Leadership

Leadership

Autocratic Leadership

Autocratic leadership is among the classical leadership approaches and is also commonly referred to as dictatorship. This is where one person has entire control over all the areas of an organization. All decisions are made by the principal with no reference or without taking any suggestions or opinions from his subordinates. The current working system that Bill has is similar to this (Cremer, 2006). Although autocratic leadership does have its advantages it also has its demerits. This paper will discuss the demerits facings this leadership style and what can be done to improve the quality of work in Bill’s organization.

Demerits of Autocratic Leadership

Bill’s current leadership style is very harmful for his organization. This is because it robs from the employees the ability to make important and necessary contributions to the organization, therefore wasting their skills and in the long run, it will result in poor decision making as well as reduced productivity, as they are not self driven, but rely fully on the leader to make all decisions. A manager that has poor leadership skills is the one that resorts to using dictatorship. This also cultivates poor relationships with his employees as not many people like being ordered around. It therefore demotivates them (Cremer, 2006). Bill will also be overburdened as he has to handle a lot of things at the same time. This could eventually lead to health problems and failure to achieve targets and meet deadlines.

How Quality of Work can be Improved

The work quality with Bill’s organization can only be improved in the following way, by changing the style of leadership within the organization. The leadership style that would suite Bill’s organization would be democratic leadership. Democratic leadership is whereby the leader promotes delegation, responsibility sharing as constant communication. This means that all decision can only be reached after consultation, tasks have to be delegated to the subordinates (Lewis & American Association of School Administrators, 1993). All subordinates are also fully responsible for the tasks delegated to them. This creates a positive work environment, where initiatives can successfully be reached.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Cremer, D.  (2006). Affective and motivational consequences of leader self-sacrifice: The moderating effect of autocratic leadership. Rotterdam: Erasmus Research Institute of Management, Erasmus University.

Lewis, A. C. & American Association of School Administrators. (1993). Leadership styles. Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administrators.