Leadership is practiced by leadership style, which is the total pattern of leaders’ actions in relation to followers. It represents their philosophy, skills, and attitudes. The styles that are discussed hereunder are used in combination, not separately; but they are discussed separately to clarify differences among them.
Negative leadership gets acceptable performance in many situations, but it has high human costs. Negative leaders act domineering and superior with people. To get work done, they hold over their personnel such penalties as loss of job, reprimand in the presence of others, etc. They display authority in the false belief that it frightens everyone into productivity. They are bosses more than leaders.
Even the most competent leaders will at time have to fall back upon negative leadership. Perfection can never be achieved, but the historical trend is that managers need more and more positive leadership skills in order to be rated “satisfactory”. Better employee education, greater independence, and other factors have made satisfactory employee motivation more dependent on positive leadership.
Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.
• Authoritarian or autocratic
• Participative or democratic
• Delegative or Free Reign
Although good leaders use all styles, with one of them normally dominant, bad leaders tend to stick with one style.
Authoritarian (autocratic):
I want both of you to. . .
This style is used when leaders tell their employees what they want done and how they want it accomplished, without getting the advice of their followers. Some of the appropriate conditions to use it are when you have all the information to solve the problem, you are short on time, and your employees are well motivated.
Some people tend to think of this style as a vehicle for yelling, using demeaning language, and leading by threats and abusing their power. This is not the authoritarian style, rather it is an abusive, unprofessional style called bossing people around. It has no place in a leader's repertoire.
The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions. If you have the time and want to gain more commitment and motivation from your employees, then you should use the participative style.
Participative (democratic):
Let's work together to solve this. . .
This style involves the leader including one or more employees in the decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it). However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using this style is not a sign of weakness; rather it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect.
This is normally used when you have part of the information, and your employees have other parts. Note that a leader is not expected to know everything -- this is why you employ knowledgeable and skillful employees. Using this style is of mutual benefit -- it allows them to become part of the team and allows you to make better decisions.
Delegative (free reign):
You two take care of the problem while I go. . .
In this style, the leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it. You cannot do everything! You must set priorities and delegate certain tasks.
This is not a style to use so that you can blame others when things go wrong, rather this is a style to be used when you fully trust and confidence in the people below you. Do not be afraid to use it, however, use it wisely!
Managerial Grid Styles:
One very popular approach is to identify leadership styles of practicing managers is Blake and Mouton’s managerial grid. The following figure shows that the two dimensions of the grid are concern for people along the vertical axis and concern for production among the horizontal axis.
The model is represented as a grid with concern for production as the X-axis and concern for people as the Y-axis; each axis ranges from 1 (Low) to 9 (High). The five resulting leadership styles are as follows:
* The impoverished style (1,1): in this style, managers have low concern for both people and production. Managers use this style to preserve job and job seniority, protecting themselves by avoiding getting into trouble. The main concern for the manager is not to be held responsible for any mistakes, which results in less innovative decisions.
* The country club style (1,9): this style has a high concern for people and a low concern for production. Managers using this style pay much attention to the security and comfort of the employees, in hopes that this would increase -performance. The resulting atmosphere is usually friendly, but not necessarily that productive.
* The produce or perish style (9,1): with a high concern for production, and a low concern for people, managers using this style find employee needs unimportant; they provide their employees with money and expect performance back. Managers using this style also pressure their employees through rules and punishments to achieve the company goals. This dictatorial style is based on Theory X of Douglas McGregor, and is commonly applied by companies on the edge of real or perceived failure. This is used in case of crisis management.
* The middle-of-the-road style (5,5): Managers using this style try to balance between company goals and workers' needs. By giving some concern to both people and production, managers who use this style hope to achieve suitable performance but doing so gives away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are met.
* The team style (9,9): in this style, high concern is paid both to people and production. As suggested by the propositions of Theory Y, managers choosing to use this style encourage teamwork and commitment among employees. This method relies heavily on making employees feel as a constructive part of the company.
Negative leadership gets acceptable performance in many situations, but it has high human costs. Negative leaders act domineering and superior with people. To get work done, they hold over their personnel such penalties as loss of job, reprimand in the presence of others, etc. They display authority in the false belief that it frightens everyone into productivity. They are bosses more than leaders.
Even the most competent leaders will at time have to fall back upon negative leadership. Perfection can never be achieved, but the historical trend is that managers need more and more positive leadership skills in order to be rated “satisfactory”. Better employee education, greater independence, and other factors have made satisfactory employee motivation more dependent on positive leadership.
Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.
• Authoritarian or autocratic
• Participative or democratic
• Delegative or Free Reign
Although good leaders use all styles, with one of them normally dominant, bad leaders tend to stick with one style.
Authoritarian (autocratic):
I want both of you to. . .
This style is used when leaders tell their employees what they want done and how they want it accomplished, without getting the advice of their followers. Some of the appropriate conditions to use it are when you have all the information to solve the problem, you are short on time, and your employees are well motivated.
Some people tend to think of this style as a vehicle for yelling, using demeaning language, and leading by threats and abusing their power. This is not the authoritarian style, rather it is an abusive, unprofessional style called bossing people around. It has no place in a leader's repertoire.
The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions. If you have the time and want to gain more commitment and motivation from your employees, then you should use the participative style.
Participative (democratic):
Let's work together to solve this. . .
This style involves the leader including one or more employees in the decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it). However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using this style is not a sign of weakness; rather it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect.
This is normally used when you have part of the information, and your employees have other parts. Note that a leader is not expected to know everything -- this is why you employ knowledgeable and skillful employees. Using this style is of mutual benefit -- it allows them to become part of the team and allows you to make better decisions.
Delegative (free reign):
You two take care of the problem while I go. . .
In this style, the leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it. You cannot do everything! You must set priorities and delegate certain tasks.
This is not a style to use so that you can blame others when things go wrong, rather this is a style to be used when you fully trust and confidence in the people below you. Do not be afraid to use it, however, use it wisely!
Managerial Grid Styles:
One very popular approach is to identify leadership styles of practicing managers is Blake and Mouton’s managerial grid. The following figure shows that the two dimensions of the grid are concern for people along the vertical axis and concern for production among the horizontal axis.
The model is represented as a grid with concern for production as the X-axis and concern for people as the Y-axis; each axis ranges from 1 (Low) to 9 (High). The five resulting leadership styles are as follows:
* The impoverished style (1,1): in this style, managers have low concern for both people and production. Managers use this style to preserve job and job seniority, protecting themselves by avoiding getting into trouble. The main concern for the manager is not to be held responsible for any mistakes, which results in less innovative decisions.
* The country club style (1,9): this style has a high concern for people and a low concern for production. Managers using this style pay much attention to the security and comfort of the employees, in hopes that this would increase -performance. The resulting atmosphere is usually friendly, but not necessarily that productive.
* The produce or perish style (9,1): with a high concern for production, and a low concern for people, managers using this style find employee needs unimportant; they provide their employees with money and expect performance back. Managers using this style also pressure their employees through rules and punishments to achieve the company goals. This dictatorial style is based on Theory X of Douglas McGregor, and is commonly applied by companies on the edge of real or perceived failure. This is used in case of crisis management.
* The middle-of-the-road style (5,5): Managers using this style try to balance between company goals and workers' needs. By giving some concern to both people and production, managers who use this style hope to achieve suitable performance but doing so gives away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are met.
* The team style (9,9): in this style, high concern is paid both to people and production. As suggested by the propositions of Theory Y, managers choosing to use this style encourage teamwork and commitment among employees. This method relies heavily on making employees feel as a constructive part of the company.
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