Leadership – An Essence of a Big Change, Part – 2

In first part, we discussed What is Leadership and what are its Ingredients?

Leadership – An Essence of a Big Change, Part – 1

In this second and final part we will take a look about differ styles of leaderships, their bases and classes.

Leadership Behavior and Styles

A big amount of matter is present on this issue but we will look into three major spectrums.

1. Leadership based on use of authority
2. The Managerial Grid
3. Leadership involving a variety of styles, ranging from a maximum to a minimum use of power and influence

Leadership Styles based on use of Authority

As heading is self explanatory, these sorts of styles are based on use of authority. Furthermore, in this type, leaders are classified in three major types.

Autocratic Leaders:

Give directives and expect conformity, dogmatic and positive, and lead by the ability to withhold or give rewards and punishments.

Democratic or Participative Leaders:

These sorts of Leaders consult with subordinates, on proposed actions and decisions. They encourage participation from the subordinators.

Free-rein Leaders:

They use his/her power very little and give subordinates a high degree of independence in their operations. Such Leaders majorly depend on assistants to set their own targets and ways to get them.

The Managerial Grid

A very popular approach to defining leadership styles is the managerial grid, Robert Blake and Jane Mouton created many decades ago. In their previous research, they showed that the managers have concern about their production and about their people or workers. To further explain this concept they developed a grid. As shown below.

Like a simple graph, the grid has also two dimensions, along x-axis there is concern for production and along y-axis, there is concern for people. As Blake and Mouton emphasize, their use of the phrase Concern for is meant to convey how managers are concerned about production or how they are concerned about people.

According to grid, we have four extremes of style. Under the 1.1 style, managers concern themselves very little with either people or production and have minimum involvement in their jobs; to all intents and purposes, they have abandoned their jobs and only mark time or act as messengers communicating information from superiors to subordinates.

At the other extreme are the 9.9 managers, who display in their actions the highest possible dedication both to people and to production. They are the real "Team Managers", who are able to mesh the production needs of the enterprise with the needs of individuals.

Another style is 1.9 management in which managers have little or no concern for production but are concerned only for people. They promote an environment in which everyone is relaxed, friendly and happy. No one is concerned about putting forth coordinated effort to accomplish enterprise goals.

At another extreme are the 9.1 managers, who are concerned only with developing an efficient operation, who have little or no concern for people, and who are quite autocratic in their style of leadership.

By using these four extremes as point of reference, every managerial technique, approach, or style can be placed somewhere on the grid
5.5 managers have medium concern for production and for people. They obtain adequate, but not outstanding, morale and production. They do not set goals too high.

Conclusion:

Leadership is the art or process of influencing people so that they contribute willingly and enthusiastically towards group goals. Followers are essential for Leaders. Leadership has different types, styles and approaches to study. Some based on authority, some on concern about production, goal or task and some on people, workers or subordinates.

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