Question

Demonstrate knowledge of the factors that affect the styles of leadership in an organization.

Answer 1

Leadership is the process of influencing others to work willingly toward an organizational goal with confidence. “Leadership is generally defined simply as the process of influencing people to direct their efforts towards achievement of some particular goal or goals.There are dimensions that are typically viewed as key to leadership
effectiveness. They are:
•   Vision and goal setting (includes emphasizing teaching and research excellence, encouraging faculty development, providing leadership for initiatives) similar to the baseline study used for this study.
•   Management of the unit (includes managing change, delegating work, Problem solving)
•   Interpersonalrelationships (includes awareness of faculty professional and career needs, being accessible)
•   Communication skills (representing academic unit to administrators, representing administration to heads, clear reports and correspondence)
•   Research, professional and community endeavours (includes maintaining own research agenda, teaching, personal growth opportunities)
•   Quality of unit’s education (advancing programmes effectively, handling accreditation issues, ensuring fair tenure and promotion procedures)
•   Support for institutional diversity (includes supporting equal opportunities, and mentoring women and under-represented groups).
Secondly, the domain in which they performed least well was ‘research, professional and community endeavours’, suggesting either that the pressure of duties
and responsibilities on deans results in them neglecting their own self-leadership, or that their move into a predominantly administrative and political role results in them leaving certain areas of academic activity behind them.

there are many dimensions to leadership and many possible ways of describing leadership style such as dictatorial, unitary, bureaucratic, charismatic, consultative, participative and abdicatorial.

However, the style of managerial leadership towards subordinate’s staff and the focus of power are better classified within a three style, namely:

Autocratic leadership

An autocratic leader is one who is very conscious of his position and has little trust or faith in the subordinates, he feels that pay is just a reward for work and it is only the reward which can motivate.

Democratic leadership

The democratic leader allows for decision making to be shared by the leader and the group. Criticism and praises are objectively given and a feeling of responsibility is developed within the group.The superior allows the subordinates opportunity to use their initiative and make contributions.

Laissez-faire leadership

Laissez-faire type of leadership is at the other end of the continuum from the autocratic style. With this type, leaders attempt to pass the responsibility of decision making process to the group. The group is loosely structured, as the leader has no confidence in his leadership ability. Decision making under this leadership is performed by whoever that is willing to accept it. Decision making is also very slow