Examples Of Poor Leadership

Leadership Challenges

We all face leadership challenges at some point of our lives. If you’re searching for leadership challenges then you’ve come to the right place. You could be looking for one of two interpretations of this phrase.

1. Leadership challenge to mean, an attempt to overthrow your authority. “What can I do to protect myself against somebody overuling my leadership?“. For the answers to these kinds of questions, I suggest you reflect upon your own leadership skills rather than those of your ‘competition’. Are your leadership skills up to scratch? If you want to improve them, click here.

2. Leadership challenges to mean difficult and rewarding leadership experiences. “How can I deal with this situation and come out of it a stronger person?“. This is the topic this article deals with.

In most organisations – you will encounter challenges as a leader many times a year, possibly even many times a week, depending on how much pressure is placed on your role. The key to dealing with these is to quickly picture in your head a clear image of the benefits you would receiving from successfully accomplishing this task. Reduced stress? Increased respect? Improved promotion prospects?

Almost every scenario you will encounter – glorious benefits will await you on the other side. The thought of these will help motivate you, and that is why I ask that you picture them immeadiately.

Next, you need to look inwards and decide whether you have the appropriate leadership skills and experience to be able to overcome the current difficulty. Don’t worry if you look at your skill set and admit ‘I’m not experienced at this area’, because you can certainly compensate for lack of experience by good preparation.

To hone up your leadership skills I’d recommend buying a quick and effective leadership course such as ‘Apply Leadership‘, which is the product I talk about most to those who ask me which leadership e-course I would recommend. (You can follow the link to read my review).

Once you have the benefits clearly in mind, and a good preparation, it’s time to tackle the leadership challenge head on. This will probably involve implementing a strategy of leading that you are perhaps not 100% comfortable with. Perhaps you read a leadership book that suggested a certain leadership style, but you don’t feel that it’s working. Don’t worry! A subtle change of direction can go unnoticed by the workforce if you display confidence in your actions.

Follow these tips and you will be able to weather any leadership challenge, and emerge from the other side as a success leader with an extra notch on your belt!

Simon Oates – Leader House

Leadership Services

Looking For Infomation On Leadership Services?

You’ve landed on the right page.

Leadership services come in many different flavours and vary in price to suit the budgets of different organisations. The 3 main types of leadership services are:

1. Leadership Coaching

2. Leadership Training

3. Leadership Classes

4. Leadership Development Consulting

What I’ll do is quickly run through each type, and provide a link to a page on Leader House that describes more about the different leadership services.

1. Leadership Coaching

Leadership Coaching is one of the most expensive type of leadership service. Provided by individuals whom are usually qualified by experience, and not necessarily qualification; leadership coaching is aimed at senior management of medium to large businesses.

2. Leadership Training

Leadership Training is an ambiguous term. Is usually refers to corporate training provided to ‘batches’ of employees, particularly upon recruitment to a certain level of management. Leadership training still retains some of the one-on-one interaction that you’d gain from leadership coaching, except this leadership service can help up to 50 employees to develop their leadership skills at the same time. This slashes the cost-per employee dramatically.

3. Leadership Classes

‘Leadership classes‘ is usually used to describe courses that individuals enrol in outside of the course of their employment. These are undertaken usually with the view to improve performance or to improve their prospects for promotion. These classes are usually rather expensive, and hence is an undertaking that really demonstrates the individuals desire to succeed.

4. Leadership Development Consulting

Leadership Development Consulting is a specific branch of leadership services that have a wider scope than other leadership services. While leadership classes and training focus on the personal development of the participant, leadership development consulting is also delivered with the organisations challenges and problems in mind also. Leadership consultants are first briefed on the specific nature of a businesses problems. The consultant will then analyse both the leadership management, and the leadership culture of the company. The consultant will end by apply their own knowledge and techniques to the scenario, to provide a relevant and effective solution.

How Effective Are Leadership Services?

The effectiveness of leadership services are limited chiefly by the employees willingness to open up to new ideas, and to implement ones that they aren’t at first wholly comfortable with. Leadership services don’t necessarily offer ‘agreeable’ solutions – but tried and tested ones, and thus management must be willing to try out techniques that they have previously rejected.

Is There A Cheaper Way To Improve My Leadership Skills?

Of course there is. Like many things in life – if you look in the right places, you’ll always be able to find a great resource for a bargain. I often recommend ‘Apply Leadership‘ to people because it’s an inexpensive and effective way to boost your leadership skills in a short space of time. It only costs a fraction of the price of a single leadership class, so that’s my advice.

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What Is ‘Apply Leadership?’ – How Does It Work?

