Leadership Styles and Theories: How They Determine a Manager 's Success There are many qualities and factors that contribute to how a manager is able to effectively lead their employees. One of these factors is the manager 's leadership style. A leadership style is the way a manager goes about providing direction, executing plans, and encouraging employees. There are four main styles of leadership, autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, and paternalistic, and while they are widely agreed upon there are also theories about which styles are most effective. Autocratic leaders possess total control of all of the decisions and rarely take input from their employees. It is a totalitarian form of management. In the past autocratic leadership was …show more content…
The Path-Goal Theory is a leadership style theory that was created by Robert House. According to this theory managers need to offer assistance and motivation to their employees in order to assist them in achieving their goals. This can be achieved by rewarding employees when they reach their goals, removing obstacles in employees ' path that can keep them from reaching their goals, and providing support. House thought that to do this a leader must be achievement oriented, supportive, and value-based, and also be able to provide path-goal clarity, work facilitation, interaction facilitation, group decision making, and representation and networking. The Path-Goal Theory exercises both the democratic and autocratic styles of leadership. Managers following this theory let employees participate in decision making and look to their staff for ways to help them improve and achieve goals. House theorized that an employee 's locus of control affects how they prefer to be led by their manager. A locus of control is a measure of how much a person believes that they control their fate through their own efforts. There are two locusts of control: internal and external. A person with an internal locus of control believes that they control their own destiny and a person with and external locus of control believes that outside forces control their destiny (Kinicki 340). The Path-Goal Theory states that employees with an internal locus of control prefer achievement-oriented leaders and that decisions are made in a group setting because it would allow them to have more control. The theory also states that employees with an external locus of control prefer the structure of a supportive and directive leader (Kinicki 458). House believed that a leader should determine their
The result is a relaxed atmosphere, but one where there are dew guidelines and directions. This can sometimes result in poor productivity and lack of motivation as employees have little incentive to work hard. Autocratic leaders centralize power and decision making in themselves. They structure the complete work situation for their employees, who are expected to do what they are told and not think for themselves.
Lewin, Leppit, and White were cautious in the conclusions the drew from this study. They noted that autocratic leadership does get results and is preferred over democratic leadership. However they observed that autocratic leadership can create tension, apathy, frustration, and dependence by the group on the leader. Further, the researchers found that some of the differences in the behaviors of the children were associated with the presence or absence of the leader. Specifically, constructive effort declined in the autocratically controlled children groups. Finally, they observed very little value in laissez-faire control ---an essentially “no-leader” approach to leadership.
A leadership theory is a clarification of some features of leadership; theories have practical importance as they are being used for better understanding, anticipating, and controlling successful leadership. Hence, the main principle of any theory is to inform practice(Lussier and Achua 2009). Leadership theories could be classified into eight main categories: Great man, trait, behavioral, contingency, Situational, Participative, Relationship , management (Cherry 2010).
Edwin T. Cornelius III defined leadership style as the broad, characteristic way in which a leader interacts with others across in various situations and occasions. (Cornelius, 2006) However, many researchers would agree that leadership style is merely traits and they can change within an organization or between different situations. Annick M. Brennen in an article stated: A study of leadership styles therefore deals mainly with the manner in which the leader carries out his/her leadership functions or roles–the use of authority and power and the approach to the decision-maki...
Autocratic leadership theory is a part of the behavioural approach. In this leadership theory, leader makes all decisions and uses power to command and control the followers to achieve goal. According to Lewin(1939), “autocratic leaders are associated with high-performing groups, but that close supervision is necessary and feeling of hostility are often present” (p.173). It is incredibly efficient and tasks are completed quickly. Autocratic leadership can be beneficial when decisions need to be making quickly. For example, in emergency situation surgeon uses this theory because the patient’s situation is between life and death and there is no time to discuss with other members. Bass (2008) mentioned in the Leadership styles and theories article, “Autocratic leaders can be effective because they create good structure, and determine what needs to be done. They provide rewards for compliance, but punish disobedience” (Giltinane, 2013, p. 35-37).
