Introduction and Definition of Leadership Styles

Every company has a president, board chairman or leader. For the most ways we agree that someone individually needs to head our businesses and social institutions. The leader of any organization expectedly completes his role which is given by communicating the values of the organization he or she represents. Leadership skills are required by a manger to operate effectively at a strategic level and a successful manager will be able to identify personal skills to achieve strategic ambitions as well manage personal leadership development to support achievement of strategic ambitions. Where he will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the leadership plan and promote a healthy and safe environment that supports a culture of quality.Leaders have good impact in our daily lives and futures. In good times and bad, there is always need for strong leadership. The success of a business or an industry is determined by the leaders it chooses or inherits. How does someone earn the designation of being a great leader? History and current experiences provide guidance on how one might develop the abilities demonstrated by respected leaders. This case study examines the characteristics of and need for leaders in business, health, politics, education, sports and communities.

1. DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP

“The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.” To gain followers requires influence but doesn’t exclude the lack of integrity in achieving this. Indeed, it can be argued that several of the world’s greatest leaders have lacked integrity and have adopted values that would not be shared by many people today. (Peter Drucker)

Leadership is focused much more on the individual capability of the leader: “Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential.” (Warren Bennis)

A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

There are many leadership styles from which to select one but dependes upon the situation of business. But everything new is not good and everything old is not bad. Different styles are needed for different situations but leader should know when to use a particular approach. Leadership strategies define leader’s own leadership style.

1.1 LEADERSHIP STYLES

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.

Autocratic Leadership

This leadership is a classical approach where managers retains as much power and decisions making authority as possible which means all the powers have been retained only with the managers and in this approach managers does not consult with staff and staff bound to obey orders without any kind of explanation. This approach is a set of rewards and punishments.

This style is good when any new employee comes into and organization and does not know what tasks to do and what procedures should be followed. Effective supervision is given only when detailed instructions and orders are given. There is very short time to make a decision. Work needs to coordinate with other departments or organizations. In this style there is no trust on employees and leaders does not even listen to employees inputs. This styles should not be used when staff is tense and fearful as well staff is depending to make decisions by their managers.

Bureaucratic Leadership

This leadership styles is followed by certain rules or standards which has been set already. In this style everything is done accordingly to ensure safety and / or accuracy. We can find this style of leadership where the situation of work is bit dangerous and specific sets of procedures are compulsory to make sure and safety. The bureaucratic leadership’s best examples in jobs are construction work. This style is most useful when staff is performing the routine tasks again and again. Where staff needs to understand particular standards and procedures. In this style some safety training are conducted and this is commonly followed staff where staff performing tasks that require handling cash. This style should not be used when employee’s habits cannot be changed.

Democratic Leadership

This Style is also known as participative. Leaders with participative leadership style, include one or more of their subordinates in the decision making process, such as what exactly needs to be done. However these leaders keep the final decision making authority to themselves. This is a good way of increasing employee’s motivation and if used properly always have positive effects on the normal business of the organization. This style is best where the leader knows only about a part of the problem needs further information in order to decide the how to solve it. In this style also leader produce high quality and high quantity work for long period of time as well staff likes the trust they get and respond with faithfulness and high morale. The leader develop plans to help staff evaluate their own performance. This style give permissions to establish goals, encourages to grow on the jobs and promotions, recognizes and encourages to achievement among the employees. This style should be used when leaders wants to keep staff informed about matters which affect them and wants to share decision making and problem solving by staff. And should not be used when there is not enough time to get everyone’s input also when cannot afford mistakes and the staff safety is critically concerned.

Laissez-faire

Laissez-Faire Leadership style is known “hands – off” style where managers provides a very little or no directions and maximum freedom is given to staff. All authority given to the staff and they determine goals, resolve problems also makes decisions on their own. The effective use of this style is when staff is highly skilled experienced and educated. Staff have capacity to the work done successfully by their own and also when the staff is trustworthy and fully competent to perform tasks. This style should not be used in the absence of manager when staff feels insecurity, also managers unable to thank staff for their good work which has been done by team members.

Coaching Leaders

Leaders focus on helping other staff in developing their skills and abilities. The coaching leader works closely with the other staff in order to make sure that they have all the required skills to carry out the job. This style is best where all the people already understand their weaknesses and are receptive to all the ideas for improvement.

Affiliative Leaders

This style is most effective in boosting the team moral and motivation, by giving the employees a sense of recognition and affiliation in the process of decision making. This is almost same as the democratic style of management but relies more on praising and appreciating the hardworking staff; unfortunately, poor performance may also goes without reprimand.

Coercive Leaders

This style of leadership is based in the concept of command and control where the leader commands and subordinates only follow the orders. This style can be damaging some times as it causes decrease in the motivational level of the employees. This style is most effective where the company needs a complete changeover regarding its culture and ways of carrying out business, and during disasters or dealing with underperforming employees – usually as a last resort.

1.2 LEADERSHIP THEORIES

It is not very difficult to understand leadership theory, if it’s presented right. There are many different types of theories on leadership. There is Fielder’s situational theories, contingency theory and House’s path-goal theory on leadership. These theories are adopted to make someone or individual or manager a good leader. These theories are:-

1. Trait Theory
2. Style Theory
3. Contingency Theory
4. Situational Leadership Theory
5. Path-Goal Theory
6. Leader-Member Exchange Theory
7. Transformational/Transactional Leadership Theory
8. Servant Leadership Theory
9. Strengths-Based Leadership Theory

Trait Theory: This theory is based on the personal characteristics of a leader. Which represents that “A Leader is a Hero”. It is been assumed that leader are born than made. Leadership consists of certain characteristics or personality traits. The main categories of characteristics are physical features, ability characteristics and personality traits.

