Leadership Styles Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Management

Introduction to Leadership Styles

Leadership is the practice of inspiring a group of people to take action towards a common goal. This can imply, in a business environment, directing staff and colleagues with a plan to meet the needs of the client. Leadership style is the approach and method of offering guidance, program exe-cution and people encouragement. It involves the complete sequence of the leader's behavior, both explicit and implicit (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). In 1939, Kurt Lewin performed the first major anal-ysis of leadership styles which led a group of researchers to recognize different leadership styles.The eight types of leadership styles involve Autocratic Leadership, Laissez-Faire Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Democratic Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Strategic Leader-ship, Coach-Style Leadership and Bureaucratic Leadership (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Leadership in the community service field is particularly important as it not only affects employee work perfor-mance and employee satisfaction but also how government and public agencies function. Leader-ship, including strategic planning, efficiency, openness and accountability, is key to good public governance. In this essay I will outline three types of leadership styles and demonstrator why each style is suited to leading in the Not-for Profit sector. I will also analyse the way key governance challenges impact on leaders and managers in the community service sector.

Transformational leadership style is a leadership at which a leader works with teams to define de-sired change, build a vision to direct change through encouragement, and implement the change in partnership with committed community members; it is an essential part of the Full Range Leader-ship Paradigm (Banks et al., 2016). Transformation leaders empower and encourage their team in their assigned roles without controlling as they trust qualified employees to take control over the decisions. It's a style of management designed to allow workers the freedom to be innovative, look forward to the future and find fresh solutions to old problems (Hoch et al., 2018). The key charac-teristics of the transition leader include fostering the inspiration and productive growth of followers, exemplifying moral principles within the company and inspiring others to do the same, promoting an ethical working atmosphere with strong values, goals and expectations, builds entrepreneurial culture by empowering workers to move from an mentality of self-interest to a mindset where they work for the common good, promotes honesty, teamwork and open communication, and offers guidance and mentoring, but encourages employees to make decisions and take responsibility for their tasks. Examples of transactional leaders include Charles de Gaulle and Joseph McCarthy.

Autocratic leadership is a form of leadership characterized by unilateral influence over all decisions and little feedback from group members. Usually, autocratic leaders make decisions based on their opinions and assumptions, and seldom consider followers' advice. It requires total, hierarchical con-trol over a party. The autocratic style, like other forms of leadership, has both some advantages and some drawbacks (Caillier, 2020). While those who rely heavily on this approach are often seen as bossy or dictator-like, in some cases this degree of control may have benefits and be of benefit. A few of the key characteristics of autocratic leadership include little to no feedback from group mem-bers, leaders make almost all the decisions, group leaders control all the working methods and pro-cedures, group members are rarely trusted with decisions to essential tasks, Work tends to be highly organized and very formal, imagination and out-of-box thinking tend to be discouraged, and guide-lines are important, and tend to be clearly defined and communicated (Banks et al., 2016). Attila the Hun, Father Junipero Serra, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, King Henry III and Queen Elizabeth I, these are several men who have displayed autocratic rule in the historical past of the world.

Laissez-faire leadership is a form of leadership style in which leaders are hands-off and allow group members to make the decisions. Researchers have found that this is generally the style of leadership which results in the lowest productivity among group members (Nielsen et al., 2019). The ad-vantages of laissez-faire style leadership include empowering employees and boosting overall productivity. This kind of leadership may also enable a team become more creative and boost the overall morale. Laissez-faire leadership is characterized by very little leadership direction, total freedom of decision taking for followers, leadership offers the support and resources required, group members are expected to solve issues on their own and power is turned over to followers, but leaders often take responsibility for the decisions and actions of the community. In fact, workers en-joy knowing that their employer has so much confidence in them that they can be inspired to work harder than before to help the company boost profits and get real results.

This style of leadership and its delegation mechanism allows the managers more time to focus on other high level tasks. The benefits of laissez-faire style leadership include inspiring workers and improving overall productiv-ity. This kind of leadership can also help a team become more creative and boost the overall morale. A managers who use this leadership style knows their team's desires, and recognizes their office's general spirit. A manager knows whether a single team member can excel with a hands-off ap-proach when selecting the leadership style. A number of well-known political and business figures have displayed characteristics of a laissez-faire leadership style over the course of history (Wong & Giessner, 2018). Steve Jobs was known to send his staff guidance about what they wished to do, but then left them to their own devices to find out how to satisfy their wishes.

Leadership programs clearly identify activities within an organization. Such programs establish the organisation's philosophy, language, strategy and overall direction. Leadership styles directly affect how clients are prioritized, how employees are treated and how relationships between vendors are maintained (Nielsen et al., 2019). Between the six types of leadership, the skeletal framework of a nonprofit that differ significantly to the point that it may affect the organization's survival. Profit and non-profit organisations have incorporated ideas of leadership in their day to day operations. In organizations, contingency or situational theory is applied to help and navigate leaders on their work practices.

