Leadership Styles
Successful organizations differ from unsuccessful because they have a more dynamic and effective leadership. The words ‘leadership’ and ‘leader’ are synonymous to the words ‘management’ and ‘manager’. However, the nature of leadership can be better understood when compared with the management. Being a manager and being a leader in the organization - it is not the same thing. Manager, first of all, uses and relies on official power base and sources of its supply. Leadership is based more on the process of social influence. This process is much more complex, requiring a high level of interdependence of their participants. So, what are the main leadership styles and what are their features?
Situational leadership
The main idea of the situational leadership is the assumption that leadership behavior should be different in different situations. Situational approach to the study of leadership explores the interaction of different situational variables in order to discover the cause-and-effect relationship with regard to leadership allowing to predict the possible leader’s behavior and its consequences.
According to the Tannenbaum & Schmidt’s Leadership Continuum model, the leader chooses one of seven possible patterns of behavior depending on the three factors: the leadership itself, its followers and current situation.
This model distinguishes between two styles of leadership management: democratic and authoritarian. The difference between these two contrary leadership styles is based on assumptions about the sources of the leader's power and human nature. A democrat believes that he is given the power of followers, and that people basically have the ability to self-management and creative work under proper motivation. An autocrat, on the other hand, believes that power is given by his position in the group and that people are lazy and one shouldn’t rely on them.
The Hersey-Blanchard Model of Leadership, as well as other concepts of situational leadership, does not involve a search of the single way to achieve effective leadership. Instead, it focuses on situational leadership effectiveness. One of the key factors is called the maturity of followers determined by people’s desire and ability to perform the task set by the leaders. Maturity includes two components. The first component (professional) is the knowledge, skills, experience, abilities as a whole. The second component (psychological maturity) corresponds to the employee’s motivation, his or her desire to do the work.
Thus, according to Bolden et al. (2003), “Their theory is based on the amount of direction (task behavior) and socio-emotional support (relationship behavior) a leader must provide given the situation and the "level of maturity" of the followers”.
Depending on the followers’ maturity degree, leaders must adjust their actions relating to the establishment of relations with subordinates and on the structuring of the work itself. Hence, there are four leadership styles.
Directing style is the best in the case of low mature followers. Leader is made to exhibit a high directivity and careful supervision of employees, thus helping people who are unable and unwilling to take responsibility for the work. He should eliminate the uncertainty that the work will be completed.
Coaching style is the best for moderately low mature followers implementing equally prescriptive and support to those who are not able, but willing to work.
Supporting style is the best for moderately high mature followers. Able to work, but not willing to perform their tasks, subordinates need leader’s partnership in order to be more motivated to perform their work. Giving these people the opportunity to participate in decision-making, the leader uses this style to encourage followers’ desire to perform the task.
Delegating style is the best guide for highly mature followers. The style is characterized by workers support. This allows followers, who are able and willing to work, to take the maximum responsibility while performing the task. This leadership style promotes creative approach to work.
Charismatic leadership
Charisma is a form of influence on others through personal appeal, calling support and recognition of leadership that provides the holder of charisma with a power over followers, according to Bolden et al. (2003). Charisma gives the advantages for effective leaders to exert their influence on subordinates.
Charismatic leader is a person who is able to exert a profound influence on followers in virtue of his personal qualities. Leaders of this type are experiencing a strong need in power and believe in the moral rightness of what they do. Need for power motivates them to become leaders.
Charismatic leadership is somewhat similar to transformational one because such leaders inspire and infect their team with energy and enthusiasm for the work. Such ability to excite desire and enthusiasm is a big advantage.
The difference between charismatic and transformational leadership styles is in the leader’s role. Transformational leaders seek to transform their team and organization as a whole, whereas charismatic leaders focus on themselves. They may not even have the desire to change anything in the team or organization.
The disadvantage of such leaders is that they believe in themselves more than in their team. In addition, with the resignation of such a leader the whole organization may suffer. The charismatic leader is sure that he is always doing things right, even if other employees may report about his shortcomings. This overconfidence can harm both the team and the organization as a whole.
