Leadership is one of the most critical constructs of organizational structures in the society today. Leaders are entitled with the responsibility of giving direction and making decisions that affect the progression of an organization. There are various types of leader that exists in the world today. The most common include autocratic, bureaucratic, diplomatic, participative, and free-rein.
In autocratic leadership, the leader is perceived to be overly authoritarian. This is because the leaders take charge of most of the activities that occur in the organization without giving the subjects a lot of freedom. The leaders control all the resources and decisions that are made within the organization and do not allow sufficient input from the other members of the organizations (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Van Engen, 2003). In this case, the leader exhibits his superiority over the subjects through the powers associated with the leadership position. The autocratic leaders depend on their judgments and ideas in making critical decisions.
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"Types of Leadership Styles".
Bureaucratic leaders are characterized by their strict adherence to rules and laws that govern an organization. The ability to follow the normative organizational rules in executing their mandate is one their strengths and unique characteristics as leaders. Each and every organization has a strict set of rules and regulations that are immutable and this is the structural basis through which the bureaucratic leaders perform their duties and functions (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). The bureaucratic leaders also insist on the use of historical and procedural protocols even when there is change of circumstance.
Diplomatic leadership has a high focus on the interest of the subjects while in administration. Organizations are characterized by high level of diversity due to the existence of people from various social, cultural and religious backgrounds. Diplomatic leadership focuses in bringing people from various backgrounds together to find a common working ground. A crucial point of focus for diplomatic leaders is their ability to treat all people in the organization fairly without showing any level of bias. Therefore, diplomatic leaders are able to study their subjects and embrace their personal beliefs positives as strengths to promote productivity (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Van Engen, 2003). One of the powerful tools for the diplomatic leaders is through embracing high level of negotiation as practical and satisfactory way of solving conflicts to find a common ground for all organizational members.
Participative leadership is a management ideology where all organizational stakeholders are involved in governance. In this leadership, all members of the organization are involved in making decisions that run the organizational activities (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). There is active collaboration and consultation in this leadership style that ensures the ideas of all members of the organization are taken into consideration while making decisions. The organizational members are involved in identification of essential organizational goals and objectives and amicable solutions are found through strategic engagement among all the members in the organization.
In free-rein leadership, there is no direct supervision of the employees or other members of the organization. All individuals are allows to work on their own in order to prove their value and worth in the organization. As a result all the members work independently through the decisions that they make for the organizational processes to take place (Ogbonna & Harris, 2000). Therefore, the accomplishments achieved by the subordinates depend on their abilities to make good decisions and act on them.
Participative leadership is my favorite governance philosophy. This is because it can enhance the levels of motivation among all organizational employees which is critical to high productivity. This can also lead to high level of retention because the ideas of the members are actively used in making decisions in the organization. Tis kind of leadership has stable collaboration through effective communication channels and feedback mechanisms that promote the flow of ideas within the organization (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Van Engen, 2003). Therefore, leadership assists in increasing the level of productivity and output from employees.
