Introduction
Leadership style is defined as leaders’ distinctive behaviors which they use to direct, encourage, monitor, and manage groups of people. Effective administrators inspire their followers to become innovative, more productive, and creative. However, there are significant differences in the manner in which people lead, and researchers have developed various frameworks which help identify and understand different leadership styles. Management has become increasingly complex, demanding, and multi-faceted for most organizations, and this creates challenges and questions concerning the best type of leader, which, ironically, has not helped to clarify the issue (Amanchukwu, Stanley, & Olulube, 2015). This paper examines management styles and ethical leadership and determines that the type of control that a manager exercise affects organizational success because negative leader behavior will reflect in the work environment and impact productivity.
Impact of Leadership Behavior and Style on the Workplace
Leadership styles can be classified as authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian leaders give their followers specific directions which they must use to complete assigned tasks. Such management focuses on independent decision-making, a command from the leader, and obedience from the followers. When a leader is authoritarian, decision-making becomes less creative and the business will not benefit from innovative ideas which can help to improve the organization (Zheng, Graham, Farh, & Huang, 2019). Authoritarian leaders prevent the workers from voicing their opinions, which reduces the latter’s feelings of engagement in the company, which, in turn, leads to lower productivity and decreased employee loyalty. They also use rewards and punishments to obtain the desired behavior from the staff and to exert more control (Chukwusa, 2019). This results in compliance, but the style does not motivate trust and commitment to the workplace. It ultimately creates a hostile and dysfunctional work environment which tends to generate conflict between the leader and employees.
On the other hand, democratic leadership is perceived as the most effective style for use in any organization. In this leadership style, a manager offers guidance to the team members but also contributes ideas in the group and allows the employees to give input and valuable ideas to the firm. Lewin’s study found that people working in a democratic group were less industrious than those in an authoritarian team, but they offered ideas and contributions which were of a higher quality (Chukwusa, 2019). Participative leaders, therefore, motivate employees to engage in business activities, but they retain overall decision-making. This allows the workers to feel involved and motivated to be creative. However, it is challenging when a swift decision is required during a crisis because the more people participate in decision-making, the more difficult it is to reach a consensus because the process is long. Additionally, if workers are not knowledgeable enough about the firm’s operations, they will not make the choices that are appropriately framed. Therefore, although such leadership is ideal, it creates challenges that can be avoided in certain circumstances.
Laissez-faire leadership is based on the notion of permitting employees to work without supervision. It is the least productive style of leadership because such managers offer negligible or no direction to the team. While it can be useful in the circumstances when a firm has highly qualified employees, it usually leads to poorly defined roles and a lack of motivation (Wong & Giessner, 2018). Employees will, therefore, have no direction, fault each other for errors, be reluctant to accept personal accountability, and will ultimately be less productive.
Leadership Attributes in the Workplace
Organizations can have leaders with attributes that are either desirable or undesirable. Cultural differences influence leadership performance, and what is perceived as effective leadership behavior in one community can be seen as a hindrance in another (Hanges, Aiken, Park, & Su, 2016). Nevertheless, even though leaders use varying best practices in various parts of the world because of differences in their ethical beliefs, some principles are still relevant in all organizations. They include honesty, intelligence, positive attitude, ethical behavior, trustworthiness, foresight, excellence, effective communication, dynamism, capacity for team building, ability to motivate, decisiveness, and coordination. On the other hand, undesirable attributes include irritability, ruthlessness, asocial behavior, egocentricity, non-cooperation, dictatorial behavior, and non-explicit actions. Therefore, business leaders and managers need to understand desirable attributes and integrate them into their leadership styles.
Heifetz’s Perspective on Ethical Leadership
The idea of ethical leadership is becoming increasingly important for organizations that seek to attain success and sustainability in their chosen industries. This need is essentially motivated by the significant increase in unethical leadership behavior which has proliferated in modern businesses and resulted in numerous scandals (Galli, Santos Arteaga, Di Caprio, & Kennedy, 2016). Ronald Heifetz’s work emphasizes the link between ethical leadership and conflict management which leads to positive change (Galli et al., 2016). Heifetz notes that ethical leaders help their followers deal with contradictory values which occur in a swiftly changing business environment and social culture (Galli et al., 2016). Moreover, his approach focuses on values, and he argues that leaders must utilize their power effectively to motivate the employees to face tough challenges (Gallie et al., 2016). As such, a leader is supposed to nurture an environment in which there are empathy and trust and they should realize that they must help staff manage a conflict, change, and personal growth.
Burns’ Perspective on Ethical Leadership
James McGregor Burns’ perspective on ethical leadership is similar to Heifetz’s because it also focuses on a leader’s ability to be concerned about the morals, needs, and values of the staff. According to Burns, leaders should always attempt to motivate followers to develop higher standards of responsibility (Galli et al., 2016). This perspective significantly differs from the traditional approach to leadership because Burns argues that managers have a moral duty which they should use to motivate the employees to also become ethically accountable for their actions. The leader must evaluate the standards and values of his followers to help them find the most appropriate level of moral responsibility. In general, Burns’ view is unique because it makes ethics the main focus of leadership.
Conclusion
The type of leadership which exists in an organization can create either challenges or benefits for the firm and its employees. Therefore, business managers need to ensure that the leadership styles they use will generate positive outcomes for all business stakeholders. This requires managers to have desirable leadership attributes which will motivate the employees to model their behavior. Positive behavioral qualities contribute to ethical leadership, which both Heifetz and Burns describe as being focused on a leader motivating the followers to adopt and model principled behavior. As such, firms must establish such leadership styles which support ethical behavior if they want to create an organizational culture that also values moral responsibility and accountability.
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