavior approach is the focus of what people do as a leader or leadership style rather than the characteristics leaders inherit as a leader. It is the assumption that the actions of a person opposed to their innate mental state. Because leaders can learn through teaching and observation; specific behaviors are the focus of a leader. An important study of this theory was conducted by the Ohio State University, and the purpose was to identify common leadership behaviors. The study and research uncovered that there are two linked groups of behavior.

Authoritarian leadership is a leadership style in which the leader dictates and controls all decisions in the group and task. Often referred to as Autocratic leadership, authoritarian leadership is about control, organization and discipline. Coach Haskins Leadership Style on the Court is authoritarian with his quota “You’re here to learn fundamental, disciplined defensive basketball. Now that means discipline both on and off the court. No girls. No booze. No late nights. Nothing besides fundamental basketball. I speak, you listen. I don’t wanna hear ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’ or Coach, I’m bleeding. I don’t wanna hear anything except the basketball bounce. You play basketball my way. My way’s hard.” Bobby Joe This authoritarian style of leadership is often encountered in the world of athletics. During the beginning of their season Coach Haskins demands the respect of his players. His values included listening and obeying your coach, or repercussions will take place. If a player dared to disrespect the rules in place, either that person and/or the team would be put through punishment. There was no room for compromise, for whatever coach said was to be done. For example, when coach had said there was no partying some of the team members snuck out the first night. The next day at practice, coach had been informed of their disobedience and had the team running sprints for punishment until they physically could not do anymore. It happened again when coach caught Booby Joe Hill with a

Often times an authoritarian leader has full control of those around them, and believes to have complete authority to treat them as they want. An authoritarian leader would provide instructions without looking for inputs and superintend his or her nurses in a close manner. However, problems may arise if a nurse must wait for the manager's decision or direction before taking action regarding a patient. Although the authoritarian leadership style can be viewed as undesirable, it has proved to be very efficient in emergent and stressful situations. One of the key benefits of authoritarian leadership is the fact that decision making becomes much more simple and fast, as the leader doesn't have to consult or convince anybody. Basically authoritarian leadership can work wonders for the organization when decision making has to be quick and during some crisis.

Authoritarian leaders give clear orders to what should be done and are straight to the point. They settle on choices with no contribution from others. An Authoritarian leader would be for example an Officer as a part of the armed force, they are for the most part bossy,comanding and intimidating to some they think they are constantly right and they're way is the most ideal way. This could be utilized as a part of a circumstance where a group needs to do things quick and successfully e.g in a drugs raid, if the unit is under attack the leader must yell orders and the group must react quick as their life is at stake. This style is like Task Orientated in the way that the leader is the main individual who puts input, this doesn't make a welcoming

A leader that is the opposite of an autocratic leader is laissez-faire. These types of leaders give their team members a lot of freedom in how they do their

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.

There are two definite strengths of authoritarian leadership: efficiency and productiveness. These both impact the team positively, as team members will feel satisfied - having completed a task/accomplished a goal successfully. Generally, the more efficient and productive a team, the more likely they are to be successful. Authoritarian leaders are proficient at motivating others. This leadership style allows for fast decisions which can be a lengthy process in other leadership styles such as bureaucratic. This essentially allows the team to begin a project and complete it promptly. An example of where this leadership is most effective is in the Armed forces. There is a clear defined structure of ranks and roles within the regiment. There is one leader in charge (the general) who instructs lower ranks and gives orders. The sergeant does this without any input from lower ranks. Northouse (2012) states some “would argue that authoritarian leadership is a much-needed form of leadership– it serves a positive purpose, particularly for people who seek security above responsibility.” This supports the strengths of the authoritarian leadership

Most simply, authoritarianism denotes the absence of free elections and the presence of unconstrained power. In this form of non-democratic government, the power and authority wielded by the leader(s) is not contingent upon popular support from the citizenry. Authoritarian leadership may be single or group headed. When a single person heads the government, it is known as an autocracy. When an elite group of individuals head the government, it is

Laissez faire is the absence of effective leadership (Yukl G, 2010). Laissez faire leaders ignore problems and follower (Yukl G, 2010) and they do not contribute to the growth of the follower ( (Northouse, 2007). Feedback, rewards and leader involvement are totally absent in this type of leadership hence reduced organisational commitment.

Laissez-faire is often called non-leadership or passive leadership, but it almost always means the same thing: "Laissez-faire is operationalized as managers avoiding making decisions, abdicating responsibility, and not using their authority. (Hinkin and Schrieshein, p. 508, 2008)." Again, referencing Burns’s (1978) continuum of leadership, laissez-faire is the least engaging when compared to both transformational and transactional leadership. Where a transformational leader would work to energize subordinates by connecting them with their higher-order wants and needs, and the transactional leader, at the very least uses negative reinforcement when necessary, the laissez-faire leader avoids authoritative interaction with subordinates almost entirely. And although literature on laissez-faire leadership predates research regarding transformational leadership, laissez-faire leadership is the least studied category of leadership when compared to transformational and transactional leadership styles implying a why-bother mentality among researchers due to its inherent ineffectiveness (Bass and Stogdill, 1990).

The best leaders are those have the adaptability to flex their behavioral style, and choose the right style suitable for each situation. According to this theory, people can learn to become leaders through teaching and observation and certain behavioral patterns may be identified as leadership styles. Advantages of Behavioral Theory of Leadership: Behavioral theory promotes the value of leadership styles with an emphasis on concern for people and collaboration. It promotes participative decision making and team development by supporting individual needs and aligning individual and group objectives. It helps managers evaluate and understand how their behavioral style as a manager affects their relationship with the team and promotes commitment and contribution towards organizational goals. This theory helps managers find the right balance between different styles of leadership, and helps them decide how to behave as a leader, depending on concerns for people and for productivity. Criticism / Arguments against - Behavioral Theory of Leadership: As there were inherent limitations with the Trait approach to leadership, when early researchers ran out of steam in their search for traits, they turned to what leaders did, how they behaved and came with behavioral theory of leadership. This became the dominant way of approaching leadership within organizations in the 1950s and early 1960s but this