BUS-FP 3012 Fundamentals of Leadership Essay.

BUS-FP 3012 Fundamentals of Leadership Essay.

 

Introduction

There are many different types of leadership theories. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. The start of participative leadership came from Kurt Lewin and some colleagues’. In 1939 they published the research from this where they “identified three generic leadership styles concerning decision-making, which they labeled as Autocratic, Democratic and Laisses-faire” (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 2010). All three styles differentiate.Renis Likert came up with four different leadership styles focusing decision making. They were exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative and participative.BUS-FP 3012 Fundamentals of Leadership Essay.

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Participative (Democratic)

The participatory leadership style is very popular within organizations nowadays. The participative style is also known as the democratic style. There is input from leaders and employees alike in this style. “Leaders will interact with other participants as peers to see what they can discover and create together”(Five styles of leadership, 2017).This has been proven to be effective in having more motivated employees. A manager who uses participative leadership, rather than making all the decisions, seeks to involve other people, thus improving commitment and increasing collaboration, which leads to better quality decisions and a more successful business (Lamb, 2013).This is considered to be the most popular leadership style and they tend to trust leadership a little more because in turn leaders feel they will get their task accomplished.

With participativeleadership styles the employees more valued which is a reward in itself. Their respected thoughts are a part of what the organization is focused on in part. The employees can communicate more with leadership because of the initiated conversation.Employees feel more motivated through being consulted for information, but other feel a disadvantage is that it slows down the employees.

With the democratic style leadership, the trust is at a higher level because there is more communication between the leaders and employees. Leaders can talk with the employees and relay what they need completed and ask what is the best way to reach this goal and a certain time frame. This is a great strategy for the employees to feel they can reach this goal from their input and they buy in is greater than some other styles. Anew employee does not know anything other than to trust the leader and the interpersonal skills are uncertain at this stage expect for the authoritative voice of the leader. This makes it harder to learn other interpersonal skills.

Autocratic

Autocratic also known as authoritative leadership style is more about having an authority figure the majority of the time. They will get little if any advice from anyone in how they make decisions in the organization. This style offers very little influence for their workers. The influence the leaders have for themselves is they take full responsibility for the decisions they make alone with trusting themselves only. If things go well, they can receive all the praise. The employees are dependent of their leader because of the constant authoritative decisions that come from them. I feel the trust in this type of leader is lacking when it come from others. “The autocratic style is most effective when the leader is present, according to leadership expert. Once the autocratic is gone, there is no guarantee that team members will keep working”(Travis)”.With new or unmotivated employees this is a great motivational strategy for getting what they want accomplished, however it is less effective with more the established .

 

Laisses-faire

Laisse-faire means to let it be in French. This leadership styles allows employees to make all the decisions. This is more of hands off leadership style. “Behavioral style of leaders who generally give the group complete freedom, provide necessary materials, participate only to answer questions, and avoided giving feedback” (Bartol&Martin, 1994, p.412). By giving complete freedom allows employees to feel motivated feel a higher sense of responsibility. This alone promotes trust. Being a permissive style of leadership the Interpersonal skills are lacking more in this leadership style because of the lack of communication.

Likert’s 4 leadership styles

The exploitive leadership is explosive in how many see this leadership style. With the exploitive leadership “the leader has a low concern for people and uses such methods as threats and other fear-based methods to achieve conformance” (Leadership Resource Center, 2016). There leaves little room for having good interpersonal skills with employees because there is no concern for the employees themselves. This also leaves some room for trust since the employees are rewarded some along with the threats and talking down to them. An example for this style would be for people that require the strong authoritative leadership demanding them with some rewards thrown in.

Benevolent authoritative like the exploitative leadership style is dominated and they too talk down to the employees. With this style there is a bit more rewards and limitation on teamwork where the other has no teamwork. They show a little more concern for the employees with benevolent style. The leaders can gain a little more trust by showing concern for the employees. This allows for a better interaction and improved interpersonal skills although limited and leaders can get employees to accomplish more with showing concerns for them. An employee will be more open with someone that shows concern for their wellbeing.

Consultative leadership style unlike the other two (exploitative and benevolent) which have decisions from upper management, this is has decisions by them, but operating decisions are concluded by lower management which tends to be more communicative with employees. With more communication with employees, the trust level increases and the interpersonal skills much improved. By communicating with employees, they can get employees to do more than the other two autocratic leadership styles.

Participative leadership style like that of Lewin’s more interactive with employees. With this, they maximize the efforts in participating and engaging with employees. They engage with employees with the decision making process like Lewin. This allows for maximum trust in comparison to the other 3 of Linker’s leadership styles. The interpersonal skills and communication is open and easily attainable. Utilizing this strategy allows for almost any task or situation to be completed. The open communication allows the employees and management to give ideas back and forth to figure out the best solution all around.

Transactional Leadership

Transactional leadership focuses on the transactions within the organization. “Transactional leadership is based more on “exchanges” between the leader and follower, in which followers are rewarded for meeting specific goals or performance criteria”(Aarons, 2007). This leadership style 1947 was first described by Max Weber and later in 1981 by Bernard Bass. “This style is most often used by the managers. It focuses on the basic management process of controlling, organizing, and short-term planning” (Politis, 2012). Leaders are able to align an adequate amount of rewards with punishment for more equality therefore allowing for some trust. With the open communication all employees can communicate effectively on effectively communication on a strategy.  This gives more strength to the organization as a whole.

Under the transactional theory there is Leadership-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory. With these transactions the two different groups as categorized are treated differently. “According to the theory, leaders form different kinds of relationships with various groups of subordinates. One group, referred to as the in-group, is favored by the leader”(Management Study Guide, 2017). They receive more attention while the “out-group” isn’t favoured at all.

Great man Theory

The great man’s theory started in the 1900’s during a time when men were mainly in leadership. “This theory argues that great men and women shape history rather than being merely shaped by it” (Turak, 2013). During this time, there were very few leaders from lower class households because leadership was mostly inherited. This also attributed to not listening to women or lower class of people in society. They trusted their own level and not others. The ability to have more interpersonal relationships would be lacking now as they would in the 1900’s except out of fear. In modern times there would be no trust nor anyway to effectively come together for the community.BUS-FP 3012 Fundamentals of Leadership Essay.

Conclusion

Each leadership style can find a way to communicate effectively to build trust for the better good of the community. All the autocratic styles have a hard time with building trust with their employees and the concern is even greater with the great man’s theory, exploitive and benevolent leaderships. Laisses-faire would need to change from having basically no hands on in order to better communicate. The democratic leadership style is the most open and effective due the communications between leaders and employees. There is a better understanding. I have personally had at one point a more autocratic leadership style and it was not as effective. I was able to rule with getting things accomplished but there was a sense of fear from some of them. I have found that the participatory leadership style worked better for me as it allowed me to be able to let the employees work without me ruling with an iron fist and simply talking to them.BUS-FP 3012 Fundamentals of Leadership Essay.

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