Style Theory: This approach is made popular by the work of Mc Gregor Blake, Mounton, and Likert, which concerned with the effects of leadership on to the followers and effectiveness has to do with how the leaders behave with the followers.

Contingency Theory: Made popular by fielder and Vroom, this shows the effectiveness of leadership is affected by the situation/context means leader should take the decisions according to the situation.

Situational Theory: in this approach of leadership there is no single style of leadership appropriate to all situations, because every time there is a different situation in an organization so according to the situation leader should change his behaviour.

Path-Goal Theory: The theory states that a leader’s behavior is contingent to the satisfaction, motivation and performance of his subordinates. This theory originally refers originally manager’s ability on the job as guiding workers to choose the right and best paths to reach their visions and missions as well company goals. This also refers the different behaviors depend on the nature and demands of a particular situation.

Leader-Member exchange theory: According to this theory Leaders often develop relationships with each member of the group that they lead, and Leader-Member Exchange Theory explains how those relationships with various members can develop in unique ways. The leader-member exchange theory of leadership focuses on the two-way relationship between supervisors and subordinates. These are not the only 2. Also known as LMX, LMET or Vertical Dyad Linkage Theory, leader-member exchange focuses on increasing organizational success by creating positive relations between the leader and subordinate.

Transformations Leadership Approach: this approach shows the engagement of the employees with the commitment of work in the context of shared vision, shared values and shared goals as well as the set objectives.

Servant Leadership theory: Servant Leadership is a leadership philosophy “The Servant as Leader.” In this theory it is been stated that leaders are first servant and then leader later. Such people have a natural tendency to serve and power to lead. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional leaders who aspire to lead to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions.

Strength Based Leadership theory: Strength Based Leadership theory also known as Organisatinal management. It refers the method of maximizing the efficiency, productivity and success of an organization by focusing on and continuously developing the strengths of organizational resources, such as computer system, tools and people.

2 In evaluating organization culture, how would you describe the cultural philosophy of the organization, its implication on the workforce and the organization performances?

Organizational culture refers to the underlining values, believes and principles, that serve as a foundation for the management system, management practices, and their behavior (Brown, 1995). Organizational culture deeply rooted into the structure and members of the organization. We can say organizational culture (generally) provides a framework or track for the organization to run smoothly to success and, if effective, provides its employees an opportunity to develop themselves, depending on the employee’s personal ambitions. It is also important for understanding the employee behavior, reaction to a certain condition, and response to certain opportunity as organizational culture is deeply rooted into the structure and personality of its members. When we go in any organization and we get certain feelings for it like the movement and response of organization or whether we feels it old and backward looking, this feeling refers to organizational culture. Any organization organizes itself, rules of company, procedures of work, and beliefs make the culture of organization.

Definition of culture

Culture is the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs, and attitudes that constitutes a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation.

Culture could also be defined as the collective self-image and styles of an organisation; its shared values and beliefs, norms and symbols (“The way we do things around here”)

REASONS FOR CULTURE

There are many reasons to change culture in any organization. When we are working in organization there are some factors which pushes organization to switch from the old culture for adopting a new culture. First one is the economic conditions. Economic conditions never remain the same there is a trade cycle in business sometimes boom, recession, depression and then recovery in very conditions we have to take steps to overcome in any conditions. In prosperous times there are many good ideas and initiative which take place to push the organization’s culture in a different way to take an advantage of achieving the goals of organization. In recession period where organization faces challenges they need to take actions to hold their position in market, where competitors also push organization to make rapid decisions which is necessary for organization to transform into new culture. Nature of business and its tasks compel organization to transform itself into a new culture to meet the requirements of achieving its vision, mission and goals. Some techniques which are being used by the organization like leadership styles, policies and practices, structure need to be change by which the organization culture will be changed. The leadership styles to exercise the authority which leadership style will be adopt to be in the market and the existing policies and practices because of the members understanding will also be changed and the structure of the organization might be change as well. Due to increase in the number of employees responsibilities, functions etc will also make a change in organization culture.

Impact on workforce and organization performance

Change can cause people to feel incompetent, needy, and powerless, in short, to lose self-confidence. It is essential for the people in the organization to be involved in planning and executing change, to have opportunities to develop new skills required by the change, and to depend on psychological support mechanisms put in place before, during, and after the change is implemented. Change can create confusion throughout the organization. Change alters the clarity and stability of roles and relationships, often creating chaos. This requires realigning and renegotiating formal patterns of relationships and policies.

The impact of organizational culture on workforce and organizational performance varied depends upon whether the organization has a culture strong or weak but there are some general things that apply on it many of the workers are spending more and more time at workplace which totally depends on the job. It is a common phenomenon that a happy worker is pretty productive and this is one of the good impacts on the organization’s performance. A strong organization always focuses on the environment it creates should be encourage able, efficient and productive for employees which shows importance of the employees in the organization. Such things generally have best response from its employees and also good for them to achieve company’s goals.