Leadership and Management Styles

A chief executive officer's or some other top manager's leadership and management style are critical to a company's growth. Leadership and management are not the same things, but they must work in tandem for a top boss to be effective. As a result, any attempt to distinguish these two bodies is likely to do more harm than good for the operation of a profitable business. Jobs in today's economy and human resources look to their supervisors not only to delegate them roles but also to identify a mission for them. Managers must be able to organize workers, with the intent of not just maximizing efficiency, but also to nurture and develop skills, talent, and inspire success. The rise of technology has led to the consequent emergence of a new crop of workers known as the knowledge worker, and this has completely changed the business atmosphere. A manager does not need to manage this type of employee but should lead them towards a more productive line of duty.
Great managers should be able to choose their leadership and management styles after a well-calculated analysis of the critical issues, the end goal, and best tool for the job. Some of the leadership styles mostly employed by top managers are the pacesetting leadership style, the authoritative leadership style, the affiliative leadership style, coaching leadership style, the coercive leadership style, and the democratic leadership style. All these styles have their pros and cons regarding a manager’s success. In this paper, therefore, we will critique the leadership and management style of a CEO or a top manager, while taking into account his strengths and weaknesses.
The paper focuses on my former manager, Mr. Raymond Schwartz, at Newton clearing and forwarding company, based in Oregon. The manager combined two types of leadership styles to run the firm successfully. His style was a combination of the coaching style and democratic style of leadership. The democratic style enabled the manager to build commitment and consensus among employees. The manager redistributed power and authority between employees and supervisors in different sections of the firm. Through the delegation of roles, the manager was able to build a strong workforce, as employees tend to be supportive and strong under these circumstances. Thus, collaboration and honesty flourished, because of consideration of every employee’s opinion. The manager employed democratic style in the decision, involving employees in every decision unless the decision-making process affected the time limits of some set agenda. One advantage of democratically derived solutions is their longevity, with reviews made on the limited but continuous basis. The longevity of these decisions ensures that employees put more effort on achieving the company’s set objectives, because of the inclusive nature of the decision-making process.
Democratic style of leadership made it easy for the manager to resolve conflicts within the firm. With the ability to work collaboratively with other employees, gathering a consensus of opinions became easy, thus ensuring a shorter time in resolving conflicts among employees. While addressing grievances, all parties are given ample time and space to air their views and opinions. Usually, after all the parties air their grievances, it takes a democratically constituted board to come up with the most acceptable solution.
Apart from conflict resolution, democratic style of leadership promotes a creative environment within the company. It fosters a creative environment within the firm by encouraging innovation and fresh ideas among employees. Through coaching style of leadership, the manager gives room for the employees to sharpen their interpersonal and communication skills, their work skills, and innovative minds. One of the main advantages of the coaching style of leadership is its ability to feed the talent pipeline within a company (Amanchukwu, Stanley, & Ololube, 2015, p. 6). By promoting talent development among employees, the manager essentially guarantees that innovation and change management becomes a welcomed tradition within the company. It also refines organization culture within an organization. Organization culture is the attitude and belief of employees within an organization or any other institution. Through coaching, the organization can develop a more creative and positive minded workforce. According to the Institute of Leadership and Management, coaching reflects the flexibility and responsiveness of employees and thus equips leaders with the necessary tools to respond to issues in a timely and effective manner (Amanchukwu, Stanley, & Ololube, 2015, p. 7). Therefore, coaching produces a more efficient workforce that requires little or no supervision at all to perform their duties. Thus a manager ensures the smooth running of the firm.
It is vital to note that the coaching style of management enables leaders to help employees find their pros and cons and ties these personal assessments to career aspirations and goals. It is also a more effective style that enables managers to boost morale and build a competent workforce that can achieve the company’s set objectives. It enables managers to spend less time focusing on employee problems. And instead, make use of their coaching skills to get the employee to use innovative approaches towards achieving the company’s set objectives.
