The Bureaucratic Styles of Leadership - Assignment Example

Name Tutor Title: Leadership Styles and Approach Course Institution Date Question 1 Introduction Currently there are several styles of leadership as there are leaders. Psychologists and business people have established useful and simple ways of explaining the main leadership styles. These usually assist aspiring leaders to understand the leadership style to employ. According to Spillane et al. (2004), leadership is all about the requirements of individuals and organization an individual is leading. Leadership styles are not trial and error stuffs but rather, they need to be implemented to particular needs of a situation. Leaders need to consider certain needs of individuals involved and certain challenges facing an organization. So far, several styles of leadership have been discussed, thus the most effective leader need to move among these styles and implement the ones that meet the requirements at the moment (Oates, 2011). Types of leadership styles Democratic leadership is a style of leadership that encourages sharing of duties, delegation’s exercise and continual consultation. This leadership style can be characterized by leaders seeking consultation on every major issue and decision, leaders efficiently delegate duties to subordinates and provide them with full control and responsibility for those duties, leaders welcome feedback on the outcomes of initiatives and the environment of the work and finally, leaders promote others to become leaders and be entailed in development of leadership (James, 2011). Autocratic leadership entails making personal decisions and then passing them to subordinates. Sternberg et al., (2002) argue that in the world of autocratic, managers are available to make decision and employees are there to follow the decision made. Frey et al. (2009) note that autocratic leadership is a classical style of leadership that can be characterized by leaders seeking to make as many decisions as they could. Business leaders also seeks to posses the most power and control in making of decisions. In this style of leadership, leaders seek to maintain responsibility instead of utilizing complete delegation. Consultation with other members at work is also minimal and making of decision becomes a private process. Managers are always less concerned with advancing their leadership development and love to simply work on task at hand (Frey, et al. 2009). The bureaucratic styles of leadership concerns with ensuring employees are following procedures and rules correctly and consistently. Bureaucratic leadership usually has several characteristics. Managers normally expect workers to display an official, business-like character in the place of work and among each other. Business leaders usually gain instant power with their position. This is because rules demands workers to pay them particular privileges, such as being capable of signing off on every major decision. Leaders as a result usually suffer from power position. Leadership development thus becomes pointless since only titles and roles offer real management or power (Rowitz, 2009). In bureaucratic leadership, workers are always compensated for their capability to adhere to rules and following the procedures perfectly. Systems of bureaucratic usually develops gradually over a long period of time, thus are more commonly obtained in large and old businesses. Bureaucratic leadership is always met with flinch from leadership team. Almost everyone does not like bureaucracy’s idea. Lorsch (1974) argues that by definition, bureaucracy entails time-intensive and time wasting policies and procedures in a thorough and slow framework. Employees working in a bureaucracy are always given very little option as to how work need to be performed. A large part of employees’ daily activities is managed by rule book. Laissez-faire leadership style is a style of leadership that is highly practiced in many organizations. Laissez-faire literally implies leaving alone to operate freely. Laissez-faire style of leadership is a complete opposite of autocratic style of leadership. This leadership style can be useful if the manager monitors what is being attained and informs this back to the team repeatedly. Laissez-faire leadership in most cases is useful when members of the team are very experienced and skilled self-starters. This type of leadership can also occur when leaders do not use sufficient control. Visionary leadership is a style of leadership that is more appropriate when a company requires new direction. The goal of this style of leadership is to move individuals towards a new set of shared dreams. Visionary leaders usually articulate where a group is moving, but not how the group will reach at the desired level. In this type of leadership, people are free to innovate, experiment and taking of calculated risks. Daft and Lane (2007) notes that coaching is a one on one style of leadership that focuses on advancing individuals. It usually shows individuals how to develop their performance. It also assists individuals in connecting their goals to that of the organization. Coaching operates well with workers who display initiative and demand more professional development. This system of leadership can backfire if it is viewed as minimizing and undermining an employees’ self confidence. Affiliate is a style of leadership that emphasizes the significance of team work. It creates harmony within a group by connecting individuals to one another. Affiliate leadership style is valuable when heightening team harmony, enhancing morale, developing communication or repairing broken trust within an organization. Pace setting on the other hand is a leadership style in which leaders sets high standards for performance. Leaders are always obsessed with doing work better and faster, therefore they usually expect the same from everybody. This style of leadership need to be applied sparingly, because it can easily reduce employees’ morale and make them feels as if they are underperforming (Daft & Lane, 2007). Terrill used both Autocratic and Laissez-faire leadership style. He applied autocratic leadership style by making personal decision without consulting top management. Terrill called for day’s reports and issued an effective order immediately, instructing that all the originals reports should be turned to his office daily instead of mailing them to the headquarter. He also applied Laissez-faire type of leadership style by the engineers to work without being followed by either him or top management (Webb, 2011). Situational leadership model Situational leadership model was established by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey in 1960s. The model typically states that the method of leadership that an individual uses depends on situation. According to the model, before a person chooses a leadership style to employ, he or she should first understand the situation and significance of possible results. The leader then can select any of the four leadership styles and act accordingly. Paul Hersey believes that situational leadership is based on interplay between the amount of direction a leader provides, socio-emotional support a leaders offers, the level of readiness followers display on particular task, function, activity or objective the leader is trying to finish via the person or group (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007). The least-preferred coworker scale (LPC) is an index developed by Fiedlers to classify style of leadership. LPC scale asks a business leader to think about any person that he or she has ever worked with and then describe the person that worked the least (Schermerhorn, 2010). The person to be identified can be the one who worked there in past or is currently working with the leader. From a scale of one to eight, a leader can be asked to describe the person on a series of bipolar scales like the one shown: Unfriendly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 friendly Uncooperative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 