Goals become dreams without action and that is what a manager is trying to achieve. In the path-goal theory, a leader’s behavior is based on what is best for employees and the work environment in order to achieve a certain goal, employee satisfaction and performance, and motivate employees. The path-goal theory was created by Robert J. House in 1971 and was influenced by the expectancy theory of motivation that was created in 1964 by Victor Vroom. In retail, motivation
Path-goal theory deals with the leader's style to motivate followers, to accomplish set goals (Northouse, 2010). The path-goal theory is simply the implication that a leader works with an individual to establish a goal. The leader does this by individual motivation to achieve the proposed goal, while working through obstacles that may hinder achieving that goal (Whitener, 2007). The basic assumption of path-goal theory is that the following motivates subordinates: the capability to perform the work, their efforts will result in a certain outcome, and the payoff will be worthwhile (Whitener, 2007). The path-goal theory is a pragmatic approach that the leader uses to motivate the followers to achieve the set goals.
For instance, the primary leadership styles consist of democratic, laissez-faire, and autocratic leadership. Democratic style leaders include their team members in making the organizational decisions, but make the ultimate decisions. This type of manager encourages creativity as well engagement of individuals in decisions and projects. As a result, members of the team tend to be highly productive due to higher job satisfaction. This style of leadership may not be suitable when a decision is needed immediately.
In autocratic leadership style, the leaders take direction ship and make decision in own. They do not transfer any domination to the others.
On projects I have taken the lead on, I have always valued input from other employees. This assumes the fact that the employee is competent in their area, and have a willingness to share ideas with management. I encourage active participation, and I am often surprised at some of the answers that have come out of collaborative meetings. When employees feel at ease to share their ideas, genuinely good things
They enjoy full authority, and make the decisions all, and often do not tell anyone what they are doing. And often keeps the leader's autocratic, authoritarian, on his power by force or intimidation, or threat of, or reward and punishment, or the use of his position. And although it may have a clear vision or may not be, and directs the organization or not guided in the right direction, but it does not care whether anyone agrees to work or not. In addition, in the autocratic leadership allow to take decisions quickly, and eliminate the debate about how things work and why. But at the same time it may reduce the likelihood of getting a range of different ideas from different people, and they may treat people in a bad way, or if they are not important. If this leader interested in his own authority or position, as often happens, they will be worried and cautious, and will be keen to crush any opposition to him or to his ideas and decisions. Well, it has not allowed the use of innovation or ideas of others unless it is part of his
An autocratic style of leadership is also known as an authoritarian leadership style of managing. Autocratic leaders are those who believe in individual control over all and every decision. Autocratic leaders also do not believe in any inputs from group members. Leaders that practice autocratic style of leadership normally make business choices based on their own agendas and judgments and never accept recommendations from their subordinates.
There are a few different types of well known leadership styles, authoritarian, delegative, and democratic. To assess my leadership style I used two online tests to help me determine my style. I felt the results were accurate and I fall into a democratic style/participative style. If I am leading I prefer to include the group and get their feedback on solving issues. However, I still make the final decision after listening to the thoughts of the group on a particular topic. This is considered to be a positive style of leadership that is inspiring to the group involved. The leaders decision making tends to be more accurate due to the input of other experts. (Cite)
Over the course of my professional career in different organizations in the past three years, I have worked under many managers. This has been a learning curve for me to understand the different managing styles and leadership characteristics of people. One of the managers whom I worked under, was the lead in a government project which also happened to be my last project before I took a break for continuing my studies, is a person I admire till date. I learned several life lessons in addition to the technical subject associated with the industry. This paper demonstrates the leadership styles exhibited by my manager with suitable examples.
In this paper I will look at the four major leadership styles, their characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and in what situations a particular leadership style is desired. Additionally, I will look at my leadership style and how I acquired this style throughout my career.