Given his style of leadership, I would readily emulate Mr. Raymond as a manager. By combining the coaching style and democratic style of management, the manager ensures that the daily running of the firm is at its best, while at the same time ensuring that the working force is satisfied. A good manager should invest in the human resources as that is the key to the successful running of the company. The attitude of a leader plays a very important role in motivating and inspiring the workforce (Algahtani, 2014, p. 72). His attitude of leading by example motivates the entire workforce who will work tirelessly in trying to emulate his work ethics. By ensuring that he follows the laid down procedures of the firm, and other work ethics like reporting to work on time, and delegating tasks to his juniors, the manager sets a better example for his juniors to emulate.
A positive attitude can help managers maintain a positive workforce. Managers who portray a positive attitude during the normal working periods do not have to worry about which projects to complete. Instead, they look for the best possible solution to finish them before a set deadline. A good manager should show excitement about his or her job as this will inspire greatness in his or her workforce.
Another reason for emulating Mr. Raymond is his love for the organization’s culture. A good manager should understand that culture drives all operations in any organization. Most leaders spend a lot of time and energy on the company’s products and services than they do on the work culture. The company culture sets the tone for the day to day running and operation of the company. Company culture includes the company’s philosophy and works ethics. By focusing on the culture of the organization, the manager creates a conducive working environment that is essential for steering the organization to greater heights (Algahtani, 2014, p. 74). Like Mr. Raymond, a good manager should constantly talk about what can be done to make the organization better and how it compares to other organizations offering the same services or producing the same product.
Another potential trait of the manager is his ability to sustain focus. The manager’s ability for prioritization and to focus for a long period. He can manage multiple projects at a go to ensure everything is done on time and completed to the company or client specifications. Through prioritization, the manager picks the most crucial agendas and makes sure they are dealt with appropriately. Also by maintaining focus, the manager help keep employees busy thus ensuring consistent output.
Lastly, Mr. Raymond’s ability to lead with his heart and mind makes him an inspiration within his workforce. Empathy for the human resource is very important for the success of the business. It is vital to note that professional and personal struggles of employees can affect their level of work. Therefore, a good manager should be emotionally intelligent, with the ability to lead and guide employees with human understanding. By setting up departments such as guidance and counseling within the human resource department, to deal with employees’ emotional challenges, the workforce can operate at its optimum level with less emotional constraints.
One area that I would suggest the manager change regarding his management style is his preference of employee ratings in the company. He should steer his management away from the forced ranking approach, where a single number evaluates the performance of a particular employee. Numerical performance management system does not take into account the new working trends of the Millennial workforce. Employee ratings injure the employer-employee trust, and this hugely contributes to the overall morale of the workforce (Lopez, 2014, p. 98). Most companies over the years have shifted to a more team oriented type of workforce. As such, performance reviews, usually delivered once a year, have become obsolete with time. He should instead adopt a more social approach when analyzing employee performance. He should encourage regular conversations on performance and development, thereby focusing more on building the workforce, rather than putting much emphasis on employee discipline (Lopez, 2014, p. 98). It is worth noting that regular conversations, in a social context, will remove anxiety and guilt among employees, unnecessary paperwork, and instead promote individual creativity and collaboration among employees.
The management and leadership style adopted by a manager has the potential of increasing or reducing his or her influence in the workplace. A good manager should not stick to one form of management style, but should rather combine different approaches to manage the company successfully. Democratic style of leadership effectively helps the manager delicate his duties, ensure employee participation, and fosters corporation and teamwork within the workforce. On the other hand, coaching style of leadership ensures that there is a creative environment within the firm. Coaching style gives room for employees to sharpen their interpersonal skills, work skills, and innovative minds. Overall, a good manager should be open to suggestions from all quarters of the company to promote the company’s values and foster success.
References
Amanchukwu, N., Stanley, G., & Ololube, P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles
and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), 6-14.
Algahtani, A. (2014). Are leadership and management different? A review. Journal of
Management Policies and Practices, 2(3), 71-82.
Lopez, R. (2014). The relationship between leadership and management: instructional
approaches and its connections to organizational growth. Journal of Business Studies
Quarterly, 6(1), 98.