Participative Leadership & Empowerment - Case Study Example

Introduction Participation is an important element of leadership, since it entails the use of various techniques to involve the members of an organization in decision making (Lewis et al, 2007 p159). Chelladurai, 2007, p207 state that the use of participation in leadership and decision making leads to higher validity of decisions, better understanding of decisions, shared 'ownership' of responsibility for the decision and better execution of the decision. Delegation is also an important element of organizations since the leader cannot do everything and will have to get his subordinates to execute most of his decisions.

Also, it is not possible for subordinates to carry out plans of their superiors if they are not empowered and given the mandate, authority and tools to carry out the decisions. Methodological Problems with Participative Procedures There are some inherent challenges with the establishment of the effectiveness of participative procedures. This is because there are no laid down procedures or formula for the calculation of the effectiveness of participatory procedure. This is because of two reasons.

First of all, it has to do with human behavior and it is not easy to measure that since human behavior changes with time. Secondly, it has elements of contingency in that the relevant factors could change and this will change the mood and setting and make the results variable for different situations. In the absence of a scientific method, most people use subjective methods of measuring the effectiveness of participatory leadership drives through surveys and other experiments. These are open to bias.

Secondly, the short-term nature of such social science experiments comes with issues. Most people will do well and try to impress when they are being studied but when they are not studied, they might put up a very different attitude. There is also a case of having only two variables. This can be problematic since there are many other variables that can influence the effectiveness of a participatory procedure like strategic plan and resource constraints. The Purpose and Limitations of the Vroom & Yetton Model The Vroom and Yetton model is used to identify when decision procedures are likely to be effective.

It entails two variables, namely decision quality and decision acceptance by subordinates. It is used by identifying variables that will increase decision quality like complexity of decision, distribution of relevant information, task objectives, congruence for leaders. For the subordinate acceptance variable, the components include agreement amongst subordinates and preferences of subordinates. When these variables are identified for a participative decision, they can be measured and compared for the purposes of analysis of the decision.

When this Vroom & Yetton model is used, it reduces conflicts and leads to a sense of ownership for the subordinates and the leaders. Decision quality is improved and this brings positive results and good co-operation by units of the business. The main limitation of the Vroom & Yetton model is that it does not take care of the larger stakeholder needs. In other words it focuses solely on the supervisor and subordinates' relationship. It is clear that in most decisions, there is more to it than just the superior-subordinate relationship.

There are stakeholder issues that might be more important than just the two parties that the model focuses on. Secondly, using the Vroom & Yetton model is likely to cause delays in the implementation of simple procedures and processes since all subordinates are involved. This can lead to a waste of time that can affect productivity. Additionally, the implementation of such a model will require extra money and resources which can increase costs in organizations over the short-term. Finally, there are some situations that require autocracy, in such cases, the Vroom & Yetton model is not very beneficial.

O'Toole's Statement Asking employees when you know the answer might be vital because it can make the employee feel privileged and make him ore responsible because it enables the superior to make sure that the subordinate knows what he is about. However, this is a waste of time and can have cost implications because the superior could have used that time for other things. It can also make the superior look too artificial in appearance and this might make him look like someone who is not genuine and this could affect his leadership status in the eyes of the subordinates.

Listening patiently when the employee says the wrong thing can give the superior information about the subordinate's level of understanding in relation to certain key issues. This can enable the manager to correct the subordinate where necessary so that errors and risks are reduced. Asking for ideas when you are eager to express yours can lead to some form of 'competition' in communication. It can affect communication. This therefore means that the superior manager will need to get a high level of patience to allow the subordinates to finish their statement before he can understand their position and make a point that will finalize an entire discussion.

When a person delegates authority, he will still be responsible for the execution of the activity. (Yukl, 2010 p153). It is therefore prudent for the person to retain the sensitive tasks and ensure that those to whom responsibilities were delegated are equipped and supervised. Due to this, the three elements discussed above, feedback, listening and sharing ideas are important and should always be handled dynamically since they are vital. References Bryman, A., Jackson, B. & Collinson, D. [eds.] (2011) The Sage Handbook of Leadership 2nd Edn London: SAGE Publication Ltd Chelladurai, P. (2006) Human Resource Management in Sport & Recreation Leeds: Human Kinetics Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H. & Fandt P. (2007) Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders Mason, OH: Cengage Yukl, G. (2010), Leadership in Organisations, Global Edition (7th Edition), Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Pearson Prentice-Hall Inc