The Significance of Leadership - Term Paper Example

Leadership Styles There are a number of leadership styles. Identify and discuss these and examine which one/s John Terrill used. Introduction A Leadership Style refers to how a manager or a person with an authority, responsibility or an interest in a team takes it forward, to achieve goals. This section aims to take you through the various leadership styles along with their advantages and disadvantages. It will evaluate them thoroughly and then decide which one/s John Terrill used as a manager. Discussion The term ‘Leadership Style’ has been defined above: It is how a person takes his team forward to achieve goals. This is the simplest definition of a layman. Good leadership is what makes effective management (Murugun, pg. 329). Leadership has many functions that bring the team closer to their goals to carry out .The significance of leadership is reflected in the following functions: providing inspiration to employees, securing cooperation in the team, creating confidence among individuals, providing a conducive environment for employees, implementing changes, maintaining discipline among the members, representing them, and setting goals. (Murugun, pg.328) There are many factors that affect how a manager exerts leadership. The most important and the first one that comes to mind is his personality. Leadership style largely depends on the nature of a manager. Moreover, the experiences of a manager also define his leadership style. He may lead in a certain way because his practices and situations in the past expect him to go forward in that manner. In addition to that, it is also based on the beliefs and values of the leader. He will also manage and lead his team according to the organisation’s environment, culture and needs. To get to the point, there are a number of leadership styles, defined by a number of individuals. For example, Likert’s four main leadership styles: Exploitative authoritative, Benevolent authoritative, Consultative and Participative styles (Likert 1967). Or , for example, Goleman’s, Boyatzis’ and McKee’s (2004) six emotional leadership styles: The Visionary Leader, the Coaching Leader, the Affiliative Leader, the Democratic Leader, the Pace-setting Leader and the Commanding Leader. But in this paper, we will only go over the ten most common ones out of which the first three are Lewin’s Leadership styles (Lewin, Lippit and White 1939): 1. Autocratic leadership 2. Democratic leadership or Participative leadership 3. Laissez-faire leadership 4. Bureaucratic leadership 5. Charismatic leadership 6. People-oriented leadership or Relations-Oriented leadership 7. Task-oriented leadership 8. Servant Leadership 9. Transactional leadership 10. Transformational leadership Autocratic Leadership Style is a rigid way of leading. It is when the leader feels no need to consult his team members before making important or even unimportant decisions. This makes one think that it will essentially de-motivate workers or employees. This is, in fact, very true so ideally, this style is adopted when not seeking employees’ input doesn’t motivate or de-motivate them. It could be implemented in a situation where employees are inexperienced and are unable to make decisions for themselves let alone for the team as a whole. It could also be used in a situation where the leader is extremely experienced, competent and blindly trusted by the team members. The limitations of this style of leadership are apparent; it leads to de-motivation and low self-esteem of the subordinates. They are never allowed to make decisions, even the smallest ones, and this puts pressure on their self-actualization or self-realization needs. Their job satisfaction must be close to nil. It discourages subordinates that could be potential managers and leaders to reach their aptitude. It seems like this style of leadership would hardly produce leaders in the future. Furthermore, an autocratic leader creates a very unfriendly and peculiar environment which prevents employees from showing any innovation at all. Democratic Style of Leadership is the opposite of the autocratic leadership style. Because of this reason, it is also called the Participative Leadership Style; it focuses largely on making subordinates a part of the decision-making process. They are allowed in when management makes operational and even strategic decisions. Clearly, this style of leadership is adopted by managers who feel that their employees know best. Usually, they feel this way because employees are at a lower level where all the work is carried out so they can see more clearly than the management about what goes on. Also, it is employed in a situation where the manager trusts the skills of his subordinates or even when he wants to build upon those skills. It could be used in circumstances where the morale of the employees is low but their proficiency high. Consequently, the advantages of this style of leadership are that it encourages employees to stand up and come up with innovative ideas. You never know that one of these might turn the organisation around. Also, it increases the self-esteem of the employees by allowing them to makes small decisions and letting them know and discussing with them the bigger, more strategic ones. It builds the skills of the workers. It motivates them and makes them look forward to every