The Impact Of Leadership Styles

Leadership styles

Leaders have their own style, which is fine if they can find a situation that requires that style of leadership. Being able to adapt the leadership style according to the situation and the state of the grope or team are flexible leadership – example: taking charge when a team is forming but playing the role of coach when a team is managing itself well. One the fundamental principle of leadership style is to change according to the circumstances such as Situational Leadership (develop by Blanchard and Hersey in the late 1960s). According to Hersey and Blanchard, a leader is concerned with the task to be performed and with building relations with his employee’s. A leader may focus on work, building a team or building relationship with his or her employee’s, according to a combination of all these concerns Hersey and Blanchard proposed four leadership styles.

• Style 1 Indicating high concern for the task and low concern for people.
• Style 2 Showing High Concern for Task and People.
• Style 3 Having high concern for people and low for the task.
• Style 4 Indicating Low Concern for the task and Low Concern for people.

According to them all the classified four styles are functional; it is according to their relevance situation that is important. Leadership styles in the situational model can be classified according to the amount of task and relationship behavior the leader engages in. Task related behavior also known as Regulating behavior since a leader’s behavior revolves on regulating his or her group members and their task completion, other leaders concentrate on building personal relationship, which is called nurturing behavior.

Regulating Behavior – A Leader engages in one-way communication , who gives clear instructions of group roles and informs the group members what to do, where to do, and how to do, and closely supervises their activities and performance. Structure, Control, Supervise are the regular behavior of the leaders.

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Nurturing Behavior – A Leader who engages in dual communication he who listens, provides support and encouragement, facilitates, interaction and involves the group in decision making. Praise, Listen, and Facilitate these are the regular behavior of the leaders Source (Pareek, 2007).

Transformational versus Transactional leadership

Achieving the current objectives efficiently by helping the organization by clarifying the needs and desires of the employee is known as transactional leadership. This type of leadership behavior improves employee’s performance and satisfaction. The transactional leaders focus on running the organization smoothly and efficiently. The transactional leader creates a clear structure and clear instructions to his or her subordinates regarding their work and rewards subsequently. Punishment is understood since it is not mentioned .The discipline system is usually in place. This type of leadership is a popular approach with the most of the managers. Transformational leadership have the ability to change the vision, strategy and culture of the organization based on personal values, beliefs, and qualities, Transformational leadership enable the followers to become leaders. Transformational leadership go beyond the immediate task that is the functions build the competencies of individuals and group and enable them to achieve targets that the organization or the individual would have not expected to achieve. Transformational leadership change the organization’s strategies and culture so they are successful with the surrounding environment, they are the changed agents who show the direction to the employee’s to a new set of organizational values and behaviors. Empowering, risk taking clarity of mission, team building, equanimity, and evolving trust are few of the characteristics of transformational leaders Source (Theory of Transformational LeadershipRedux, Winter 1995).

Transformational versus charismatic leadership

Many researches do indicate that the two types of leadership as essentially equivalent, some others theorists say they are distinct and few other scholars say charismatic leadership is an ingredient of transformational leadership or charismatic leadership is the highest degree of transformational leadership. The third group of scholars separate charismatic leadership from transformational leadership. They say charisma is a personal trait referent power over followers, whereas transformational leadership is a set of behaviors that people use to lead the change process. Transformational leadership enables the followers to become leaders. Charismatic leaders are also known as “heroic” leaders by some of the research; they build allegiance in followers but do not necessarily change the organization. They use the power to serve others, they consider and learn from criticism and also they encourage followers to question leader’s view. In many theories the leadership behaviors of charismatic and transformational leadership appear to be similar with very few important differences is evident as well. Transformational leaders will be doing lots of work which will make the employees more dependent on the leaders such as developing follower’s skill and self-confident, giving information to sensitive information and decentralizing the authorities. Transformational leaders at any level in any organization can easily be determined according to Bass since this type of leadership is globally relevant for very situation. Charismatic leaders are more proactive, do more things that creates an image of extraordinary competence for the leaders such as restricting information, risk taking and unconventional behavior. Charismatic leaders are rare, and appear to be more dependent only on favorable conditions in an organization and these leaders are very common for new organizations as visionary entrepreneurs or reformers. Charismatic leaders are usually more extreme Source (House, et al., 1994), (Avolio, et al., 1985).

Distinguishing characteristics of charismatic and Non charismatic Leaders

Non Charismatic Leaders

Charismatic Leaders

Likableness

Likable leaders have shared perspective

Idealized Vision and an honorable hero makes leader liable.

Trustworthiness

Disinterested advocacy in persuasion attempts.

Leaders are passionate advocacy by taking personal risk.

Relation to status quo

Status quo is being maintained.

