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.
