LEADERSHIP STYLES

The way in which a leader uses power also establishes a type of style. Each power styleautocratic, participative, and free-rein has its benefits and limitations. A leader uses all three styles over a period of time, but one style tends to predominate as a normal way of using power. An illustration is a factory supervisor who is normally autocratic, but she is participative in determining vacation schedule, and she is free- rein in selecting a departmental representative for the safety committee. AUTOCRATIC LEADERS Autocratic, or authoritarian, leaders centralize power and decision making. The leaders take full of authority and assume full responsibility. Benevolent autocrat- Autocratic leaders whose motivational styles are positive. Leaders also may feel more comfortable and effective when they are autocratic, because this gives them more security and confidence that they can take action. Some advantages of autocratic leaders are that it provides strong motivation and reward for the leader. It permits quick decision making, because only one person decides for the group. Less competent submanagers probably can be used because their principal job is to carry out orders. The main disadvantage of autocratic leadership is that people dislike it especially if it is extreme and the motivational style is negative. Frustration, low morale, and conflict develop easily in autocratic situations. PARTICIPATIVE LEADERS Participative leadership decentralizes authority. Participative decisions are not unilateral, as with the autocratic, because they arise from consultation with followers and participation by them. The leader and group are acting as a social unit. Employees are broadly informed about conditions affecting their jobs, which encourages their ideas and suggestion. FREE-REIN LEADERS Free-rein leaders avoid power. They depend largely upon the group to establish its own goals and work out its own problems. Group members train themselves and provide their own motivation. The leader exists primarily as contact with outside persons to bring the group the information and resources needed to accomplish its job. Free-rein leadership ignores the leaders contribution approximately in the same way that autocratic leaderships ignores the group. It fails to give the group the advantages of leader-inspired motivation. It tends to permit different units of an organization to proceed at cross purposes, and it can de`generate into chaos. LESSONS LEARNED True leadership is the art of changing a group from what it is into what it ought to be.