Strongest Leadership Type: Advantages and Disadvantages
The test showed that my strongest leadership type consists of transactional and visionary. Such a combination is efficient for the leader because these two types fulfill each other.
Advantages of Transactional Leadership
The transactional leadership style includes setting goals and motivational rewards (Neck et al., 2020). This type aims to improve relationships with employees and help them develop. The main advantage is offering apparent and objective goals to gain compliance and support from others.
Advantages of Visionary Leadership
Visionary leadership utilizes charisma and creates a vision to motivate people and expect commitment from them (Neck et al., 2020). This type inspires people by using charm and vision, which positively affects people’s expectations and encourages them to follow such a leader. The main advantage of this type is the ability to stimulate followers by creating the vision of the goal that needs to be reached. Therefore, combining these two types might contrast but fulfill each other, positively affecting my leadership abilities.
Disadvantages of Transactional Leadership
On the contrary, these two types have a few disadvantages because the motivational reward is only sometimes enough, and the vision to motivate might differ from the follower’s views. Moreover, leaders desire to lead, which might create obstacles in their relationships with followers (Neck et al., 2020). For instance, the goals of a transactional leadership style might be inappropriate with followers’ views. As a result, the motivational reward could not be fixed, and people would not follow the leader.
Disadvantages of Visionary Leadership
The disadvantage of the visionary leadership style is that it is the only visionary approach to setting goals. Sometimes, evidence and actions are needed for people to follow, and the visionary type cannot provide them. Hence, the main disadvantage of these types is the limited resources used to make people follow.
Weakest Leadership Type: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages of Directive Leadership
The weakest leadership type was directive, which used practical and efficient resources to make people follow. Directive leaders implement guidelines and performance standards and ensure rules are accurately followed (Neck et al., 2020). Moreover, directive leaders provide expectations that empower the followers work. These leaders are productive-orientated as they focus more on technical aspects of work.
The main advantages of these types are that they are result-oriented and can set and comply with rules (Neck et al., 2020). Discipline plays a vital role in this type of leadership, and leaders mainly focus on the job that needs to be done rather than on other aspects. In addition, directive leaders implement rules that should be followed, creating a disciplined working environment. Thus, the advantages of directive leaders are the productive orientation and the implementation of performance standards and guidelines for followers to provide excellent results.
Disadvantages of Directive Leadership
On the other hand, directive leaders are usually autocratic, which hinders the development of strong relationships with their followers and is the main disadvantage. The autocratic style consists of making decisions without the support or suggestions from others (Neck et al., 2020). Directive leaders usually rely on the power of their authority. As a result, they do not inspire people to do something but command them. The extensive use of this technique worsens relation between followers and directive leaders and affects their work.
In addition, production orientation might create obstacles, as sometimes it is essential to pay attention to people rather than tasks or, at least, make exceptions to provide an efficient working environment. Therefore, the main disadvantage of this type is the use of the autocratic style of directive leaders, as it negatively impacts relationships between followers and leaders, negatively affecting the working environment.
References
Neck, C. P., Houghton, J. D., & Murray, E. L. (2020). Organizational behavior: A skill-building approach. Los Angeles: SAGE.