Leadership

Management

Motivates and inspires others

Directing and monitoring 

Creates, developed a culture of change

Fits into the norms of the organization

Respected by followers due to admiration 

Respected due to authority, position

Stems from personal traits

Official position in a company

Believes in doing the right thing

Believes in doing the thing right

Natural abilities and instincts

Qualified to perform in the role

Definition

Features

Drawbacks

applications

Autocratic:  leadership style that keeps all decision-making at the center of the organization

• Leader takes all decisions
• Gives little information to staff about business
• One way communication
• Supervises workers closely

• Demotivates staff 
• Decisions do not benefit from employee input

• Police/defense  forces

• In times of crisis

Paternalistic: fatherly style used by dominant males where their power is used to control and protect subordinate employees who are expected to be loyal and obedient

• ‘father-like’ figure takes decisions but in interests of Employees

• feedback and consultation encouraged, but not participative decision-making

• Low staff motivation if loyal connection to leader not established

•  Increasing dependency of employees on the leader, more supervision required

• Employee dissatisfaction if bad decisions are made

• Family-owned businesses

• In a business where creative thinking is not required of employees

Democratic: 

promotes the active participation of workers in taking decisions

• Feedback given/allowed
• 2 way communication
• Information about business is conveyed to employees
• Participation encouraged

• Discussions are time consuming
• Quick decision making required occasionally
• Level of involvement: job losses, new products developments are a secret  

• businesses that expect workers to contribute fully to the production and decision-making processes, satisfying their higher order needs

• An experienced & flexible workforce will benefit from this style

• In situations that demand a new way of thinking/solution

Laissez-faire leadership: leaves much of the business decision-making to the workforce (reverse of the autocratic style)

• Managers delegate virtually all authority/decision-making powers

• broad criteria/limits established for the staff to work within

• Workers may feel loss of security due to the lack of structure and direction in their work

• Lack of feedback – as managers will not be closely monitoring progress – may be demotivating

• managers are too busy/lazy to intervene
• Research institutions 

Situational leadership: 

effective leadership varies with the task in hand and situational leaders adapt their leadership style to each situation

• Style depends on the nature of the task and the work group’s skills and willingness to accept responsibility

• Varying the style of leadership may be difficult for some workers to accept and they may become uncertain of how they will be led in different situations

• By allowing flexibility of leadership style, different leadership approaches can be used in different situations and with different groups of people