Leadership

Leadership is the process of persuading other people to understand and persuade what and how
things must be done to achieve some common goals. It is also a process whereby an individual
influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.

Types of leadership
Autocratic Leadership

Leader has full authority and makes all the decisions.

Leader is master of the people in the group, he imposes his will and no one has the right to
challenge him.
this type of leadership is good for employees who require close supervision but can be a
problem for creative employees since they are unable to boost processes or decision
making. thus this results in job dissatisfaction.

Bureaucratic leadership

Leader believes more in structured procedures hence he has the penchant to bend over preestablished measures whether it was successful or not.
This type of leadership cannot search for new ways to solve problems.
It is slow paced ensuring adherence to the ladders stated by the company.
Leaders ensure that all steps have been followed before sending it to the next level of
authority.
This type of leadership is usually applied in universities, hospitals, banks and governments,
so as to ensure quality and increase security and decrease corruption.
Leaders who likes to speed up process will experience frustration and anxiety and will not be
welcomed.

Charismatic leadership

Leader leads by injecting eagerness and energy into team members and is always on the run,
the latter is not pleased with any type of stationary situation.
Leader has to be committed to the organisation for a long run.
If project success is attributed to the leader only and not to team members, this may cause
a risk for the company since the leader may decide to resign for advanced opportunities.

It takes time as well as hard work for a company to win the employees' trust back with
other type of leadership after they have committed themselves to the magnetism of a
charismatic leader.

Democratic or participative leadership

Leader listens and studies the team's suggestion, but always takes the final decision.
Team players participate in final decision, thus increasing satisfaction and ownership feeling
for the fact that their input were considered when taking final decision also this helps to
decrease resistances and resiliencies.
This leadership helps the team to assimilate the changes better and more rapidly whenever
changes arise.
This leadership may become difficult when decisions need to be taken in a short period of
time or at the moment.

Laissez-faire leadership

Employees may be highly skilled and experienced, so no continuous feedback or supervision

is required.
If leaders don't lead at all or fail in supervision, this results in lack of supervision and higher
costs, bad service or failure to meet deadlines.

People Oriented leadership

Leader supports, trains his team members to increase job satisfaction as well as interest in
achieving goals.

Servant leadership

Goals achievement is facilitated by giving members all what they require to accomplish the
task.
The leader is more of an instrument for the team member rather than a commanding voice.
This type of leadership is also slow to achieve goals.

Task oriented leadership

This type of leadership focuses on the main objective and allocates specific tasks to team
members so as to achieve goals.

It requires close supervision and control to ensure goals are achieved, hence this causes
team members not to be motivated, as they were not considered during decision making.

Transactional leadership

Power is given to leader to accomplish certain task and to reward or punish the team
members based on their performances.
Manager is given the opportunity to lead the group and the latter agrees to perform certain
task in return of something else.

Transformational leadership

Leader motivates its team to be efficient as well as effective.

Communication is important to achieve goals, by focusing the team members to the final
desired output
Leader is highly visible and uses a chain of command to get the job done.
Leader focuses on the big picture whilst other members take care of the details.

Environmental leadership

Leader nurtures the group or the organisational environment so as to affect the emotional
and the psychological perception of one's place in that group or organization, thus
understanding and applying group psychology and dynamics is vital for this type of
leadership.
Organisational culture is used to inspire team members and form leaders at all levels.
Leadership styles depends on the creation of an educational atmosphere where one's
interactively learn the fundamental psychology of the group's dynamics and culture from
each other.

Situational leadership

This type of leadership says that there is no specific type of leadership that will enclose all
types of situation, meaning that there are different levels of "leadership" and
"management" in different situations.
Leader should first identify the major task and priorities and then analyse the group's ability
and willingness to perform the tasks.
There are four types of situational leadership:
1. Directing : This type of leadership is suitable in situations whereby the team members
have low willingness and low ability to perform a certain task. Hence, the leader must
take a directive role so as to define the roles and tasks of the members and hence carry

a close supervision. This type of leadership is used when the matter is serious and can
cause drastic outcomes if it is unsuccessful.
2. Coaching : This types of leaderships fits more in situations in which the members have
high willingness and low ability to carry out a certain task. Here also, leader needs to
define the roles and tasks clearly but the latter will seek members' ideas and
suggestions. Here the members need direction and supervision because they are still
inexperienced but also they need support and praise to build their self esteem. Along
with coaching, the leader needs to listen, advise and help the members to acquire the
required skills so as to perform the task on their own.
3. Supporting : This type of leadership is most apt to be used in situations whereby the
members have low willingness but high ability to do the task. So the leader is more
concerned in finding out why the members are not willing to perform the task rather
than showing them how to do the work. The leader must listen, give praise, motivate,
build the members self- confidence so as to achieve goals.
4. Delegating : Here the team members have high ability as well as high willingness, so the
leader must rely handing over when the members are able as well as motivated to do
the job. Little support and supervision is required, however leader is still involved in
decision making and problem-solving. Members is expected to send information back to
the leader during the process of performing tasks.

Figure 1 illustrates the different situations in which these types of leadership are
implemented.

Figure 1: The situational leadership model