Leadership Traits of Participative, Directive, Entrepreneurial, and Charismatic Managers - Essay Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Leadership Traits Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction Leadership is an important aspect in individual’s professional life. An effective leader directs his or her team members to improved work performance in accordance to the organizational expectations, whereas, a leader who concentrates on issuing orders as well as commands on the tasks to be accomplished, de-motivates the team which leads to their poor performance. Therefore, leaders especially working professionals should be acquainted with the relevant leadership styles as well as techniques (Davidmann 1995). This is because working and the managing styles of a leader plays a great and significant role in achieving an effective leadership role in the organization. Various managers adopt distinctive leadership styles and techniques of managing the employees and the organizational work processes. Each of these leadership styles is identified by its own aspects, behaviors, effects and methods (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson 2007). The study examines and contrasts the leadership styles of participative, directive, entrepreneurship and charismatic leader, outlining the advantages as well as disadvantages of each leadership trait. Participative leadership style Participative leadership trait relates to the technique of getting things done through the involvement of team members in the goals and objectives settings as well as decision making activities. This type of leadership is very beneficial to the employees, process and the managers since it concerns with the involvement of the team members or employees as part of the organizational management. As a participative leader, it implies that such an individual has to involve his or her team in some of the decision making processes. In addition, the manager or leader works with and not over a team, making it very possible for him or her to identify even the resulting minute errors from the work processes which need to be executed (Fred, Kern, Snow & Curlette 2009). As a result, participative leadership styles have emerged to be the most significant management style in the entire business world. However, the argument on how much of the influence others are assigned may vary depending on preference and the beliefs of various managers, making the entire participation spectrum possible as illustrated below. < Not participative Highly participative > Autocratic decision by leader Leader proposes decision, listens to feedback, then decides Team proposes decision, leader has final decision Joint decision with team as equals Full delegation of decision to team   Several options related to the above spectrum exist that include the stages in which a leader reveals the idea to a team, while the other variant may be for a leader to illustrate what objectives and the goals and allow the team to decide on a how process to achieve them that is collectively referred to as Management by the Objectives. In addition, the participation level may be determined by the type of decision made. Such decisions related to how the implementation of goals can be very participative, whilst the decisions made during the subordinate performance assessment tend to be very much taken by a manager (Miner 2005). The emerging advantages from the participative leadership are that team members or the employees are motivated to perform their duties since they are able to recognize that management is in a position to value their suggestions as well as view points. Such employee motivation makes the team members to perform effectively well as expected, and hence raising the organizational revenue. In addition, since the manager or leader relates to the team members with the ability to take a role in decision making processes, creates a positive impact on the teamwork. Additionally, the participative leadership creates an environment where several minds work on the goal setting as well as decision making. For such a case, an all-round assessment of possibility failures is achieved or a complete situation analysis to be worked on. With participative type of leadership, it is very difficult to order as well as demand an individual to become creative, work as a team, involve in complex problem solving, improve on the quality and provide an outstanding customer services (Cohen 2000). Conversely, Time factor is one of the possible disadvantages of the participative leadership. The style does not regularly involve extra time prior to action taking. Another limitation of the participative leadership is that in case the leader inquires for the opinions and fails to find them suitable, the consequences are cynicism, reduced motivation, betrayal feelings and a decrease in the level of commitment (Hersey & Blanchard 1996). Participative which is also referred to as values-driven leadership style largely emphasizes on the decision making, power sharing, democratic management and decentralization. Most managers, who are also participative leaders, have an assumption that their employees or team are greatly motivated by the work which challenges them, is accomplished by a team of people which they respect and builds the skills which is contrary to the directive leadership (Tittemore 2003). An example of participative leadership is when a manager or leader divides the project tasks among the team members including him, makes a discussion of the project requirements as well as the expectations with the members and then work on the project