leadership styles using the right one for your situation

8/3/2019 Leadership Styles Using the Right One for Your Situation

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Leadership styles using the right one for your situation

From Mahatma Gandhi to Jack Welch, and Martin Luther King to Rudolph Giuliani, there are as many leadership styles as

there are leaders. Fortunately, business people and psychologists have developed useful, shorthand ways of describing the

main leadership styles. This can help aspiring leaders to understand and adapt their own styles, so that they can improve

their own leadership. Whether you are managing a team at work, captaining your sports team or leading a majorcorporation, your leadership style is crucial to your success. Consciously, or subconsciously, you will no doubt use some of

the leadership styles featured, at least some of the time. By understanding these leadership styles and their impact, you

can become a more flexible, better leader.

Understanding Leadership Styles

The leadership styles we look at here are:

Autocratic leadership.

Bureaucratic leadership.

Charismatic leadership.

Democratic leadership/participative leadership. Laissez-faire leadership.

People-oriented leadership/relations-oriented leadership.

Servant leadership.

Task-oriented leadership.

Transactional leadership.

Transformational leadership.

Autocratic Leadership

Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where a leader exerts high levels of power over his or

her employees or team members. People within the team are given few opportunities for making suggestions, even if

these would be in the team's or organizations interest. Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Because of this,autocratic leadership usually leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. Also, the team's output does not

benefit from the creativity and experience of all team members, so many of the benefits of teamwork are lost. For some

routine and unskilled jobs, however, this style can remain effective where the advantages of control outweigh the

disadvantages.

Bureaucratic Leadership

Bureaucratic leaders work by the book, ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly. This is a

very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic

substances or at heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as cash-handling).In other

situations, the inflexibility and high levels of control exerted can demoralize staff, and can diminish the

organizations ability to react to changing external circumstances.

Charismatic Leadership


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A charismatic leadership style can appear similar to a transformationalleadership style, in that the

leader injects huge doses of enthusiasm into his or her team, and is very energetic in driving others

forward.However, a charismatic leader can tend to believe more in him or herself thanin their team.

This can create a risk that a project, or even an entireorganization, might collapse if the leader were to

leave: In the eyes of their followers, success is tied up with the presence of the charismatic leader.Assuch, charismatic leadership carries great responsibility, and needs long-termcommitment from the

leader.

Democratic Leadership or Participative Leadership

Although a democratic leader will make the final decision, he or she invitesother members of the team

to contribute to the decision-making process. Thisnot only increases job satisfaction by involving

employees or team members inwhats going on, but it also helps to develop peoples skills. Employees

andteam members feel in control of their own destiny, and so are motivated to workhard by more than

just a financial reward.As participation takes time, this style can lead to things happening moreslowlythan an autocratic approach, but often the end result is better. It can be mostsuitable where

team working is essential, and quality is more important thanspeed to market or productivity.

Laissez-Faire Leadership

This French phrase means leave it be and is used to describe a leader wholeaves his or her colleagues

to get on with their work. It can be effective if theleader monitors what is being achieved and

communicates this back to his or her team regularly. Most often, laissez-faire leadership works for

teams inwhich the individuals are very experienced and skilled self-starters.Unfortunately, it can also

refer to situations where managers are not exertingsufficient control.

People-Oriented Leadership or Relations-Oriented Leadership

This style of leadership is the opposite of task-orientedleadership: the leader istotally focused on

organizing, supporting and developing the people in theleaders team. A participative style, it tends to

lead to good teamwork andcreative collaboration. However, taken to extremes, it can lead to failure

toachieve the team's goals.In practice, most leaders use both task-oriented and people-oriented styles

of leadership.

Servant Leadership

This term, coined by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, describes a leader who isoften not formally

recognized as such. When someone, at any level within anorganization, leads simply by virtue of

meeting the needs of his or her team, heor she is described as a servant leader.In many ways, servant

leadership is a form of democratic leadership, as thewhole team tends to be involved in decision-


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making.Supporters of the servant leadership model suggest it is an important wayahead in a world

where values are increasingly important, in which servantleaders achieve power on the basis of their

values and ideals. Others believethat in competitive leadership situations, people practicing servant

leadershipwill often find themselves left behind by leaders using other leadership styles.

Task-Oriented Leadership

A highly task-oriented leader focuses only on getting the job done, and can bequite autocratic. He or

she will actively define the work and theroles required,put structures in place, plan, organize and

monitor. However, as task-orientedleaders spare little thought for the well-being of their teams, this

approach cansuffer many of the flaws of autocratic leadership, with difficulties in motivatingand

retaining staff. Task-oriented leaders can benefit from an understanding of the Blake-Mouton

Managerial Grid, which can help them identify specific areasfor development that will help them involve

people more.

Transactional Leadership

This style of leadership starts with the premise that team members agree toobey their leader totally

when they take a job on: the transaction is (usually)that the organization pays the team members, in

return for their effort andcompliance. As such, the leader has the right to punish team members if

their work doesnt meet the pre-determined standard.Team members can do little to improve their job

satisfaction under transactionalleadership. The leader could give team members some control of their

income/reward by using incentives that encourage even higher standards or greater productivity.

Alternatively a transactional leader could practice management by exception, whereby, rather than

rewarding better work, he or she would take corrective action if the required standards were notmet.Transactional leadership is really just a way of managing rather a trueleadership style, as the focus

is on short-term tasks. It has serious limitationsfor knowledge-based or creative work, but remains a

common style in manyorganizations.

