Leadership Style: An Overview of the Impact on Workers Performance and Organisation Growth

LEADERSHIP STYLE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE IMPACT ON WORKERS PERFORMANCE AND ORGANISATION GROWTH.

INTRODUCTION

A leader is person who influences, directs, and motivates others to perform specific tasks and also inspire his subordinates for efficient performance towards the accomplishment of the stated objectives. The concept and definition of leadership and style may differ from one person, or situation, to the other. The word „leadership‟ has been used in various aspects of human life such as politics, businesses, academics, social works, etc. Messick and Kramer 2004).This idea simply means why leadership is not an easy

 Leadership style is basically grouped into four different perspective autocratic, bureaucratic, laissez-faire, and democratic. As (Jago, 1982, P. 315) as stated ‘leadership development is an un-ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience’. Leadership style is a key determinant of the success or failure of any organization.

The autocratic style of leadership from the word autocratic depicts coercing people to do your bidding. This type of leaders are largely in experienced they are classic who want people to do as commanded. Typically, these types’ leaders are not experienced in people’s management. They retain for themselves alone the decision- making rights. They can damage an organization as they coerce their workers or ‘followers’ to execute strategies and services in a very narrow way. There is no engagement of people or workers around, as their opinions are not needed and there is little or no motivation beyond the repressiveness (Ojuku, Odetayo, and Sajuyigbe, 2012, p.204).  People that works with autocratic leaders are in most cases are always waiting and plotting for the inevitable failure their leader and the subsequent removal of the leader. (Michael, 2010). This is type of leadership style is largely unsuccessful and successive, though can achieve it desired aim of success within the shortest possible time but does not stand the taste of time. This type of leadership style is more efficient when you want to achieve optimum output in any organisation, but does not encourage job satisfaction and a homely work environment.

Democratic style of leadership is also called the participatory type of leadership, where everyone is part of the decision making process even though the leader will make the final decision. This style of leadership not only increases job satisfaction but it also help to develop people’s skills. Employees and team members feel in control and are encouraged to work effectively. As participation takes time, this approach can lead to things happening more slowly as decision making process is not one off but often the end result is better. The challenge with democratic leadership is its belief that everyone has an equal stake in an outcome as well as shared levels of expertise with regard to decisions. While democratic leadership sounds good in theory, it is often tied down in its own slow process, and getting optimum service delivery requires an enormous amount of effort (Nadeem, Ghulam, Naveed, Muhammad and Faiz, 2012, p.193).

Bureaucratic style of leadership is the procedural type, principled, and duel extremely on laid down rules and regulation in relating with his or her people. The bureaucratic leaders is comfortable relying on laid down policies in order to make his followers to get on work effectively. Which in turn send a message to the followers that policy dictates direction (Nadeem, et al. 2012, p. 204). The problem with using policies to lead are not always obvious until when damage is done. The danger here is that leadership’s greatest benefits, motivating and developing people, are ignored by bureaucratic leaders (Michael, 2010). Workers lose interest in their jobs and in their co-workers because of lack of innovation and routine that is never changing as staff do only what is expected of them and nothing more.