Theories Of Management And Styles Of Leadership

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.

The democratic leadership style provides for a happy medium between the autocratic and laissez-fair styles of leadership. In this scenario the leader attempts to provide direction to the group without overpowering or creating follower dependency on himself. This style of leadership is most likely to provide for satisfied and empowered followers. An example of this style of leadership can be seen in a workplace where employees feel empowered to work independently with clear and concise direction from leadership.

Kurt Lewin, and a team of researchers, studied youth leaders. They studied youth leaders in activity groups. Based on those studies, it was concluded that there were three obvious and leading leadership styles. Kurt Lewin used the terms democratic, laissez-faire, and autocratic to describe the leadership styles. He also chose one that he thought was superior compared to the other two. The autocratic style is when a single person

Autocratic leadership also has advantages and disadvantages. In an autocratic environment, the leadership role is usually thrust upon a person. The decisions are solely made by the leader. The actions done by the subordinates, heavily put the responsibility of the action on the leader (Myers, D., 2012). Another pro is that the leader is more experienced than the subordinates therefore they have more insight and knowledge. There is a clear hierarchy. This allows everyone to know whom to report to. There is also no need to waste time with votes like in a democratic leadership (Myers, D., 2012).

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.

In the 1930’s Kurt Lewin argued three major styles of leadership Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez-fair (Manktelow, n.d.). Kurt’s simple but effective categorized leadership models provided a foundation to many different leadership theories. An Autocratic leader is one who makes decisions without the help or input of others. Because this leader doesn’t consult with the team, team members may feel as though their opinion doesn’t matter thus losing a team oriented atmosphere. This type of leadership may be seem as demoralizing and lead to high turn over rates and absenteeism (Manktelow, n.d.). Team members may feel unimportant and therefore take less ownership of team outcomes. A Democratic leadership style however is the almost the exact opposite of

“The leader must be able to explain ideas clearly to employees and understand any feedback they receive (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 402). Though rate of production with a democratic style of leadership might be slower than in an autocratic due to low supervision, it could be disputed that workers can work more freely as there is less stress to perform.

An autocratic leader is someone that takes full responsibility for the whole team. They also have full control over decision making which means the team have to go along with the decisions that are made by the leader whether they agree with them or not. They are generally loud spoken, firm and direct in what they want done and when. This is because autocratic leadership is often used when an urgency of decision making is required. An example of when an autocratic leader is used in the public services is a paramedic as they would have to work quickly and efficiently in order to save people's lives.

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.

The main difference between autocratic leadership is that employees are given a chance to voice their opinions as opposed to having one person making all the decisions. Many leaders prefer this style because it involves an active participation of every team members, which makes them to demonstrate their creativity and abilities within the organization. This makes a team to discover hidden assets that can eventually help the business grow, it also helps every member to have an opportunity for them to exercise their skills, so that they can also share their abilities in the team. Autocratic leadership that leaves the entire decision making to one person sometimes can be difficult for employees to see it from the leaders perspective. Particaptive leadership encourages other members to be involved in the process of decision making. It can also point out the strength and weaknesses to certain approach and can be resolved by the team working hand in hand to come out with the best decision for a certain company. (Leadership 2011) The downside of participated leadership is that its time consuming compared to autocratic, but usually the extra time required for this process is usually leads to a decision that eventually benefit every team member. This is ideally best means for your team or organization to be

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

Autocratic leaders are intolerant, manipulative and critical. Their followers tend to be more aggressive because these leaders more or less force individuals to invest in the group. Because there is always the risk that workers will leave, it is important that this type of leaders be able to resolve issues and keep from losing members. Another thing about these leaders is they will do whatever it takes to provide the common good when they make their decision, as well as they are noted to be more productive than other types of leaders (van Vugt, Jepson, De Cremer, 2004)

There are several leadership styles. This refers to the behaviors that the leaders have. They include autocratic leadership, where the leader acts as a dictator. The leader makes all the decisions by him or herself and does not allow any decisions or advice from the subordinates. The democratic leadership style is where everybody has a say which can then be included into the final decision made. Laissez-faire style which is also called the free rein style is where the leader gives freedom to the subordinates. The subordinates are allowed to make their own methods and policies.

The employees are given a say on what goes on and power is distributed equally. Studies shown in groups run by this style, the work output was less but the quality of the work was higher. The democratic leadership style helps team members feel valued, creates balanced, and has more in common with modern day governments.