Apply leadership is one of the latest personal development audio courses from world renowned hypnotherapist Steve G. Jones. It is comprised of several recordings that span 4 modules lasting several hours in total.

I want you to try and avoid imagining the ‘magician hypnotist’ image that you probably associate with hypnotherapy. These dubious showmen tarnish many respected clinical hypnotherapists that practise in hospitals and private practice clinics across the world, helping patients suffering with trauma, substance addictions and pain. As a board-certified clinical hypnotherapist, Steve simply uses the same techniques to instill confidence and leadership ability in those who listen to his audio course.

You simply listen to the tracks while lying down. The process sounds simple, and I can report it ertainly is! While I certainly felt deeply relaxed while listening to Steve, it is important to highlight the fact that you won’t fall asleep or unconscious during the tracks. You are still semi-aware of your surroundings. Being in such a relaxed and peaceful state is extremely comfortable, and I’d recommend that everyone tries it! Its the perfect environment to learn about leadership, and absorb the leadership skills and styles that this course has to offer. To find out more about what’s actually on the course, you can head on over to the website here.

Why Should I Get It?

I personally recommend ‘Apply Leadership’ to you because:

• It’s good value at under £30. Leadership coaches charge £100 per hour for their services, so to access several hours of audio material for just a third of the price is an extremely tempting offer!

• Great feedback from my visitors – I had received over 10 emails from visitors recommending that I try out ‘Apply Leadership’ and review it on my site, before I’d even heard of it! The good word of mouth was encouraging, and now it is my turn to recommend this excellent product to you.

• This audio course is a passive and easy way to pick up some essential skills that you probably haven’t perfected yet. I see it as a simple trade – £30 for boosted leadership skills.

• This product is distributed through ClickBank, which means you receive a 60 day 100% satisfaction guarantee. This means that if you’re not completely happy with Apply Leadership for any reason, you can apply for a refund through Clickbank itself, and have the refund processed within a few days. I’ve refunded a product through Clickbank myself before – its a simple process. But I’d be happy to talk you through it if you email me. This means that you can either love this product, or get all your money back in a few simple clicks – Win Win!

At the end of the day, if I’m happy to stake my solid reputation on this product, then you should be happy to give this product a risk-free trial. You owe it to yourself!

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Review Written By Simon Oates – ‘Leader House’.

Leadership Culture

Leadership Culture – What is leadership culture, which type does your organisation have, and how can you improve it?

Edgar Schein (1985) defines Leadership culture in an organization as being comprised of three elements: Basic assumptions, value and artifacts – with basic assumptions being the most important and in-grained element, and artifacts being the most superficial and easy to change.

Basic Assumptions in Leadership Culture

Basic assumptions evolve in a company after an action is repeatedly performed. These basic assumptions become part of our perception of our collegues and processes, and are so pervasive, they touch upon thought processes such as;

1. What we pay attention to.

2. What things mean.

3. How we should react emotionally.

4. What actions we should take in reaction to day-to-day events.

If you’d like to see a demonstration of different assumptions in action, then I’d ask you to imagine the reaction a Bailiff would have to someone objecting to pay them, and compare this to the reaction a small industrial company would have to someone objecting to pay them. To the bailiff this would be an ordinary and unsurprising occurance – and they would feel little wrong in continuing to hassle the non-payer for money. On the other hand, a small industrial company would be concerned about maintaining good relationships with customers, and would approach the situation far more sympathetically. Neither reaction is neccessarily the universal ‘right’ way to handle this occurance, this is why different cultures form in the first place.

Values In Leadership Culture

Values are a less permenant form of leadership culture, and thus are more easily changed than assumptions.  Values reflect concensus in the organisation as to how things “ought to be done”. Examples of popular values are:

1. Equal opportunities for all employees regardless of age, race, religion or sexuality.

2. Employees should strive to produce high quality work.

3. Employees should always pursue challenges and opportunities for growth.

Values sound like ‘lip service’ items, but to take ‘pursuing challenges’ as an example – in professional services firms, it is genuinely frowned upon for a member of staff to attempt to stay in their comfort zone and not wish to be promoted further. Values are those beliefs that are commonly held across the company.

Artifacts In Leadership Culture

Artifacts are the most ‘obvious’ and present manifestations of a business’s culture. These include manifestations such as

1. Mission statements.

2. Procedures.

3. Methods of communication.

4. Technology used

5. Business strategy, such as level of customer service

Artifacts are proactively constructeded and sculpted, and hence can be controlled easily by management. If however, artifacts that have been over-managed can become incongruent with the employee’s actual culture – and their influence over organisational culture becomes minimal.