Change of atmosphere is being created.

Future Goals

Goals are limited with very few discrepant from status quo.

Vision of Idea which is highly discrepant from status quo.

Articulation

Articulation is weak in goals and motivation to lead.

Motivation to lead and articulation of vision is very strong.

Competence

To achieve goals within framework of existing order with available means.

Unconventional means is used to transcend the existing order.

Behavior

Conventional

Unconventional

Source: Conger, et al., 1998

Characteristics of Three Styles of Leadership

Authoritarian or Autocratic

This style is used when leaders take decisions from their position, control of rewards and coercion. The autocratic leader’s group performance is almost good since they are characterized by positive feelings. This type of style can be used when you have all the information to solve problem, you are short on time, and your employees are well motivated. From the experiments of Lewis et al. it was found that this style resulted in very high level of discontent. Some leaders tend to think of this style as a tool for abusing, using unprofessional language, and leading by threats and abusing their power. This is not the authoritarian style, “bossing people around.” It has no place in a leader’s repertoire. The authoritarian style should only be used occasions Source (Patterns of Aggressive Behavior in Experimentally Created Social Climates, 1939).

Participative (Democratic)

Democratic leader involve their people (one or more employees) in decision making (determining what to do and how to do it) encourages participation and depends on subordinates respect for influence, this style of leadership partly explains the reason for empowerment of employees. The group members of a democratic leader perform well even when the leader is absent. However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Employees usually like democratic decision making, it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect. Democratic leadership however will find it difficult when options differ and it will difficult to arrive at a final decision. By this style is of mutual understanding it allows the employee’s to become part of the team and allows the leader to make better decisions Source (Field Theory and Experiment in Social Psychology Concepts and Method, 1939).

Laissez-faire

In this style, the leader has a minimum involvement in decision making; the leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is successful when the employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it, and where there is no requirement for a centralized coordination. 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. It was discovered by Lewin et al. that the democratic style was the most effective style of leadership. A good leader uses all three styles, depending on what forces are involved between the followers, the leader, and the situation. Some examples include, using an authoritarian style on a new employee who is just learning the job. The leader is competent and a good coach. The employee is motivated to learn a new skill. The situation is a new environment for the employee. The leader knows the problem, but does not have all the information. The employees know their jobs and want to become part of the team. You cannot do everything and the employee needs to take ownership of her job! In addition, this allows you to be at other places, doing other things Source (Pareek, 2007).

The Impact of Leadership in Organizations

The leadership has the ability to motivate and influence other leaders and the employee’s to achieve organizational goals through process of change. So are all the leaders are good and effective? Should all the organizations adopt a single approach to leadership? To analysis this leadership there is three types, which are individual leadership, group leadership and organizational leadership. Each of these types of leadership has a tremendous impact on how leaders are classified and viewed. The leadership theories revolve around describing traits of a leader, however, however the modern theories have tried to explain the impact through behavioral approaches. Motivation and process theories were later developed to determine the relationship and affect a leader had on the individual and group within an organization.

Training has development has been a prominent development in the world of Organizational Behavior (OB) as organizations sought innovative methods for feedback and to regenerate their culture. This type of practiced has positively affected many organizations, the short-term results of coaching has given insight view of level 3 leadership which has been incorporated by both transactional and transformational leadership styles, however for organizations to achieve prominence and market share in their respective industry further development of leaders to a Level 5 leadership style was required.

As the hierarchy in leadership position, power, control and achievement grew with the leader’s success, some well known companies such as GE under the leadership of Jack Welch found themselves in the search of true leaders. It will be demonstrated that although such a leader may be detrimental to the organization, narcissistic leaders have also proven vital to the revival of these same organizations.

Future planning is very important in the long-term growth of an organization in order to retain and attract the new leaders of tomorrow. Organizations need to be constant in terms of direction and control an effective leader has influenced in the past, and effective planning for the future leaders to continue the successful organization. The ever growing challenges that leaders face in the changing environment and coping with such difficult tasks such as interface management, change management, knowledge management and group dynamics within projects has been a task to balance and overcome. An effective leader increases the positive emotions within their organizations, they choose to do so a clear and compelling vision, but also have deep personal humility and an intense professional will Source (Sturek, 2005).

Conclusions

Leadership is a complex concept that has clearly demonstrated that developmental style is the most desirable style and it is associated with creation of empowerment, growth, learning, morale and satisfaction on the part of the employees. In Common terms this style creates resonance while the critical climate creates dissonance. In future the leadership programs should concentrate on the developmental style as a desirable style. This results in indicating the potential of all the situations chosen in predicting the leadership style. The style of leadership gets noticed consistently in most of the situation. Leadership style based feedback should perhaps focus on this in future.