-
The types of leadership
The types of leadership
that used during the different stages of a company
turnaround strategy
Introduction
Leadership effectiveness has become one
of the main focuses of leadership studies.
According to the opinion of the western
contingency management theories,
there
is
not any leadership that can be
efficient in any situation and the efficiency of a
kind of
leadership
style
lies
on
the
degree
that
it
matches
with
the
situational
factors
surrounding
it.
In
order
to
meet
organizational
need,
different
types
of
leadership
must
be
adopted
in
different
stages
of
a
company
turnaround
strategy.
In
today
’
s
environment,
the
key
for
enterprises
to
maintain
competitiveness
and
gain
sustainable
development
is
to
adopt
suitable
leadership
to
meet
the
need
of
organizational
development.
The
improvement
of
leadership
could
lead
to
improvement of competitiveness of
enterprises. Whether enterprises could sustain in
the increasing global competition
depends greatly on the leadership of their
leaders.
In different stages of a
company turnaround strategy, the requirement and
demand for
leadership
could
be also
different.
This essay
attempts
to
examine
the
relationship
between the
types
of
leadership and
the
stages
of a
company
turnaround
strategy
drawing evidences
from different corporations.
Lewin K early in 1937 has divided
leadership style into three types, namely
Autocratic
Leadership,
Democratic
Leadership,
and
laissez-faire
leadership.
The
main
difference among such
leaderships is the allocation of power.
Autocratic leadership
tends
to
allocate
the
power
in
the
hand
of
leaders
themselves.
Leaders
with
autocratic
leadership
are
found
to
focus
on
the
goals
of
their
own
jobs.
Autocratic
managers are more likely to make
decisions by their own.
Group members
are not
given with the right to take
part in decision making.
Only the
managers themselves
and
senior
management
could
participate
in
decision
making
under
autocratic
leadership.
Autocratic
managers
design
tasks
and
objectives
for
group
members
(Bass
&
Avolio,
1993).
They
provide
specific
instruction
for
group
members
to
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The types of leadership
complete
their
tasks.
The
opinions
of
group
members
are
merely
adopted
by
autocratic
managers.
Autocratic
leadership
has
its
root
in
Fayol
’
s
authority
theory,
which proposes that managers should be
able to give orders to their subordinates but
not delegate responsibility. Autocratic
leadership might have contribution to improving
working efficiency and help the
managers to establish authority at the early stage
of
turnaround
strategy
(George,
2000).
At
the
early
stage
of
turnaround
strategy,
enterprises
have
not
yet
establish
effective
decision-making
mechanism
and
the
owners
of
enterprises
are
often
the
ones
to
make
decisions
and
strategic
goals.
Therefore,
autocratic
leadership
allows
the
owner/manager
to
focus
on
their
goals
and
jobs.
However,
it
could
cause
negative
effect
on
group
cohesiveness
and
is
harmful
for
innovation
capacity.
Job
commitment
under
autocratic
leadership
is
relatively low. It is often adopted by
managers of Chinese enterprises. For instance,
managers
in
state-owned
enterprises
and
family
firms
particularly
family-owned
SMEs in China are more likely to
develop autocratic leadership. The leadership
helps
the
managers
to
better
control
over
their
business
gain
keep
the
development
of
enterprises
under
the
expectation
of
the
managers.
More
importantly,
despite
the
negative influence of autocratic
leadership, it seems that the leadership is
suitable for
the
Chinese
culture.
Influenced
by
the
traditional
feudal
autocratic
idea
in
China,
Chinese
workers are observed
to
be more
likely
to
follow
the
instructions
given
by
managers
and treat supervisors/managers as authority. Due
to the special features of
state-owned
enterprises
and
family-owned
firms
in
China,
autocratic
leadership
meets the need of the owners/managers
of such organizations. At the beginning of
entrepreneur, managers are the core
talent that enterprises to rely on. Managers are
given
the
right
to
make
decisions
and
are
responsible
for
making
and
achieving
strategic goals.
Autocratic leadership meets the need of the
organizations.
Democratic
managers
pay
more
attention
to
create
equal
working
environment
at
workplace. They encourage
group members to take part in decision making and
meet
the demands of group members.
Under democratic leadership, group members are
allowed
to
determine
their
working
mode
and
working
schedule.
The
power
of
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The types of leadership
decision
making
is
given
to
all
group
members
under
democratic
leadership.
Democratic
managers
often
provide
assistance
to
group
member
to
compete
their
tasks instead of giving specific
instructions (Hamlin, 2003). Their main
responsibility
is
to
balance
the
responsibilities
and
conflicts
between
group
members.
When
designing
tasks
and
objectives,
democratic
managers
are
more
likely
to
collect
opinions
and
feedback
from
group
members.
The
final
working
arrangement
is
determined together by the managers and
employees. Democratic leadership is often
developed
in
the
development
stage
of
a
company
turnaround
strategy
when
advanced
decision-making
mechanism
has
been
developed
in
the
enterprises.
Democratic
leadership currently has been adopted widely by
enterprises particularly
western
enterprises
in
today
’
s
business
environment
(Curphy,
1992).
It
is
often
adopted
by
enterprises
when
in
the
phase
of
steady
development
of
a
company
turnaround strategy.
For instance, democratic leadership has been
adopted by Jack
Welch
in
GE
and
Jack
Ma
in
Alibaba.