How Can A Leader Change The Leadership Culture?

What this theory demonstrates is that the basic assumptions in a company’s culture need to shift to improve the culture as a whole. This can only be changed through leading by example. This means you need to improve your own leadership skills and display them confidently. If you want to quickly improve your leadership skills then I suggest you check out a cheap product that other leadership professionals and I recommend to our clients: Apply Leadership.

People Leadership

People & Leadership. Two words that are undeniably related. People & Leadership are almost the same thing. Without people, leadership is an empty characteristic. Alternatively without good leadership, no amount of people can help an organisation to meet it’s corporate  goals.

If you’ve landed on this page, you’re probably looking to either develop leadership in other people, or develop your leadership over those people.

People Leadership – Developing Leadership In Others

Developing leadership in others takes time and energy. There are no quick fixes in the area of people leadership. To inspire subordinates and collegues to start their own journey in personal development, you need to have respect from them, and genuine respect is hard to come by in the workplace. Follow the following tips to increase your success at spreading leadership skills.

1. Be patient. Leadership is a complicated skill that needs to be nutured over an lengthy period of time. If you expect people to become leaders overnight, or during a powerpoint presentation, then your goals are unrealistic at best.

2. Teach by example. The best way to share leadership skills is to teach others indirectly. You can do this by simply leading to the best of your ability. This is a crucial point to give more thought. It suggests that you can actually help people develop their leadership skills by simply working on your own!

3. Be as original as possible. Leadership is taught worst when it is delivered in a ’straight out of the box’ course. To really engage your employees, you’ll have to adjust, tweak, and inject some personality into any formalised training you give.

People Leadership – Developing Your Own Leadership Skills

Pursuing your own leadership development is admittedly an easier process. You are in complete control of your own behaviour and activities, and thus you can shape a plan of action to help improve your leadership skills. Here are some quick tips to help you go about doing so.

1. Educate yourself. One of the easiest and most practical actions you can do right now is to educate yourself and read widely on the subject. This could include looking in our leadership archives to explore deeper into the world of self improvement. You’ll find plenty of articles and material to get you thinking about leadership.

2. Invest in yourself & try out inexpensive e-courses. In the modern age there are a wide range of digital courses out there for you to absorb and master, some of which are available  for the same price as a restaurant meal. Such courses would normally cost hundreds of pounds if taught in person, but due to the ‘free’ delivery of such products – their prices are rock bottom. If you want to quickly improve your leadership skills then I suggest you check out a cheap product that other leadership professionals and I, recommend to our clients: Apply Leadership.

Author – Simon Oates

My Journey & The Secret To My Success

Welcome!

If you are interested in attracting wealth and success into your life using the law of attraction, then I’m confident you will find my own personal development story of at least ‘some use’ in your own journey. It’s a little longer than my average post, but you owe it to yourself to read it all and learn from my experience!

About 11 months ago I was in a terrible place. I felt like I was going absolutely nowhere. After being an employee for so long, I had become conditioned to feel like this was my only route – my only choice.

It turns out I was thankfully mistaken

Whether you’re a graduating student or a manager of 20 years, it’s likely you feel that you have very limited control over your life. Joining a graduate training scheme, or bidding for the next promotion seems like the natural path we should take.

But how often do we solemnly stop, think and weigh up whether the ‘obvious’ course of action is the right one? I had never really done that, and as a result I felt powerless and unhappy with where I was.

But June last year, I uncovered a resource that held the secret to the success that now fills my life with happiness (and wealth) just one year on. It is a powerful secret that I am more than happy to use Leadership-Expert.co.uk to share with you all and hopefully enrich your life as a result. It helped me to destroy negative thoughts and even create serious wealth in a short period of time.

“I Finally Found The Courage To Do What I REALLY Wanted For A Change”

The powerful resource I am about to tell you about should take all the credit for helping me to get to where I am today.

It taught me that almost everything that happens in your life is a result of your manifested thoughts and feelings. This is the fundamental theory behind the law of attraction. It’s an incredible theory and principle that I uncovered along with 10 other natural laws one year ago. The laws sounded simple at first, but contained such meaning and relevance to my life, that I was able to apply them, use them, and take advantage of them to improve my own success. They were taught with so much enthusiasm and wisdom that I couldn’t help but use them to achieve greater heights the moment I stepped back out into the world.

So what is this special resource that I discovered used to change my life for the better? Which course inspired me to create Leadership-Expert.co.uk, and to reach out and grow in other areas of my life?

