Question

The internal as well as external environment of organisations, including public sector organisations, have become very dynamic. Over the last decades many unpredictable events happened which had dramatic impacts on many countries. The public sector needs a new breed of leaders who can address the new challenges in this ever changing world. Lately, the Covid-19, the corona virus disease, is having a devastating effect in many countries, including Mauritius. At the beginning of March 2020, the Prime Minister announced a series of measures to reduce the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 for Mauritius (GIS, 2020). He announced that overall Government spending will be reduced by 10%. In this volatile and unpredictable environment, public administrators have a critical role to play to save a country in the medium to long term. Strong and effective leadership have become imperative in the public sector in Mauritius.

Carry out the following tasks:

For your chosen organisation, assess the different styles of Leadership that might be appropriate to achieve the corporate objectives. Which of these Leadership Styles would be more appropriate and effective in the circumstances. Justify your answer. Assume the leaders are operating in senior management level positions. [13 Marks]

Answer 1

Leadership basically mean leading people , motivating them and guiding them in order to achieve goals of an organization. To keep subordinates motivated , the leader also needs to help them achieve personal goals. Leadership style is nothing but the style or the way of working a manager chooses to work with his ssubordinates or say co workers.

The various leadership styles are :

A) Autocratic Leadership: One of the most famous think that comes to mind when thinking about manager or higher authority is ruling over employees or directing . This is what traditional leadership is all about . In short, Autocratic  Leadership is the type of leadership where the manager directs his subordinates.

For example : There is a sudden decision from management to increase sales by a greater rise and pressure falls on sales team head he directs his subordinate manager and he dictate things to the workforce.

B) Authoritative  Leadership : Now this leadership style, is bit different from autocratic leadership . In this style of leadership style, manager follows a policy of "follow me" or walking ahead of the subordinates. This style, shows the confident of manager in taking his team through all tasks.

For Example : When the management decides of taking the sales to a higher number the manager leads his team . He conducts a meeting to guide his employees and also to place his idea of achieving target before his team members.

C) Pacesetting Leadership: This type of style asks people to work in a higher pace as if in a competition. For example : When the sales target is to be rised, the manager makes his co workers through all the hooks and crooks and makes work life like a race to achieve the goal.

D) Democratic Leadership: In this type of leadership style , the manager is liberable and also involves his subordinates in accomplishing the goal.

For example : When the sales target is to be increased , the manger also makes sure to know ideas in the mind of subordinates and takes the final call.

E) Coaching Leadership: This is style where the manager acts as a coach. He trains his team first and then tries to achieve target set.

For Example : Here the manager trains and coaches various new shortcut or say easier ways to achieve target based on his experiences and then asks subordinatives to achieve goal.

F) Affiliative Leadership: In this style, subordinates are considered first and then the task. Here the manager also cares about his subordinates.

For example : In sales target achievement , the manager before assigning tasdk also enquires about the employees comfort. Say Ann a female employee has to manage work at home as well target at office. Manager assigns task which can be comfortable for her.

G) Laissez - Faire Leadership: This is most flexible or soft cornered leadership style. In autocratic leadership we saw that the leader was a dictator and firm or tough but in this leaderstyle manager is less dictative and is more friendly. This style helps in people to achieve greater heights career wise.

So, while choosing leadership style, we need to study which suits us the most. I think in situation or circumstances like this we must opt affiliative leadership, as it considers people first. Ultimately people are the backbone of economy.