Autocratic Democratic And Laissez Faire Management Essay

In the past twelve months I have witnessed quite a few leadership styles. When i was working in one of the diamond manufacturing company’s the leader of the firm was the owner himself. He was a democratic leader he used to lead us by setting examples himself. All the decision’s concerning the firm was always taken after consulting the employees of the company. Opinions of all the employees were duly considered before setting goals and targets which were to be achieved. But once the target were set he made clear that it has to be achieved under all circumstances because no targets were set without consulting the employees and above all targets which were set were realistic targets. This type of leadership behaviour is termed as job-centred behaviour by (Buchanan & Huczynski 2010, p.598) the company in which I was working was a small size firm with only twenty employees working in it. He had no assistants and use to manage all the employees all by himself. Being a leader he had to deal with individual, group and organizational goals which he did it very efficiently and effectively. As mentioned in Buchanan & Huczynski(2010)”Managers do the things right but leaders do the right things” he always did the right things at the right time as a true leader. According (Feilder 1996, cited in Hellriegel, et al. 2010, p.333) Group atmosphere is defined as the level at which a leaders control is accepted. Here in this case the group atmosphere was not at its peak. And the task structure was more of a routine one where goals were clearly defined by the leader to all the employees.

According to Burns (1978), cited in Dawson(1996, p.227) he distinguishes leaders in two categories one as transformational leader and other as an transactional leader. the leader of our group was a transactional leader the one who gives what the employee desires and in return ask employees to full fill leaders desires. Here the employee’s wants were to earn money this was satisfied by giving their hard work and time to the company, an in return employees desires were fulfilled by getting the job done by paying the money to the employee. All employees were satisfied under his leadership style and behaviour including me which led to an comfortable organizational atmosphere to work in to and in this way enhanced organizational performance.

The other example which I have noticed is an example of my father when I used to work in our family business. Here the relationship between me and my father was that of a leader, follower relationship. Here the leadership style which I observed was an autocratic one. As I was still a learner into the business I dint have much of knowledge and experience to take decisions. Here the group atmosphere was at its peak and the task structure was a non-routine one because here in this case the leader knows the better than the employee to perform a particular task (Feilder 1996, cited in Hellriegel, et al. 2010, p.333). The organisational goal were common that to increase the sales and thereby increasing the profits of the company. The leadership behaviour observed here was of employee-centred leadership behaviour. This means that the leader focuses on the relationship between the leader and the employee and he also focuses on the need of the employee (Buchanan and Huczynski 2010, p.606) as per James McGregor Burns(1978) the leader here was a transformational leader which means that the followers treated here with relationship in terms of motivation and commitment, and inspiring the followers to give more than the expected to improve organizational performance.

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The leadership style changes with the same person when it comes to different organization. For example when I am with my father during the office hours he is an autocratic leader, but as soon as we come back from work the leadership style changes. This is supported by Vroom and yetton’s (1973), cited in Rosenfeld and Wilson (1999, p.201) describes normative theory of leadership effectiveness, which says that the leadership style changes according to different situations. My father is the leader of our family also, here a different style of leadership is observed. Laissez-faire type of leadership is adopted here where all the members of the organization has the freedom to do whatever he wants to do. Here the decisions are not forced upon anybody and everyone has the full freedom to do whatever one wishes to do. Here the common organizational goal is to run the house effectively which the leader has to take care of. Which is fulfilled under this style of leadership.

The leadership which I have noticed in the past twelve can also be termed as participative leadership in the first case and supportive leadership in the second and third case (Luthans 2002, p.587).Thus in the end we can say that leadership style and behaviour changes with different organization. From the above given examples also we can state that an effective leader always leads to an effective organizational. And thus in the end according to my own personal experinces I can say that there is a strong relationship between leadership style and behaviour to organizational performance.

Refernces:-

Buchanan, A.D. and Huczynski, A.A. 2010, Organizational Behaviour. 7th Edition. Essex: Pearson Education. pp. 596-622

Dawson.S.1996,Analysing Organisations. 3rd Edition. Essex: McMillan Press. pp.227-230

Hellriegel, D. et al. 2001, Organizational Behaviour.9th Edition. Essex: South-Western College Publishing.pp.322-354

Luthans, F. 2002, Organizational Behaviour. 9th Edition. Essex: McGraw Hill Higher Education. pp.587

Rosenfeld, R.H. and Wilson, D.C.1999, Managing Organization. 2nd Edition.

Essex: McGraw hill publishing company. pp. 201