Effective Leadership Styles - Example

Table of Contents Particulars Page No 1.0 Introduction 2 2.0 Understanding Leadership 3 3.0 Different Leadership Styles 3 4.0 Effective Leadership Styles with Examples 4 5.0 Conclusion 8 6.0 References 9 1.0 Introduction This report has been prepared in a comprehensive manner to focus on the topic that “There is no one effective leadership style that should be used a leader(s) in today’s organization”. It is a known and empirically proven fact that leaders are certainly an important ingredient in shaping an organizational success. With different organizations there come different leaders and their leadership styles. However, this report focus on a critical analysis of different leadership styles that must be used by leaders in today’s organization to ensure better organizational success and performance as there is no one effective leadership style which can stringently be applied by a leader in today’s organization. The report initially looks to focus and concentrate on the term leadership and various leadership styles commonly deployed by leaders in different organizations. The report makes a clear attempt to explain the various leadership styles and make a discussion on how no one effective leadership style should be used by a leader in today’s organization. Furthermore a clear implication and discussion has been made in context to modern organizational structures and today’s organization by evaluating various examples linked to the topic. Finally a conclusion has been prepared to support the discussed findings and observations through academic literature to ensure both practical and theoretical understanding of the entire topic under study. 2.0 Understanding Leadership Leadership has been defined and explained in differing perspective in context of today’s organizational changes. Leadership is indeed a process where a leader through its special attributes, traits, personality and experience influence the individual and group activities towards a specific goal setting criteria and achievement of the same. Leadership is thus a social process through which a group or community delegates certain power to an individual who looks towards influencing the behaviour of others without pressurizing but instead using motivation as an effective tool to reach a specific goal or objective (Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas & Halpin, 2006, p. 303). Leadership has become an important factor in human affairs and in today’s organizational context it has become an essential element for organization to have a good leader to ensure sustainable competitive advantage over others. It is to be further noted that there are various theories and styles associated with leaders and it is of prime importance to have a look at the same to better understand the topic that “There is no one effective leadership style that should be used a leader(s) in today’s organization”. 3.0 Different Leadership Styles Effective leadership is characterised by study of different leadership styles. The different types or kind of leadership which has been identified through various research and findings mainly includes autocratic leadership, democratic leadership and delegating or Laissez- Faire Leadership style (Fiedler, 2012, p. 455). An autocratic leadership style is more inclined towards an authoritarian style of management. The leader here exercises superior powers and involve activities of bossing around and guiding others of what and how to do a task. This style of leadership is usually more common and successful in group-members who are not self-motivated and mostly prefer structure along with significant directing and monitoring from their group leader. The democratic or participative leadership style is mostly welcomed in most of the modern day’s organization as it involves active participation of all members by the group leader in making crucial decision makings. This style of leadership allows for multiple view-points, inputs and equal participation while still maintaining the leadership role and its effective control over the team. A Laissez-Faire Leadership style works and suits the most when the members of the group are highly skilled and motivated with an excellent past record of handling situations with excellence. Here the leadership style is more of a delegating task where the leader has complete confidence and trust among its group members. Thus, we already witnessed different leadership style which can be applied to differing situations in a same organization clearly indicating that there is no one fixed unique leadership style which can be used a leader in today’s dynamic changing organizational working environment. Furthermore, leadership style varies as per behavioural aspects of leaders like servant leadership, transactional leadership, transformational leadership, charismatic leadership, situational leadership etc. All this style of leadership further falls under the above discussed broad category of leadership style. 4.0 Effective Leadership Style with Examples There are various factors which a leader needs to acquire or adopt to ensure effective leadership and higher probability of success. Leadership style needs to vary as per different situations as the same leadership style does not work well for all situations. For each specific situation a leader has to decide upon his/her leadership role and then apply the most effective leadership style accordingly. Being stringent to a specific leadership in today’s organizational context is more of welcoming future unsolved problems and resistance at work than ensuring higher productivity and growth of the organization. For instance, if a leader has to deal with a member whose employee behaviour is inappropriate but if the leaders stringently follow an authoritarian style the results are more likely to be unproductive (Hogan & Kaiser, 2004, p. 3). Factors such as organizational structure, amount of power the leader holds, relationship with followers, communication strategy applied etc are some factors which need to be considered while adopting to a leadership style in a specific situation which again needs to be evaluated and altered as per specific need of the problem. Further no one effective leadership style should be used by leaders in today’s organization as there is a very popular idiom used in India which says “All fingers in a hand vary in their own shapes, sizes, uniqueness and activities”, so is the case with leadership style as an organization has a group of individuals who vary in terms of their intelligence, personality, traits, strengths and capabilities (Harris and Kuhnert, 2007, p. 63). A leader in order to maintain co-ordination and higher output of productivity needs to alter his/her leadership style as per group requirements and specific situations. There is certainly no tailor-made stringent leadership style which can be applied all throughout the life to become an effective leader. Let us take the classical example of one of the most successful leaders in a global context. Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple Inc. who through his own varying leadership style ensured high performance of the organization and enabled the company to reach zenith in global rankings both in terms of service and financially. Jobs leadership style was much dynamic and he never adapted himself to a specific leadership style. His charismatic leadership style was one of the main reasons and key drivers behind Apple’s success. The company required a charismatic leader to step and transform the company which was successfully executed by Jobs (Hooijberg & Dension, 2002, p. 43). To ensure a no compromise on quality of Apple’s product, Jobs followed a complete different approach from being a Charismatic leader to adapt to a Tyrannical leadership style with autocratic leadership behaviour where he followed a system of “hire and fire rule” to ensure his team members were always active and delivered products of high quality. Furthermore, Steve Jobs was a special example of leader who dominated his team members and guided them rightly by following not just Authoritarian style of leadership but well challenging himself and changing to democratic leadership style for crucial decision making to win the trust and confidence of his team members along with fostering competition and motivation among his team members for better and higher productivity (Avery & Jing, 2008, p. 153). In addition today’s organizational environment has become much more complex and dynamic and requires changes at a constant basis. Applying a strict leadership style with no alterations to the same drives a higher probability of not just future losses but even removal of the current leader (Davis and Luthans, 2009, p. 239). For example, the leaders of most small sized private concerns in Asian companies are either changed by their followers of by the organization itself due to being continuously stringent to a specific leadership style in all situations which not just hinders or acts as barrier in the organizational development but also acts as a important element in evoking resentment of work among his followers. Choosing the right leadership style and altering the leadership style has its own added advantage to the organization as a whole like achievement of higher efficiency and performance, enhancement of loyalty of followers to their leaders and company, reduced employee turnouts, cost reductions etc. For instance, let us take the leadership example of Willie Walsh who is currently the CEO of British Airways. Walsh similar to Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. has demonstrated the very key that no single or one effective leadership style can be used by leader(s) in today’s organization. British Airways faced tough and fierce competition from both its local and international counterparts with declining sales and revenue when Walsh took over the charge of the organization. He adopted a transactional style of leadership style where his team members were motivated through a system of reward and punishment. Clear structures of requirements were set of what is expected from each of his team member and what would get them rewards or punishment. A vision of transformation was set which excite and convert potential followers. As a result of the same the organization was certainly able to achieve higher efficiency and performance however on the negative side employee turnover was increased. To tackle the situation, Walsh changed his leadership style form being transformational to situational leadership style along with democratic style of leadership where the employees were themselves asked to set upon their targets based on market conditions and later evaluate their performance with the earlier set standards (Bons and Fiedler, 1976, p. 458). This certainly helped in reducing employee turnover with higher performance. Furthermore, the leadership style as a result of the same was again changed to charismatic leadership style where the new and existing members were much attracted using the charm, personality and leadership style of Walsh than using any form of external power or authority. To become an effective leader it is of much importance for leaders to understand the individual needs and wants of his/her team members and align the organizational objectives with individual objectives by adopting the right mix of leadership style which needs to changed or altered as per situations. Being an effective leader is an essential element to reach the targeted goals and any good or effective leader must know that leadership style is best performed when the leader is successfully able to generate a tight bond with the followers (Arvey, 2001, p. 31). Furthermore, nothing is static in this dynamic working environment and so are the followers and their individual goals and objectives along with both short term and long term goals and objectives of the organization which varies with time and need. To ensure an optimal reach and achievement of such dynamic objectives it is important for the leader to change upon its leadership style to match the best fit with the organizational need and wants. A high-quality leader need to develop an effective leadership style which is situation specific and alter the same on basis of changing needs through efforts being directed towards building teams that work effectively and efficiently to achieve a special purpose. In a nutshell, leaders need to develop an effective leadership style which should be decisive and action oriented to implement dynamic strategies that lead to success which in turn can only be achieved through exercising different leadership style as per situation pertaining. Thus, ensuring that there is no one effective leadership style which can be used by a leader in context to fast changing environment of today’s organization. 5.0 Conclusion The report has been drafted with empirical findings and minute research of academic literature along with suitable examples and real world demonstrations of leadership style to effectively highlight and justify that “There is no one effective leadership style that should be used by leader(s) in today’s organization”. The report further looks to present both theoretical and practical exposure of the said topic under study. 6.0 References Arvey, D. (2001). The determinants of leadership: the role of generic, personality, and cognitive factors. Journal of applied psychology, 12 (4), 16-35 Avery, G.C. & Jing F.F. (2008) Missing Links in understanding the relationship between leadership and organizational performance. International Business & Economic Research Journal, 7 (5), 134-167 Bons, M. P. and Fiedler. E. F. (1976) Changes in Organizational Leadership and the Behavior of Relationship- and Task- Motivated Leaders. ASQ, 21 (3), 453-473. Burke, C. S., Stagl, K. C., Klein, C., Goodwin, G. F., Salas, E., & Halpin, S. M. (2006). What type of leadership behavior are functional in teams? A meta-analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 17, 288-307. Davis. R.V. and Luthans. F. (2009). Leadership Reexamined: A behavioral Approach. The Academy of Management Review, 4 (2), 237-248 Fiedler. E. Fred. (2012). The Effects of Leadership Training and Experience: A Contingency Model Interpretation. ASQ, 17 (4), 453-470. Harris S. Lauren and Kuhnert W. Karl (2007). Looking through the lens of leadership: a constructive developmental approach. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 29 (1), 47-67 Hogan. R., Kaiser R.B. (2004) What We Know about Leadership, Review of Journal of Psychology. Hooijberg. R. & Dension. R.D. (2002). What makes Leader Effective? A stakeholder approach to leadership effectiveness. 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