The Style of Transactional Leadership revolves around progress information. Some benchmarks are set, and incentives are provided for achieving certain targets. This style is not often seen in non-profit workers who are usually inspired by the purpose of the organization. Creative or egalitarian workers fail to take on a transactional leader's authoritarian leadership principles. Still, a transac-tional leader suits well with rising organizations widening their regions of charitable outreach.

The autocratic model of leadership is better represented by organisations with one powerful leader and many followers. Best in circumstances where workers need continuous close monitoring, the leader has absolute control and all decisions are taken (Nielsen et al., 2019). This approach is ide-ally adapted where an Executive Director has good group and prospective donor connections. Un-der this style of management, innovation struggles so it would be best only for a more established nonprofit.

By delivering staff with little to no input a leader comes under the management philosophy of lais-sez-faire. Since this kind of leadership that impede the growth of supervised employees, this kind of leadership is most effective when combined with highly qualified and experienced employees. This is the most effective style when workers are able to fend for themselves and require no interference. Such style of management does not promote a team atmosphere and can easily contribute to exces-sive expenditure. Additionally, this hands-off strategy usually does not produce good fundraising campaign results.

Governance plays a major role in providing members with strategic guidance and helping them pro-mote engagement, mutual goals and transparency (Chelagat et al., 2019). Governance uses struc-tures and mechanisms to assist leadership. Leaders of the community service sector today are being asked to function with fewer resources and to constantly find new ways to deal with challenges.

Public sector leadership is especially significant, because it not only affects employee job perfor-mance and satisfaction, but also how government and government agencies work. Leadership is key to good governance of the community service sector, including good planning, efficiency, openness and accountability. Leaders of the community service sector often face problems different from those in the community service sector, and therefore call for specific competencies. For illustration, a report by Hudson, Decoding Public and Private Sector Leaders DNA, a recruiting and talent man-agement company in the Netherlands, found leaders of the public sector are faced with the task of efficiently providing public services in compliance with the approved procedures, processes and laws (Xavier et al., 2017). The challenges also involve micro-management.

While encouraging and coaching their staff to help them work to the best of their ability is undeniably the role of a man-ager, there is a fine line between managing and not giving people the room to do their job. The other problem is the of lack of contact. Also, no upward input is one of the problems that commu-nity service sector managers face. As a result, senior members in the community service sector are usually likely to follow and track policies and procedures, and provide specific guidance about how things are to be done. Without most of the privately accessible resources, empowering their workers may be a challenge for senior leaders in the community service field (Chelagat et al., 2019). There-fore, they may struggle with how to build a positive working atmosphere that encourages people to provide good public services.

Conclusion on Leadership Styles

It is concluded that the Leadership Styles are the interpersonal patterns that a leader embraces to impact his followers' behaviour, i.e. the manner he provides directions to his followers and encour-ages them to accomplish the given goals. Leadership styles directly affect how customers are priori-tized, how staff are treated and how relationships between vendors are preserved. Between the 6 types of leadership, the framework of an organization that differ significantly to the point that it may affect the organization's survival. Leaders of the community service sector today are being asked to function with fewer resources and to constantly find new ways to deal with challenges. Public sector leadership is particularly significant, because it not only determines employee work performance and engagement, but also how governance and agencies work. Leadership in every or-ganization is essential but it is particularly crucial to grow good leaders in the community service sector.

References for Leadership Styles

Banks, G. C., McCauley, K. D., Gardner, W. L., & Guler, C. E. (2016). A meta-analytic review of authentic and transformational leadership: A test for redundancy. The leadership quarterly, 27(4), 634-652.

Caillier, J. G. (2020). Testing the Influence of Autocratic Leadership, Democratic Leadership, and Public Service Motivation on Citizen Ratings of An Agency Head’s Performance. Public Perfor-mance & Management Review, 1-24.

Chelagat, T., Kokwaro, G., Rice, J., & Onyango, J. (2019). Addressing Health System’s Leadership Challenges through Different Problem-Solving Approaches. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 20(2).

Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.

Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2017). The emergence of leadership styles: A clarified categorization. Re-vista De Management Comparat International, 18(1), 18.

Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. (2018). Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Jour-nal of Management, 44(2), 501-529.

Nielsen, M. B., Skogstad, A., Gjerstad, J., & Einarsen, S. V. (2019). Are transformational and lais-sez-faire leadership related to state anxiety among subordinates? A two-wave prospective study of forward and reverse associations. Work & Stress, 33(2), 137-155.

Xavier, R., Komendantova, N., Jarbandhan, V., & Nel, D. (2017). Participatory governance in the transformation of the South African energy sector: Critical success factors for environmental lead-ership. Journal of Cleaner Production, 154, 621-632.

Wong, S. I., & Giessner, S. R. (2018). The thin line between empowering and laissez-faire leader-ship: An expectancy-match perspective. Journal of Management, 44(2), 757-783.

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