cooperative Hostile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 supportive Guarded 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 open The scales responses are totaled and averaged. LPC that has the highest score suggests that a business leader has human relationship orientation. Low LPC score on the other hand suggests a task orientation. The path goal theory was established by Robert house. It is based on expectancy theory of motivation. The work of the manager is observed as coaching or guiding employees to select the best paths for attaining their goals. The theory is based on principles of goal setting theory. It argues that leaders will leaders will have to involve in various types of leadership behavior depending on the nature and needs of particular situation. It is the work of a leader to help followers in achieving goals and to give direction and support required to ensure that the goals of the workers are in line with organization’s goals (Rowe & Guerrero, 2010). Conclusion From the discussion, it is very clear that there are several leadership styles that are usually applied in organizations. The type of leadership style to employ in any organization depends a lot with the situation on the ground. The highly applied leadership styles are democratic, Autocratic, bureaucratic, and Laissez-faire style of leadership. Democratic leadership is a style of leadership that encourages sharing of duties, delegation’s exercise and continual consultation. It has maintained popularity due to positive response that workers have towards it. Autocratic, a classical leadership style entails making personal decisions and then passing them to subordinates. Laissez-faire style is a complete opposite of autocratic style of leadership. Bureaucratic style of leadership ensures that employees are following procedures and rules correctly and consistently. Managers in this style of leadership expect workers to display an official, business-like character in the place of work and among each other (Tittemore, 2003). Question 2 Introduction Choosing of style of leadership that is appropriate with certain situation in an organization is always very challenging. Leadership approach applied by business leaders is a crucial aspect that determines the productivity of an organization. There are many leadership approaches that can be employed under different situations. For the case of DGL International, the best approach to employ is the democratic leadership approach. Democratic leadership approach is a type of leadership in which every in the group takes more participative role in the process of making decision. It is the most effective and can lead DGL International to higher productivity. Democratic leadership approach The main problem that DGL international company faces is reduced production particularly in the technical services department. Democratic leadership is approach is the most efficient and normally results, if applied, to increased productivity. This therefore implies that the best approach to apply in the situation of DGL International is democratic approach. This approach usually promotes a positive work environment. It promotes a culture in which junior workers are given reasonable amount of responsibility and enabled to challenge themselves. Employees therefore can find themselves more inspired with work and enjoying what they are doing. By employing this leadership approach in DGL International, successful initiatives will be experienced (James, 2011). The consultation’s process and feedback usually results into better decision making and more efficient operations. Organizations operating under democratic leadership tend to move into lesser serious mistake and disasters. Democratic leadership approach promotes creative thinking. The free information flow and positive work environment are great catalyst for creative thinking. The benefits of creative thinking are not just applicable to creative industries. This is because creative thinking is needed to solve problems in all organizations, regardless of their nature. By employing democratic leadership in DGL International, engineers in technical services department can become more creative thus increasing productivity in this department. The approach also reduces friction and office politics. Engineers in DGL International can be allowed to own ideas. This reduces the amount of tension workers usually develops with their managers. The approach best suits management of technical services in DGL international since it can reduce employee turnover. When workers feel empowered via leadership development, organizations usually experiences lower rates of worker turnover that has several benefits. An organization that invests in leadership advancement for its workers, is investing in its future. This is usually appreciated by large workforce majority. Lord (1988) argues that democratic leadership is usually used to an extent that it permits workers to offer their ideas on the way processes can become leaner and more effective. Production managers, currently, have started to harness motivational bonuses that are associated with failing to handle workers like robots. Democratic leadership is efficient in DGL International where focus is clearly on training, professional and leadership advancement and quality of task performed. Democratic procedures are just one component in the effective leadership mechanism. Organizations benefits tremendously from drawing on creative energies of all workers to bring about cost reduction techniques or ideas of fund raising (Lord, 1988). Democratic leadership approach is a very open and collegial style of controlling a team. Ideas usually moves freely within the group and are openly discussed. Discussion in this approach is usually relatively free-flowing. The approach is essential in a dynamic and hastily changing environment such as the technical services department in DGL International. Stuffs in technical department cannot be taken as constant. In this rapid moving department, all options for development need to be considered so as to ensure that the engineers are updated (Koopman, 2002). According to House (2004), democratic approach implies facilitating conversation, encouraging individuals to share ideas and synthesizing all information that is available into the best possible decision. A leader who is democratic needs to be able to communicate the decision made back to the group so as to bring unity. By approaching the situation in DGL International democratically, conversation between top management and engineers will be facilitated and engineers will be encouraged to share ideas and synthesize all the available information to make best possible decision. This will make the company, particularly the technical department, increase its productivity. As mentioned earlier, democratic approach provides a work environment that workers can enjoy. Engineers in technical department will feel that their view counts, and due to this feeling they will become more committed in attaining organization’s goals and objectives. Engineers will become more committed since the democratic approach will make them have an equal say in process of making decision. The collaborative surroundings developed by this approach always results into more thorough solution to problems (House, 2004). Conclusion Democratic leadership approach is the most effective approach and normally results into increased productivity. It usually increases productivity through promoting positive working environment, successful initiatives, promotes creative thinking, reduces friction and office politics. It also reduces employee turnover. The approach is a very open and collegial style of controlling a team. It makes ideas to move freely within the group. The approach is essential in a dynamic and hastily changing environment. Democratic approach is the best approach to be considered when solving the problem facing DGL International Company. 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