Free Leadership Styles Essay Example

Based on the characteristics of the founding culture of IKEA, Toyota and Starbucks, it would appear that each of these corporations has chosen a different leadership style. IKEA was founded as a family business and as such, it has unique features that clearly depict its business culture and model. The leadership style at IKEA is an autocratic one where the family founder of the business, Ingvar Kamprad sets the company’s operation strategies and objectives and is in control of most of the business. The owner’s visions and leadership styles are applied with minimal room for diversion. Such a leadership style is not usually advisable because employees may feel motivated. They may feel that organization goals are given preference while their own goals are ignored. In such a system, there is ultimately no room for personal rewards for exemplary work done by an employee. Toyota on the other hand practices a more decentralized leadership style. Company’s overall visions and strategies are crafted at the top hierarchy level but employees and lower level managers are given some autonomy. Employees are treated as member of a team and their opinion is highly regarded. Due to this type of culture, employees are Toyota feel motivated because of the fact that they are now part of a team where their input hugely matters. In addition, good efforts and performance by employees is constantly rewarded. Starbucks leadership style is democratic in nature. Although there is a leader of the entire franchise, managers and employees have the freedom to make decisions that significantly affect their operations in their home regions. They do have to consult the overall leader of the company. Therefore, just like in Toyota, motivation is usually high in such a business culture and this consequently results in higher business performance.
However, in spite of the business cultural differences in these companies, one conspicuous similarity in all the companies is that there is a single overseer of all company operations. Although the decentralization level of his powers varies between the three companies, the top head is personally responsible for the overall success and failure of the company. In terms of motivation, this leader is expected to follow by example. His actions performance will essentially motivate those below him and will significantly affect the success or failure of the company.