Organizational performance is always directly related to the profitability of the organization concerning the revenue growth and net profit accrued to the business both in short and long term. In a business organization, shareholders and creditors desire and endeavor to work with corporate entities which often achieve higher performance by earning more profit, experiencing faster growth, and gaining a competitive edge against other rival firms in the industry. However, for an organization to achieve these objectives, an organization must adopt an effective and dynamic leadership style. Leadership refers to the process of influencing other people towards achieving a common goal. An organizational leader’s leadership style plays a vital role in influencing the motivation of other employees to work together as a team to achieve the desired organizational performance. The three common leadership styles that are common in modern workplaces are; democratic, authoritarian, and laissez-faire leadership styles.
Democratic leadership styles is a type of leadership approach which enhances the participation of every member of a group in the decision-making process. In this leadership style, employees are given the opportunity to participate in making critical decisions that affect the organization by sharing their opinions or ideas freely without fear of intimidation by the top management. Even though employees are given the liberty to share their views or concerns, the leader still assumes the oversight and control role. Authoritarian leadership style also known as dictatorial style refers to leadership approach where the leader dictates almost all the policies and procedures of the organization and makes all the critical decisions that affect the company without consulting other subordinates. In this type of leadership approach, the leader has the full control of the employees thus leaving low autonomy within the entire workforce. On the other hand, the laissez-faire leadership approach is a type of leadership approach where the leader allows group members to make vital decisions. Under this leadership style, a leader will delegate the organization roles to other subordinates with the hope that those appointed to perform these roles will undertake them with the perfection required.
While the authoritarian leadership styles lack the aspect of consultation, both the democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles allow discussions between the leader and other subordinate employees. Both laissez-faire and democratic approaches are associated with good decision making since the management makes decisions after making consultation with other members of the company. On the other hand, authoritarian leadership undermines better decision making since the leader makes all the important decisions without consulting anyone. However, because of the need for consultation, both democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles face communication failure and time consumption during the decision-making process, thus limiting the ability of the leader to control or act timely in addressing avert the challenges that may face the organization.
Unlike authoritarian leadership approach where the leader decides the organization operates, democratic and laissez-faire enhances the aspect of employees’ motivation which is crucial in enhancing the productivity of these employees and ultimately promote organization’s performance. Laissez-faire also promotes creativity, independence, and career development among workers since they are given specific roles to undertake in the organization. It is evident that these three types of leadership approaches have their advantages and setbacks and hence their application in an organization may vary and overlap. That is, a leader might be democratic in one instance, apply authority in other cases to get things done, and sometimes also adopt the laissez-faire approach to enhance workers independence and creativity.
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