collectively. Participative leadership increases the employee satisfaction, minimizes the workload among the managers and creates an improved teamwork that contributes to a better project work. Directive leadership Directive leadership is very common type of leadership. The leader directs or informs the subordinate on which tasks to perform and how to handle it. In addition, the leader is responsible for the action initiation on the activities to do through exercising the firm rule as well as ensuring that employees do adhere to the rule and perform as expected of them. Vecchio (2002) supported by identifying its advantage that directive leadership is very important particularly in military where the need for strictness as well as accuracy in task performance is considered as a virtue. However, employees under the directive leadership style always find it very difficult and even frustrating in executing their duties. This is because the leader behaves in manner that restricts the potentiality of the individuals within the organization since in most cases he or she is not recognizing their creativity as well as initiatives. This is in contrary to the expectations of a good leader since people always need to be led and not be managed. Directive leadership is normally illustrated more in the traditional and very competitive companies characterized with prevalent of cultures in such a country with an authoritative kind of rule, for instance, in the Asian countries (Vroom 2000). Entrepreneurial leadership With the application of the entrepreneurial leadership, the entrepreneur engages in the energetic behaviors in addition to the social networking so as to innovate as well as instill the competitive advantage. Entrepreneurs are totally different from the other leaders in the sense that they create, solve problems, take actions lead and build the organizations. All of the entrepreneurial behaviors generate the leadership competencies that uniquely differentiate as well as contrast him or her as a leader from the rest of business owners. Whereas Hersey and Blanchard (1996), challenges the advantages of entrepreneurship to the rest other leadership traits such as directive, participative and charismatic by arguing that the entrepreneurial leadership is very significant to the economic growth of all the countries in the world. For instance, the ethical decision-making is highly considered an important aspect of the entrepreneurial concern in academic literatures and in business press. A leader has the full control over the wider business leadership styles. In contrary, Strubler & Redekop (2010) argued that entrepreneurial leadership creates a unique twist because such leaders if they do not regularly create or introduce something new, they tend to lose their energy. In addition, in case tasks become complicated and that may require some endless discussions on the policies, systems as well as controls, then most of the entrepreneurial leaders lose their enthusiasm, at times their confidence and focus. Charismatic leadership A charismatic leader sways his or her followers who may be employees with a dynamic and magnetic personality, normally through the inspiration of the speeches. Individuals follow the charismatic leaders not necessarily in regard to their message contents. The charismatic leadership can be explained well by contrasting it with the concept of leadership, therefore, charismatic leadership is perceived as a style over the substance. Additionally, Enthusiastic followers are in a position to identify with such contents that are promoted by the charismatic leaders. However, those individuals may not be required to proof before getting on such bandwagon and can be swayed by the charm as well as magnetic personality of the charismatic leader. In conclusion, the underlying advantage of a charismatic leader is that, such a leader injects very huge doses of the enthusiasm trait into the team and he or she is so energetic in enabling others to pursue their goals (Kotter1999). However, a charismatic leader may tend to have a more believe in him or her compared to their teams. This may result into the creation of risks to a given project or the entire organization, and hence leading to the collapse in case such leader leaves the organization. Therefore, to the team members, success is very much tied up with the availability of a charismatic leader. As a result, the charismatic leader holds great responsibility that needs very long-term commitment efforts from such a leader (Sternberg 2002). Charismatic leadership greatly differs from the rest of leadership styles such directive, participative and entrepreneurship because is suitable for realizing the radical visions or applicable in crises. Additionally, it is not very much concerned with behavior influence to the achievement of the long-term goals. Charismatic leadership style, particularly in business organizations is often applied by the entrepreneurs who are involved in the establishment of new companies or the transformational managers that are seeking to revitalize the established organizations. Conclusion Effective managers require an adoption of leadership style that complements with their position, personality, and environment in addition to their leadership traits. Such managers, who apply the directive leadership style, normally are less concerned with the building of a consensus for their respective visions than they are to motivating others in achieving it. The behaviors of leaders or their leadership styles have great influence on their employees or the followers. 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