Transformational Leadership

A person with this leadership style is a true leader who inspires his or her teamwith a shared vision of

the future. Transformational leaders are highly visible,and spend a lot of time communicating. They

dont necessarily lead from thefront, as they tend to delegate responsibility amongst their teams. While

their enthusiasm is often infectious, they can need to be supported by detailpeople.In manyorganizations, both transactional and transformational leadership areneeded. The transactional leaders

(or managers) ensure that routine work isdone reliably, while the transformational leaders look after

initiatives that addvalue.The transformational leadership style is the dominant leadership style taught

inthe "How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You" leadership program,although we do recommend

that other styles are brought as the situationdemands.


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Using the Right Style Situational Leadership

While the Transformation Leadership approach is often highly effective, there isno one right way to

lead or manage that suits all situations. To choose themost effective approach for you, you must

consider:

The skill levels and experience of the members of your team.

The work involved (routine or new and creative).

The organizational environment (stable or radically changing,conservative or adventurous).

You own preferred or natural style. A good leader will find him or herself switching instinctively

between styles according to the people and work they are dealing with. This is often referred toas

situational leadership. For example, the manager of a small factory trains new machine operatives

using a bureaucratic style to ensure operatives know the procedures that achieve the right standards of

product quality and workplace safety. The same manager may adopt a more participative style of

leadership when working on production line improvement with his or her team of supervisors

Leadership is the initiation of action to solve problem.

Leadership is directing or controlling the activity of a group.

Leadership is influencing the activities of group as it moves toward its goals.

Leadership is power, But power is not necessarily leadership.


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Rather

leadership is power that grows out of personal characteristics such as charisma, expertise,and

interpersonal skills.

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP ORGANISTAION OR WORKPLACE

Basic of this idea is that leader should effectively relate him to others in organisation; she must

create a value-based attitude in the organizational setup. . Leader within an organisation can have

impact on company norms, value development, so the attitude and value development of the leader is

contingent upon the attitudes and values of leader.


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The confounder of IBM computers Gov Gerstner is the example of giving value based statement to his

followers and demonstrating these values through his attitude and behaviour, he said

I want to manage the organisation by principles rather than by procedures. Principles refer to values

set for organisation, whereas the procedure is code of conduct or manual for the organisation. It implies

that is any new situation one should not see the rules rather one should see to mind and heart anddecide at the nick of the time to him the corporate culture has to be built around expectations of

performance rather than value of behaviour

Gerstner frequently met his employees and colleagues; he used to discuss the problems, Issues and

aspirations. He was initiating values environment the organisation by letting others to express their

opinions in the improvement of the organizational set up. As an IBM executive he said that there are a

lot of expectation of people to have vision of IBM he said its vision should be a series of tough minded

market oriented highly effective strategies in each of its business.

In this respect it is believed that leader in any organisation need to be more sensitive about his own

impact in the organisation.

Leader must build the environment of credibility. The focus of leader should be improvement of total

human environment of the organisation, so it is deep important; if the human conditions of the

organization are improved the economic picture of organisation automatically will be improved

Introducing a model and exemplifying through his /her behaviour, norms and values the leader

is building norms and values for the whole organisation.

First of all he does the task then other followers, will do that task willingly. Leadership in many case is

called as learned behaviour, as it is an ongoing process, leadership skills are shaped through the

feedback and outcomes .the primary job of organizational leader is to build relationship with co

workers managers customers, shareholders, distributors, supplies etc.;

It is believed that this relationship building and effort inculcate norms and values in employees s

internally, which in turn result motivated and delegated employees. To build effective leadership leaderneed to cultivate certain characteristics and attributes

L listening actively

E empathetic

A attitude is +tive

D delivers commitments and promises

R

recognizes his and others abilities

S sensitivity to other s needs , values and belief system


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Leader should built personal relationship, should know the personal goals of each group member. He

should demonstrate sensitivity to each member of the group. She should allow the members to resolve

their conflicts in amicable way. He should use the sharing approach , and should be able to reciprocate

two way process of communication.

Leader should link internal culture with external performance.. Leaders must motivate their employees

in the group task or activities and with the greater sense of involvement.Those leaders who have included value based and norms in the organization infact they have replaced

the beaurocratic.

Leadership is where an individual is the hero; the first to take action and the one to take the risks. The

leader has vision, drive and enthusiasm - they are active in most tasks.

Management is where someone has ultimate authority and responsibility for the task but is

not necessarily the person doing the task - they distribute the task to others in the team and act

as advisor and facilitator.

Good managers are sometimes leaders; good leaders are sometimes managers. The distinction

is primarily between action and enabling.

LEADERSHIPVS MANAGEMENT

LEADERSHIP

Innovates

Original

Develops

Focus on people

Inspires trust

Strategic- long term

Asks what & why

Challenges status quo

Does right thing

MANAGEMENT

Administers

Conventional

Maintains

Focus on systems

Relies on control

Tactical shorter term

Asks how & when

Works with what is

Does things right


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Establishes direction

Aligns people

Motivates and inspires

Creates change

Fosters learning

Builds self esteem

Models openness and self

awareness

Works towards goal(s)

Aligns resources

Maintains motivation

Makes change happen

Develops skills

Provides feedback

Reviews and monitors

contribution

leadership styles using the right one for your situation

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