Effective and Ineffective Leadership Skills
Leadership is the human characteristic to be able to instill in others the desire to perform actions for a specific purpose. It is the communication through words and actions by a person to others a purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish an outcome. A perfect example of leadership in action was the call of “Let’s Roll” by one of the heroes of Flight 93.
Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. The leadership style that is used depends upon the human needs of the employees. Leaders build teamwork, help other people or their subordinates with their problems, and provide psychological support. Leaders are concerned about the proper alignment of tasks and skills in order to obtain the highest efficient and effective outcome.
There is evidence that leaders who are considerate in their leadership style are higher performers and are more satisfied with their job. Other considerations leaders use in their approach to others or their subordinates are time allotments, relationship development, information process, the training and professionalism of the other people or their subordinates, and how well they know the tasks. Leaders need to address any legal ramifications, laws or established procedures, such as OSHA or training plans.
It has been generally accepted that there are three basic styles of leadership:
1. Authoritarian (autocratic)
This style is used when the leader tells his or her employees what she wants done and how she wants it done, without getting the advice of her followers. This style of leadership should only be used if you have all the knowledge on a particular subject and have preliminary plans as to how to carry out your project, but you are short on time. Normally you have already established a working relationship with your employees, and they are motivated to help you finish your project within the deadline.
The authoritarian style should normally only be used on rare occasions. It can be used, within limits, if the subordinate is a new employee who is just learning the job. The leader can use this style in a competent method to teach and mentor the new employee on the new work environment.
2. Participative (democratic)
This type of style is used when the leader knows what the ultimate goal is that needs to be accomplished, but not necessarily the procedures required too achieve it. The leader informs the others or the subordinates of the goal, and discusses it with the actual employees involved to achieve it. This style of leadership could be called fact finding to determine the best procedures to accomplish the project. However, the leader remains in authority. He determines the procedures to be used based on the information received from his employees. This is normally used when you have part of the information, and your employees have other parts. Using this style is of mutual benefit - it allows them to become part of the team and allows you to make better decisions.
3. Delegative (free reign)
In this style, the leader allows the employees to make the decision. 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 must set priorities and delegate certain tasks. This is a style to be used when you have the full trust and confidence in the people below you. The employee needs to take ownership of the job.
Ineffective Leadership Styles
When leaders use ineffective leadership styles it produces internal conflicts between the subordinates themselves, and between the employees and the supervisor. The working environment becomes stressful. Sometimes the atmosphere in the working environment becomes so thick; it feels like the stress could be cut with a knife. When employees become fearful of being penalized for mistakes by their supervisors; it sometimes is easier to do nothing; in lieu of being chastised for making a mistake. Negative leaders act domineering and superior. They believe the only way to get things done is through penalties, such as loss of job, days off without pay, reprimand employees in front of others, and other demeaning actions. 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.
They believe their authority is increased by freighting everyone into higher levels of productivity. Yet what always happens when this approach is used is that morale falls; which of course leads to lower productivity.
The autocratic style of leadership should only be used for new employees that might need some training or mentoring; but, almost never with a well-seasoned professional group of employees. Employees that have been working for the organization for a period of time become resentful by an autocratic leadership style. The leader would be more effective to use these people in consultations.
Another style of leadership, if you want to call it leadership, is where the supervisor has a hands-off approach to managing, is known as laissez faire or laisser faire. This is a leadership style where the supervisor does not participate in managing his employees. When this style of leadership occurs in a work environment the employees will select an informal leader to help them guide and inform them. This approach to leadership quite often happens when the supervisor is merely putting his time into the office waiting for his retirement.
Hay/McBer, a consulting firm, conducted a research, with a random sample of 3,871 executives selected from a database of more than 20,000 executives worldwide. The study determined that most leaders use more than one style of leadership. It, also, offers an understanding of how different leadership styles affect performance and results; and, offers clear guidance on when and why a manager should switch between the different leadership styles.
The research found six distinct leadership styles. The styles, taken individually, appear to have a direct and unique impact on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and in turn, on its financial performance. The research indicates that leaders with the best results do not rely on only one leadership style; they use most of them in a given week seamlessly and in different measure depending on the business situation.
What are the six styles of leadership?
- Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance.
- Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision.
- Affiliate leaders create emotional bonds and harmony.
- Democratic leaders build consensus through participation.
- Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction.
- Coaching leaders develop people for the future.
3 Comments
This is a great article. I’d like to point out that the democratic leadership style will also work when the leader knows all the answers, but chooses to let his followers participate in deciding a course of action anyway.
It is not about style, it is about what employees need in order to be the best that they can be, about how to cause them to unleash their full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment. It is about giving employees the quality of leadership they need.
So what is leadership? Leadership applies to people and denotes the sending of value standard messages to people which most of them then follow/use. Thus we say that they have been “led” in the direction of those standards. Leadership is one side of the coin called values, the other side being followership.
Leadership in the workplace consists of the value standards reflected in everything that an employee experiences. Most of what the employee experiences is the support or lack thereof provided by management - such as training, tools, parts, discipline, direction, material, procedures, rules, technical advice, documentation, information, etc.
Leadership is not a process any manager can change. It happens inexorably every minute of every day because of the way people are. The only choice available to a manager is the standard (good, bad, mediocre or in between) sent by the manager’s support, standards that people will follow.
For instance, the top-down command and control technique is a specific method by which to manage people. Top-down concentrates on producing goals, targets, visions, orders and other directives in order to control the workforce and thereby achieve organizational success. Top-down treats employees like robots in the “shut up and listen, I know better than you” mode, and rarely if ever listens to them.
In this way and others, top-down demeans and disrespects employees sending them very negative value standard messages. The standards reflected in this treatment “lead” the employees to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with the same level of disrespect they received. This is the road to very poor corporate performance as compared to the results that would be achieved using a better approach. Top-down managers are their own worst enemies.
If you want your employees to produce very high performance, get rid of all traces of a top-down approach. Start treating employees with great respect and not like robots by listening to whatever they want to say when they want to say it and responding in a very respectful manner, thus leading them to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with great respect. Everyone wants to do a good job and don’t want to be told what to do. They do want to be trained and coached so that they can do their work well. They don’t want democracy in the workplace and they do want someone to discipline the slackers.
Hope this helps.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
I really want to work on my leadership skills and this might really help. Thank you for posting this.