bit of their tasks. It is likely to generate great leaders and managers so it’s a style that has leaders in the making. However, encouraging participation and putting it into effect takes time so the results may be slow. Essentially, it should be used when the focus is quality and not speed. Laissez-Faire Leadership Style is when the managers just let their subordinates be. It is like a free rein. Laissez-Faire is French phrase that means “let it be” so hence, this style is suitable when the employees are skilful and the leader just leaves them on their own to carry out their work and any decisions associated to it. Therefore, it becomes positive when the leader checks up on his subordinates from time to time and communicates with them and gives them feedback on it. This way they feel that they have somebody looking out for them. Also, it gives them a sense of responsibility that they have somebody to answer to. However, strangely enough, it also works in situations when managers don’t communicate and provide feedback. The advantages of this style are that it leaves the leader time to concentrate on more, strategic issues while allowing his workers to do their own work themselves. It also builds the skills of the employees and creates a learning environment by delegating tasks to them. Bureaucratic Style of Leadership is when the leader follows the “book”. It is when a leader believes in carrying out exact procedures to take the team forward. This seems like a very rigid style of leading and it is in fact. Thus, it must be used in circumstances that demand such rigidity. For example, this style could be employed in a factory that contains hazardous machinery and materials and can be extremely harmful for the employees and the organisation if something goes wrong. In this situation, it will be sensible to follow exact rules because one mistake on part of the employees as well as the leader can create big problems. The limitations of it are many; it deters innovation, it is extremely monotonous. When a job is so monotonous and routine, workers’ job satisfaction goes down and creates de-motivation. This could even lead to lower productivity. They have nothing to look forward to but the financial reward. Charismatic Style of Leadership is a style adopted by a leader who has a personality so charming and “charismatic” that he uses this to take the team forward. According to Max Weber, the term ‘charisma’ is used in the sense of an ‘extraordinary quality’ possessed by persons or objects, and is thought to give these persons a unique, magical power (Bendix 1977, pg.299). This leader is like an organisational hero who the subordinates look up to and follow strongly. They focus on making their team very different than the others. The benefits of this are apparent. Only by using pleasant phrases and appealing words and gestures, the leader can make the team get closer to his and their goals. Furthermore, he can make them believe and this belief is what fuels motivation. It could increase productivity of the workers and create a decorous, respectable environment. However, this doesn’t always lead to successful results or achievement of goals, depending on the kind of team and the morale of its members. An “organisational hero” is more appreciated when the spirits of the individuals are low than when they are extremely self-confident. Moreover, according to Weber, a charismatic leader might not always be positive, for example, Adolf Hitler. In such situations this style is perceived as unethical by some because control is exercised on individuals because of a charismatic personality. People-Oriented Leadership Style or Relations-Oriented Leadership style is when the main focus of the leader is to develop the team. All he is concerned about is the individuals of the team and supporting them. This clearly encourages teamwork and even motivation. Workers feel that they have a leader that looks out for them. But then again, it could make the subordinates very dependent on the leader to take them out of a situation every time something goes wrong. Task-Oriented Leadership Style is the opposite of the People-Oriented leadership style. Here, all a leader concentrates on is getting tasks done. He is only concerned with how and when the job can be completed and such a leader can be very authoritarian. Hence, all the disadvantages of the Autocratic Style of Leadership apply here; employees have low self-esteem, are hardly motivated because job satisfaction is low. Servant Leadership is when an individual at any level or a team member himself starts to lead just because he wants to meet the needs of the team. This kind of a leader is called a ‘Servant Leader’ and is not formally recognized by all as one. This is a purely altruistic behaviour on the part of those who choose to lead. It is closely related to the participative style of leadership because the entire team in involved in making decisions. Transactional Leadership Style is simply when team members are paid for obeying their leaders. It focuses on getting short-term tasks done. When an individual does good, he is rewarded and when he does something wrong, he is punished. It is like an unwritten agreement between the leader and the subordinate that they will get rewarded by following the leaders’ commands. This style, again, has issues with innovation. It inhibits workers from