Essay on Forms of Leadership

From an employee perspective, leadership style implies the total pattern of leaders’ actions. It showcases the leaders’ philosophy, attitudes, and skills in practice. Leadership is a dynamic practice, and it transforms to cope with changing needs in the organization. This assignment will explore three significant forms of leadership comprising democratic, task-oriented, and laissez-faire. Additionally, the assignment will highlight the distinction between the leadership styles and mention prominent leaders who have used the different styles in their leadership positions.

In a democratic form of leadership, leaders decentralize authority. It is characterized by consultation of the juniors and their engagement in plans and policies formulation. The leaders stimulate participation in the decision-making process. Numerous merits are linked to a democratic form of leadership: it fosters trust and promotes team spirit and collaboration from workers. It also allows employees to grow, develop and become creative. Gail Kelly is one of the famous leaders who put a democratic form in leadership in his reign as the CEO at Westpac bank. He articulated that the old world of top-down or autocratic leadership styles is gone (Haskins, 2018). He urged leaders to embrace participative leadership forms by becoming ready to listen to employees and considering new solutions.

Laissez-faire is the other leadership style, and it typically translates to “let them do,” whereby leaders transfer almost all authority to their employees. Even though this form of leadership can enhance employee’s empowerment by trusting them in work, the organization may hinder their development by overlooking crucial company expansion opportunities. Warren Buffett, a seasoned investor, and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, employs a laissez-faire leadership style for his workers. Buffet selects highly motivated and capable managers who permit full autonomy (Nielsen et al., 2019). Last but not least is the task-oriented leadership form. Under this leadership style, tasks and goals are specified. Task-oriented leaders provide plans and routines to be followed to meet the organization’s goals. It is incredibly focused on goals and operates on deadlines. Task-oriented leaders establish the duties of the entire team, supporting them and provide them with resources and tools to have the job done.

I have encountered a transactional leadership style in my high school life. In the context, we were required to follow a defined path, and punishments or rewards were administered according to the students’ track, meaning you are either on the right or wrong track. From the insights acquired from this assignment as a student, I prefer a democratic form of leadership partly merged with some features of task-oriented since it will allow negotiations when things are not on the right track, and also there will be reinforcement to meet my classwork and assignment deadlines. The two leadership forms will also assist me in future leadership positions.

References

Haskins, G. (2018). Kindness: Perspectives from women leaders. In Kindness in Leadership (pp. 85-110). Routledge.

Nielsen, M. B., Skogstad, A., Gjerstad, J., & Einarsen, S. V. (2019). Are transformational and laissez-faire leadership related to state anxiety among subordinates? A two-wave prospective study of forward and reverse associations. Work & Stress, 33(2), 137-155.

Salehzadeh, R. (2017). Which types of leadership styles do followers prefer? A decision tree approach. International Journal of Educational Management.