In the eyes of everyone around the organization's success depends entirely on the presence of a charismatic leader. Therefore, charismatic leadership involves a lot of responsibility and requires longstanding cooperation from the leader.
Transformational leadership
Transformational leadership is one of the styles that can inspire those who follow the leader for positive change. Transformational leaders are generally energetic, full of enthusiasm and passion. What is more, these leaders are interested in their work and are deeply immersed in the process; they also assist any member of the group in order to reach success. According to Northouse (2004), “Transformational leadership treats leadership as a process that occurs between followers and leaders.”
The concept of transformational leadership was first introduced by the expert in leadership and presidential biographer, James MacGregor Burns. According to Burns, “[Transforming leadership] occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality." (as cited in Bolden et al., 2003). Thanks to their vision and charisma, transformational leaders are able to inspire followers to change their expectations, perceptions and even motivation to move together to achieve common goals.
Later, one of the researchers, Bernard M. Bass, expanded the original idea of Burns and developed what is now called the Bass theory of transformational leadership. “Bass conceptualized the transactional and transformational dimensions as separate whereas Burns had defined them as two ends of a spectrum” (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). Transformational leadership, according to Bass, can be defined on the possible effect on the followers. Bass believed that transformational leaders inspire trust, respect and admiration of their followers.
He also suggested that there are four components of transformational leadership.
Intellectual stimulation: transformational leaders not only challenge the current state of affairs, they also seek to promote, ensure with a creative approach those whom they lead. Leader calls on followers to discover new ways to do the work and to use all the possibilities to learn something previously unknown.
Individualized consideration: transformational leadership also accounts on the support and encouragement of individual workers. In order to provide support for each team member, transformational leaders are always open to dialogue, so their subordinates do not hesitate to share their ideas. Hence the leader is always ready to recognize the unique contributions of each employee to the common cause.
Inspirational motivation: transformational leaders clearly understand how to articulate both plans and tasks for their employees. Such a leader can also help others to obtain sufficient motivation to perform most of these tasks.
Idealized influence: transformational leader must serve his followers as a role model. After all, when the followers respect their leader, they begin to imitate that person, to some extent adopt his way of thinking, ideals and values.
Transactional leadership
A transaction or a process of interchange between the leader and the group is the foundation of the transactional leadership. Transactional leader takes into account the needs and desires of the group and meet its demands in exchange for the achievement of specific objectives or incurring certain duties, according to Northouse (2004). Thus, subordinates are rewarded for their work whereas the leader gets benefits from the performance of tasks.
Transactionasl leaders focus on the current activities of the organization with regard to productivity, impersonal aspects of the work and traditional management functions such as planning and budgeting. Leaders of this type can be quite effective. Living up to their hopes, they help employees to gain self-confidence. In addition, it contributes to improving the productivity and moral condition of the staff. However, transactional leaders tend to follow the standard rules, so they are more eager to stability than to change. Transaction skills are important for all managers. On the other hand, considering the rapid changes nowadays, organizations need leaders who use other methods, mostly transformational ones.
Conclusion
Therefore, approaches to the study of leadership employ the combination of three key variables: leadership skills, leadership behavior and the situation in which the leader acts. In addition, the characteristics and behavior of the followers play an important role as well. Each approach offers its own solution to the problem of effective leadership. The situational leadership model is based on the various possible situations and, thus, provides different possible scenarios of the leader’s behavior. Meanwhile, charismatic, transformational and transactional leadership models are focused on the leader’s ability to create a new vision for solving problems and employing his charisma to inspire followers and arouse their enthusiasm for the implementation of actions to achieve the goals.
References
Bolden, R., Dennison, P., Gosling, J., & Marturano, A. (2003). A Review of Leadership Theory and Competency Frameworks. Exeter.
Conger, J., & Kanungo, R. (1998). Charismatic leadership in organizations. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Northouse, P. (2004). Leadership. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
