Leadership Styles In Public Services

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

Transactional leadership relies on the workers behaviour being influenced by means of reward by the leader.

Leaders are not merely those who control others, but act as visionaries who help employees to plan, lead, control, and organize their activities. As states by (Hood, Leddy, & Pepper, 2006), “leadership is a complex term with multiple definitions but is normally defined as a process of influencing others or guiding or directing others to attain mutually agreed upon goals” (as cited by Agnes, 2005). There are several recognized leadership styles such as bureaucratic — where the leader rigidly follows rules, policies, and regulation; or participative — where the leader allows the staff to participate in decision making and seek the

 The transactional style of leadership is pretty straight forward but it uses rewards and punishments to motivate the team. This is a style of leadership that is similar but not as extreme as the autocratic style. The transactional styles are direct and dominant and spend a great amount of time saying what is expected from the team as a whole. The leaders monitor the work and each and everyone’s individual performance, there is also a clear chain of command.  Transactional leaders are very commonly found within businesses where people are given rewards such as bonuses, training or time off if they show a good demonstration.

Autocratic leadership, is a style which is characterized by the individual control over all the decisions and little input from group members. These type of leaders rarely accept advice from followers. These type of leaders tend to be bossy and controlling. Failing to consult with other team members in such situations hurts the overall success of the group.

The transactional leadership style - the leader focuses on exchanges of benefits or transactions with subordinates. A transactional leader believes that rewards motivate employees to reach their maximum potential.

This paper will discuss various aspects of public administrative environments. First, it will determine one specific leadership theory and two public leader styles that would be most beneficial for the Director of Public Health and related agencies in addressing the issues. Next, this paper will recommend one specific leadership theory and two public leader styles that would be most beneficial for the School Board in addressing the issues presented. Also, it will determine the essential manner in which the leadership from the Department of Public Health, the School Board, and the various other government departments impact the leadership of the City Manager’s and his or her ability to carry out government operations. Finally,

According to J. Seyfarth, there are four types of leadership styles: directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership (Seyfarth, 1996). These styles vary from one another, but all may be visible within a school environment. During a recent interview with an elementary school principal, Amy Zilbar, she described her dominate leadership style as supportive (personal communication, April 25, 2013).

The dictionary defines autocratic as, “pertaining to or of the nature of autocracy or of an autocrat; absolute.” Absolute being the keyword, meaning that the leader’s words are absolute for every follower regardless of personal opinion. This is the style typically used in the military and it follows a leadership pattern where there is a chain of command and a top down structure for which information is processed and passed. Originally developed in 1939, a group of researchers led by Kurt Lewin analyzed how groups are formed and their leaders. The researchers broke schoolchildren up into three groups to complete a craft project lead by a leader from each of the three different leadership styles. They found that autocratic leaders tended to make decisions independently of other children. Additionally they found that, “Autocratic leaders [tended to] make decisions themselves. They do not consult their followers, or involve them in the decision-making process. Having made a decision they impose it and expect obedience” (272). Therefore, this can been seen often in police administration where the chief makes the decisions and his subordinates follow them. A perfect example of an autocratic leader and the dangers that are associated with that would be WW2 German leader Adolf

A Transactional leader is focused on working to achieve a goal by accomplishing tasks, maintaining a good relationship with followers, and providing rewards for good performance; also, this leadership type is more inhere to rules, expectancy of clarity and achieving a fair deal with their followers (Borkowski, 2016). The transactional leaders when in pursuing of achieving a goal, in return forms a mutual relationship with its followers in offering something of value upon accomplishing a task. Usually, the transactional leader’s goals are short-term due to the ending and the acceptance of the reward when the the task is completed.

The four leaderships styles I will discuss are Transactional, Transformational, Autocratic, and Participative. Transactional leading is often a style that uses a reward/punishment motto. , they are often task and result driven. With that being said they often heavily track performance.

Transactional leaders set clear roles for subordinates. They understand roles and responsibilities and are able to give clear direction to subordinates. Transactional leaders recognize their subordinates for their performance and appropriately reward them for achievements. Transactional leaders also have a concern for people. They care about creating an emotional balance. They get to know

Autocratic leadership somewhat resembles a dictatorship or an authoritarian structure. The leader has a high level of control making decisions without the input of others. This type of leadership is not very effective in most situations, what does work well during emergencies.

Autocratic leadership is a directive style of leadership that has one leader in charge making the business decisions. The main difference between particpative leadership is that the leader is more authority driven. The leader of the business decides and makes all the decisions with no imput from any of the employees, then the leader will tell the employee of the changes and the employees have to follow the new policys having no say in the matter. Participative leadership asks employees to voice there opinions making the transition of new policies into the business easier. Directive leaders let their followers know what is to be expected of them, schedules work they need to do and gives them very specific guidelines on how they are to accomplish

Authoritarian or autocratic leaders provide clear expectations for what needs to be done, when it should be done, and how it should be done. This style of leadership strongly focuses on both command by the leader and control of the followers. Authoritarian leadership is best applied in situations where the leader is the most knowledgeable person in the group. You may also see this occur when there is no time for group decision making and rapid decisions are needed. However, this can sometimes be controversial due to members of the group not feeling like their voice is heard. This type of leader may sit at