coming up with anything on their own because they are supposed to comply with the leader at all times. It also has the familiar problems of low worker morale and self-actualization. Transformational Style of Leadership is adopted by leaders who persistently inspire the team members and works with them by incorporating intense communication. These leaders are looking to satisfy needs of the team rather than making deals with them, like transactional leaders. They sometimes lead by delegating tasks so they don’t necessarily lead from the face. This has advantages such as motivation of the employees. They feel important that they are being communicated with. Also, they are continually inspired so it is very likely that the spirits of the followers will be high. Owing to this, they will produce good quality work along with an increase in productivity also. After studying all these leadership styles in detail, it becomes easier to realize that the style/s adopted by John Terrill is definitely not autocratic by nature. In my opinion, Terrill used a combination of styles that include: Transformational, People-Oriented, Laissez-Faire, and Charismatic. He used a bit of all these to deal with the problem at hand. What’s common between all these styles are that they focus on the team. His style was Transformational because he believed in communicating with the team about the needs of the team. In fact, one of the first few things he did as a manager was to hold a meeting and directly communicate with the individuals about their problems. Since he was so concerned with their problems and focused entirely on supporting and developing them, he used a bit of the People-Orientation Leadership Style. He promised the engineers, ’My job is to stay out of your way so you can do your work, and I’ll try to keep top management off your backs too’. When he said this, he was obviously emphasizing on the Laissez-Faire style of leadership. He just wanted them to be. Not entirely but to an extent he did which shows his support for ‘free reign’. Finally, he was also just a tiny bit of a charismatic leader, an organisational hero. In my opinion the Charismatic style of leadership is a little on the extreme side. He wasn’t all that extreme so I say “just a tiny bit”. His style was charismatic because according to Conger & Kanungo (1998), the five behavioral attributes of Charismatic Leaders are: 1. Vision and articulation 2. Sensitivity to the environment 3. Sensitivity to member needs 4. Personal risk taking 5. Performing unconventional Behavior In my opinion, Terrill had a trace of all these attributes. He was especially sensitive to member needs and performed unconventional behavior by stocking the reports in his office and then by showing up to the meeting with a cart fully loaded with reports of the engineers. Moreover, he tried to convince the executives to change their policy about the daily reports. Conclusion After all this discussion about the different styles of leadership and identifying the styles adopted by Terrill, we can clearly tell what advantages and disadvantages will be experienced by Terrill as a manager. We can conclude that Terrill’s team members’ morale will certainly be lifted up a notch. They will feel that somebody is now there to look out fro them and that their voices will be heard. However, it is probable that they will become dependent on Terrill to take them out of such situations every time they fall into it. 2. What leadership approach would you have taken in this situation and why? The situation of the Technical Division was such that the engineers felt like they were not working up to their potential. I say this owing to a comment made by one of the engineers: ’I was hired as an engineer, not a pencil pusher’. This clearly shows that the engineer thinks that he has more skills than just pushing pencils. Hence, his job satisfaction is extremely low. This gives rise to the need to delegate work to the subordinates by the leader. It will be appropriate to delegate in this situation also because the skills of the employees are commendable. They are the “most educated” employees of the organisation. Despite their high pays, they are not motivated. This must mean that they need more than just a financial reward. Other factors, apart from monetary motivators, are needed to motivate them to produce more. This includes recognizing their work and giving them credit for it. Therefore, the two problems at hand are to increase their job satisfaction and self-actualization To achieve this I would use a combination of all of Terrill’s approaches along with a trace of the Democratic Leadership approach. I would also use more of Laissez-Faire to increase the production of creative work. (2540 words) References 1. Bendix, R., 1977. Max Weber: An intellectual Portrai., University of California Press. 2. Conger, J.A., and Kanungo R.N., 1998. Charismatic Leadership in Organizations. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks, CA. 3. Goleman, D. Boyatzis, R. and McKee, A.2004. Primal Leadership. HBS Press. 4. Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R.K. 1939. Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology. 10, 271-301 5. Likert, R.1967. The human organization: Its management and value. McGraw-Hill. New York. 6. Murugun, M.S. Management Principles and Practices. New Age Publishers. Read More