Stars by Maria Moreno and Raquel Pelayo.

LEADERSHIP STYLES

Maria and me (Raquel) have been the stars this week, and we had to present the different styles of leadership and we decided to make us the role of each leadership and the follower the other member of our groups. Personally, we think that the best way to explain something or to have a better understanding is by this form, in the sense that we catch the attention of everybody and people, by themselves, can see the advantages and disadvantages in an indirect way.  Without explaining anything they can see what is normal and what is strange.

Continuing, we are going to explain a little bit about this topic.

 We have to start working on something that we already know its meaning, so, what is a leadership? A leadership is a leader’s style of providing directions, implementing plans and motivating people. There are 6 different types of leadership; each one is defined by some characteristics that make it different from the other ones.

The first one is the Democratic Leadership, where the leader shares his opinions and decisions with his or her workers, creating a social equality and a good creative environment. Each member takes a specific role, so they can solve complex problems without difficulty, thinking in better ideas and more creative solutions.

This is an effective and productive system that requires guidance and control by the specific leader, but it not only requires huge time consumption but also, when rules are unclear, it can lead to communication failures.

The second type is the Authoritarian Leadership in which the leader has the power decision, so the decisions are made quickly, producing a stable and safe work environment. But this type of leadership also has bad things, because the leader impose his domains without any discussion and he punish the contrary behaviours producing repression at the workers, so that there is not a personal relationship between the leader and his workers.

The third type of leadership is the Paternalistic Leadership in which the leader acts as a father. In this kind of leadership, workers are able to go to each other without any problem in order to help between them, so that they have better organization skills. But they are totally committed to what the leader believes; they will not strive off and work independently. Another bad thing is that the leader could play favourites in decisions, including the workers more apt to follow and excluding the ones who are less loyal. For that reason, when co-workers begin to believe that their jobs are not ensure, they start to look for bigger and better job opportunities, what puts the workers and leaders at risk for a bad situation.

The fourth leadership is the Laissez-faire Leadership. Its name translates to "leave do" in French. Laissez-faire leadership, also known as delegative leadership, is a type of leadership style in which leaders are hands-off and allow group members to make the decisions. They think that employees know their jobs best, so they must leave them alone to do their jobs.

Employees can set their own schedules, without needing to consult the leader for every decision made, and are free to toss around ideas in a team-work environment.

Such a leader provides basic but minimal information and resources to his employees

Researchers have found that this is generally the leadership style that leads to the lowest productivity among group members.

a)      Advantages

It can be one of the best types of leadership and it can be so efficient in the cases where group members are knowledgeable and experienced.

a)      Disadvantages

If the group members are not qualified enough and they need a constant supervision it can only lead to chaos and inefficiency. It’s not a good type of leadership for the people that are not good at setting their own deadlines, managing their own projects or solving problems on their own.

+Summary of main characteristics:

• Very little guidance from leaders
• Complete freedom for followers to make decisions and set schedules
• Leaders provide the tools and resources needed
• Group members are expected to solve problems on their own

For example, our class mate Feli, had to represent this type of leadership. She just said us that we must to create a school and we began to think how will be our ideal school. Personally, I think that it was a little unreal, but with the information that we had, we thought the best things for our school and we worked well.

The fifth type is the Transactional Leadership. This type of leadership says to their followers what they have to do, and they have the freedom to take decisions and think some ideas. Then the leadership will supervise their work and if it is good they will be rewarded, however, if they do not do the work well or they do not do it, the leader will punish them.

a)      Advantages

- It can be very effective for motivating subordinates and eliciting productivity.

- Transactional leadership assumes that people are motivated by rewards, they will cede authority to their chosen leaders and fulfill goals and objectives set by their leaders.

-Motivates followers by appealing to their own self-interest.

-Management-by-exception maintains the status quo.

b)     Disadvantages

-       It assumes that people are only motivated because of money and not because of the reason why they actually want to do it.

-       The leadership model will create a stressful work environment.

And finally, the last style of leadership is the Transformational Leadership. This type of leadership say to his/her followers what they must do and they do not receive any kind of rewards because work is for the  good of the group and improve like a group, all together.

a)      Advantages:

-Employees achieve objectives through higher ideals and moral values.

-Motivates followers by encouraging them to put group interests first.

-Individualized consideration: Each behavior is directed to each individual to express consideration and support.

 
-Intellectual stimulation: Promote creative and innovative ideas to solve problems.

-It will develop future leaders form lot of followers.

-People will work for the leader, even if the monetary and other benefits offered are lesser, as they will be inspired by his vision.

b)     Disadvantages:

-Transformational leaders achieve change by motivating followers to set aside individual or short-term interests to work together toward a group goal.

- And the leader does not lead to their follower take decisions and make the things like he/she wants, so they have not enough freedom to express their ideas.

Finally, we conclude on that a good leader must have different characteristics of every type on leadership. A leader should motivate his workers, creating a social equality and giving different roles in order to create a proper working, creative and stable work environment. He has to have the power decision but giving to his workers the opportunity to participate and decide about the main idea.