Free Custom «Individual Reflection» Essay Paper

There are several ways and means to lead people as there are leaders. This can be demonstrated historical from Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs (Blanchard and Zigami, 1985). Over the years business people and psychologist have successfully developed useful and elaborate ways to describe the main style of leadership. It is important to learn and understand some of these leadership styles and their impact so as you can develop your own approach to leadership and become a more prolific and effective leader. Being an all-round manager and leader it would objective to identify oneself with transactional leadership style. This reason is based on the managerial decision on the duties and responsibilities assigned to workers or team players which provides a clear directive on what the team players are supposed to do basing on their experience and expertise which collaborates with their remuneration. Additionally most managers attach themselves to this leadership style because it generates authority and power from the contract each employee had signed at the commencement of his tenure. Consequently this obliges the player to follow the rules and regulations that define his line of duty.

 

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The following is some of the leadership styles applied by most managers:

1. Transactional Leadership

This leadership style is an unending process that starts with the idea that team members agree to obey their leader when they accept a job. From The word “transaction" it usually implies that the organization is paying its team members in return for their effort and compliance. Consequently the leader is mandated to "punish" team members if their work does not meet an appropriate standard because they are paid to work (Blanchard et al, 1985). Even though on the facial value it may seem that this leadership style may seem to control. Contrary to that, paternalist or transactional leadership offers befits such as that it clarifies everyone’s roles and responsibilities. More so,  this leadership style emphasizes on team members performance- the team players who are ambitious and motivated by exogenous rewards which may include compensation  are deemed to thrive and hence making the overall working process a success (Goleman et al, 2002). On the negative side, this leadership style give very little room for it team players to improve their job satisfaction  hence may lead to high staff turnover due to desperations.

2. Autocratic Leadership

The other form of leadership is the Autocratic leadership which is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where leaders have complete autonomy over their team players (Kippenberger, 2002). Staff and team members have little or no opportunity to make suggestions or raise any red flag even if these would be in the team's or the organization's best interest and in line with the goals and objectives of the firm. This form and style of this leadership is beneficial in that is more efficient as compared to other leadership style. It is also evident that this style scraps all the bureaucracy and makes decision making quickly and work get done on time (Kippenberger 2002).  On the other flip of the coin, this leadership style has the tendency that leads to most people particularly the workers resent i being treated this way.  Consequently this would leads to high staff turnover and absenteeism. In most cases, the style is more beneficial when dealing with routine and unskilled job that requires directives that need to be followed to the later. On overall, the style can be used efficiently and effectively in a crisis scenario where decision are to be made quickly and without dissent. The military is the best stage and platform of this type of leadership that enhances and enables the commanders to responsibly make quick and complex decisions which allows the troops to pay close attention and focus on their appropriated duties and missions (Steinberg, 2008).

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3. Bureaucratic Leadership

In this style the leaders work by the book. They have to follow the rules and procedures vigorously and ensure that all the players follow procedures to the latter.

This style work well in high specialized and technical occasions that involve safety risks e.g. working with machinery, nuclear energy or at dangerous height or where there is involvement of large sums of money (Steinberg, 2008). Bureaucratic leadership is also more successful where employees do a lot of routine tasks. Its limitation stems from the fact that this leadership style is ineffective in teams and organization that rely on autonomy, innovations or creativity. In many cases, this leadership style achieves its objectives through their ability to conform to and uphold regulations but not because of their qualification or expertise. Additionally this scenario leads to resentment when the team members do not place much value on their expertise or advisement (Steinberg 2008).

Conclusion

The transactional leadership style in my opinion is the best style that can be utilized because it makes all the players to abide by the rules and regulations that govern their work. Conventionally it is always the case for every employee and employer to engage each other on the duties and responsibilities that the employee would be assigned. The employees are also assigned duties basing on their skills and experience to produce the best output.  More so the employer is bound to reward the employee with an attractive enumeration and appraisal as the contract regulates. For this reason, this style is encouraged as it makes the player to be their own supervisors who are guided by their contract. It also eradicates any room to entertain laxity and unprofessionalism in their line of duty.