When
a
company
steps
into
steady
development,
the
further
development
of
the
company
is
based
on
talented
employees more than
leaders. It is quite impossible for leaders to
make all decisions
due
to
the
large
scale
of
business
and
more
complex
competition.
Therefore,
it
is
important
in
engage
talented
employees
in
decision
making
process.
In
addition,
when
a company steps onto steady development, a clear
job structure has often been
established
in
the
company.
Leaders
would
not
command
employees
to
do
something.
Workers
are
able
to
perform
their
responsibilities
according
to
job
description and KPI. What leaders need
to do is to set goals for employees to achieve.
Under this condition, democratic
leadership suits the need of the company.
Moreover,
democratic
leadership
is
more
likely
to
be
welcome
by
talents
in
modern
organizations as it allows employees to
play more positive role and shows respect to
workers.
As
a
result,
democratic
leadership
developed
in
organizations
could
contribute to reducing
employee turnover.
Laissez-
faire leadership allocates the power of making
decision to individuals in the
organization/group.
Under
this
leadership,
the
responsibilities
are
shaped
by
all
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The types of leadership
members.
Managers
with
laissez-faire
leadership
assume
that
employees
are
high
experienced
so
that
they
are
competent
enough
to
make
decisions
and
complete
tasks without
continuous feedback or supervision (Goleman, et
al, 2002). However,
laissez-faire
leadership might result in loss control and high
cost. This leadership is
found to be
useful for organization in which innovation is
important. This leadership is
often
developed
by
managers
when
a
trusted
relationship
has
been
established
between
the
managers
and
group
members.
It
helps
to
encourage
innovation
in
organizations.
For
instance,
managers
of
R&D
departments
are
more
likely
to
develop laissez-faire leadership for
management. Designers at R&D department are
generally supposed to be able to come
up with innovative design concepts, which are
never used for previous products.
Therefore, the manager often has no clue to guide
the designers throughout product
design. They could not provide detailed
supervision
for
designers.
Designers
are
given
adequate
freedom
in
order
to
come
up
with
innovative design
concept. To come up with creative design concept,
designers not
only
are
allowed
to
determine
what
to
do,
but
also
are
allowed
to
decide
how
to
achieve their design concepts. To some
extents, supervision provided by managers
could
become
limitation
on
the
designers
and
hinder
the
development
of
creative
products. Under
this condition, managers who develop laissez-faire
leadership often
work
to
provide
assistance
for
group
members
instead
of
giving
supervision.
Therefore,
it
seems
that
Laissez-faire
leadership
is
more
likely
to
be
adopted
by
managers in high-tech
companies in mature phase.
Organizational performance and
achievement are not only the focus of management
practice,
but
also
the
important
measurement
of
the
effectiveness
of
leadership.
Organizational
performance and achievement is created by the
joint effort of leaders
and
employees.
During
the
development
of
organizations,
leaders
and
staffs
have
their
own responsibilities respectively (Kanungo, 1998).
An effective leader must be
able
to
lead
and
influence
on
employees
to
achieve
strategic
goals.
By
achieving
strategic
goals
at
different
stages,
organizational
development
could
be
achieved.
During
different
stages
of
a
company
turnaround
strategy,
the
strategic
goals
vary
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The types of leadership
significantly. It has been
suggested that different leaderships have
different effect on
organizational
learning
(Druskat
&
Wolff,
2001).
For
instance,
benevolence
leadership
is
found
significantly
positively
related
to
the
six
dimensions
of
organizational learning. Except for
exploring learning, moral leadership is
significantly
positively
related
to
the
other
five
dimensions
of
organizational
learning.
Authoritarianism leadership has
positive effect on collective learning,
organizational
level
learning,
inter-
organizational
learning,
and
exploitative
learning.
In
different
stages of a company turnaround
strategy, expectation on organizational
performance
and
learning
could
vary
significantly.
Therefore,
different
leaderships
should
be
adopted
in
different
stages
of
a
company
turnaround
strategy.
Furthermore,
in
different
stages
of
a
company
strategy,
the
expectation
on
employee
performance
would be also
different (Nathan, et al 1991). Under this
condition, managers should
adopt
different leadership to get contributions from
employees. For instance, at the
initial
stage
of
a
company
turnaround
strategy,
the
development
of
the
company
depends greatly on managers/owners.
Employees are generally expected to execute
the decisions made by the
managers/owners. In the decision-making related to
the
major issues of the organization,
many employees often choose to hide their point of
view under the influence of democratic
leadership. This leadership suits the need of
enterprises to get employees execute
decisions effectively.
One
of
the
main
challenges
for
leaders
is
to
identify
the
competence
of
group
members and create
working environment for the group to achieve
strategic goals in
different
stages
of
organizational
development.
In
different
stages
of
a
company
turnaround
strategy,
both
group
members
and
strategic
goals
are
significantly
different.
As
a
result,
different
leaderships
must
be
adopted
at
different
stages
of
turnaround strategy. In
the changing business environment, teams are set
up for a
variety of reasons and there
is a constant stream of people joining and leaving
during
the development of organizations
(Fambrough & Hart, 2008). Leader should develop
suitable leadership to respond to the
change in group member, strategic goals as well
as
external
business
environment
often
within
tight
timescales
in
order
to
lead
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