Commentary. Chapter 2

a) Autocratic Leader

Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of leadership, where a leader has absolute power over his or her employees or team. Employees and team members have little opportunity for making suggestions. Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Because of this, autocratic leadership usually leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. For some routine and unskilled jobs, the style can, however, remain effective.

b) Democratic Leader

Although a democratic leader will make the final decision, he or she invites other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. This not only increases job satisfaction by involving employees or team members in what's going on, but it also helps to develop people's skills. Employees and team members feel in control of their own destiny, such as the promotion they desire, and so are motivated to work. A shortcoming of this leadership style is that it has difficulty when decisions are needed in a short period of time or at the moment.

c) Laissez-faire Leader

This French phrase means "leave it be" and is used to describe a leader who leaves his or her colleagues to get on with their work. It can be effective if the leader monitors what is being achieved and communicates this back to his or her team regularly. Most often, laissez-faire leadership works for teams in which the individuals are very experienced and skilled self-starters. Unfortunately, it can also refer to situations where managers are not exerting sufficient control.

d) Bureaucratic Leader

Bureaucratic leaders work "by the book", ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly. Such leaders ensure that all the steps have been followed prior to sending it to the next level of authority. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances or at heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as cash handling)

e) People-oriented Leader

People-oriented leader is the one that, in order to comply with effectiveness and efficiency, supports, trains and develops his personnel, increasing job satisfaction and genuine interest to do a good job.

f) Task-oriented leader

The task-oriented leader focuses on the job and concentrates on the specific tasks assigned to each employee to reach goal accomplishment. This leadership style suffers the same motivation issues as autocratic leadership, showing no involvement in the team’s needs. It requires close supervision and control to achieve expected results.

g) Servant Leader

The servant leader facilitates goal accomplishment by giving its team members what they need in order to be productive. This leader is an instrument employees use to reach the goal rather than a commanding voice that moves to change. This leadership style, in a manner similar to democratic leadership, tends to achieve the results in a slower time frame than other styles, although employee engagement is higher.

h) Transaction Leader

The transaction leader is given power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish for the team’s performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level and reward effectiveness when expected outcome is reached.

i) Transformation Leader

The transformation leader motivates its team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group on the final desired outcome or goal attainment. This leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformation leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the company’s vision.

j) Environment Leader

The environment leader is the one who nurtures group or organisational environment to affect the emotional and psychological perception of an individual’s place in that group or organisation. An understanding and application of group psychology and dynamics is essential for this style to be effective. The leader uses organisational culture to inspire individuals and develop leaders at all levels. This leadership style relies on creating an education matrix where groups interactively learn the fundamental psychology of group dynamics and culture from each other. The leader uses this psychology and complementary language to influence direction through the members of the inspired group to do what is required for the benefit of all.