It’s a downloadable course called The 11 Forgotten Laws

The 11 Forgotten Laws is a revolutionary audio course, taught by Bob Proctor, who starred in the hit personal development feature ‘The Secret’ and went on to receive international acclaim. The course contains 12 digital discs with 95 tracks that cover all elements of the 11 Forgotten Laws. These tracks are so enjoyable and empowering to listen to, and yet while having fun, you’ll also be re-shaping your future.

The course de-mystifies laws such as ‘the law of receiving‘ and ‘the law of supply‘. They underpin everything that happens in our lives, and conquering the concepts behind them will allow you to achieve more than you ever have before. If you will it to happen, it will happen if you can master these 11 forgotten laws.

Have you ever wondered why some people just seem to be ‘destined’ for a richer and more successful path than you? Why, even though they aren’t actively seeking wealth, they stumble into fortune and opportunity again and again?

That Isn’t ‘luck’. The Ability To Use The 11 Laws Simply Comes Naturally To These People

Mastering the law of attraction and the other 10 laws will allow you to craft a life in which success and opportunity appears to present itself to you in a similar way. Soon you will be the envy of your friends for your apparant good fortune.

Also included in the course are a bounty of bonuses, including a video seminar, an exclusive membership invitation and an entire bonus course focused on increasing your prosperity. I don’t have room in this post to discuss all the bonuses, so you’ll have to head over to the site to see them for yourself.

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Implementing The 11 Forgotten Laws is easy, and practical steps are suggested for you to start working on right away to:

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It’s risk free, and is yours to try for only $5/£3. That’s the tiny price of a Big Mac. If you’re ready to start taking control of you life and opening the floodgates for success, your journey begins NOW. £3 is nothing, visit the Forgotten Laws website now – you owe it to yourself to give it a try, as I did.

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To Your Success,

Simon Oates – Leader House

Leadership vs Management – Analysis

Leadership and management as concept are both completely intertwined with the idea of self-investment.

All excellent managers and leaders regularly invest in themselves. Managers have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. The current industry leader is ‘Apply Leadership‘, which is widely respected by leadership professionals such as myself.

The Role Of Management Through The Century

The traditional role of a manager is primarily to ‘control’ their subordinates.  The success of a managed project depends upon several factors listed below:

• Motivation of staff
• Resources (financial and non-financial) allocated to the task
• Expertise and competence of the staff
• Productivity and efficiency
• Soundness of project plan
• Uncontrollable external factors

Highlighted in bold are those factors that most managers are charged with control over. Often budgeting and strategic planning for an operation is completed at a higher level of management, and thus isn’t always a controllable factor.

In the Fordism era, managers were charged with maximising efficiency of the large staff numbers in manufacturing plants, and the Ford management style was created. Under this theory, staff were given a minimum number of separate tasks and were shown precisely how to do each job so they became an expert in a tiny area. This encouraged operational efficiency, and was used alongside financial incentives to motivate employees to work.

As times have changed, Fordism now appears out-dated. Managers in the modern day are also given soft ‘hard-to-measure’ goals alongside the obvious desire to maximise profits. Such ’soft’ goals could include the following:

• High employee retention rates
• Increased employee participation
• Fundraising for charities
• Reducing the environmental impact of business activities
• Focusing on training top quality individuals

Such goals cannot be achieved with the same old fashioned management styles that dominated factories in the 1920’s, and hence several new theories have been put forward that now better reflect the way society expects managers to behave.

The Role Of Leadership Through The Century

While the role of managers has undoubtedly been made far more complex throughout the last century, the role of the business leader has stayed remarkably similar. This is in part due to the fact that while businesses have been intensely competing for low-level staff as unemployment has hit all-time lows during the 1900’s, demand for top level jobs has remained unsurprisingly solid. This has meant that while businesses have had to adapt and offer a more attractive work environment for new employees, the treatment of business leaders and senior management has hardly changed at all. Boardrooms have always been tense places.

The role of a leader is to create the top level organisational strategies and coordinate senior management in their efforts to implement the companies long term plan. As a figurehead, leaders also are required to liase with the press and employees alike – promoting their company to both their customers and workers.

Leadership Vs Management

The leadership management comparison can be split into several areas of difference.

1. Leadership Style

Leaders use a transformational or democratic leadership style. This involves inspiring and empowering collegues, whereas managers tend to lean towards an autocratic managing style which allows them to retain most of the authority and decision making power in a business unit. In short, a leader allows people to make effective decisions, and managers attempt to make them.

2. Time focus

While it can be observed that especially among Fortune 500 companies, a CEO has a shorter expected lifespan than general manager at company, leaders still embrace a more long term time horizon. In comparison, managers are given tight targets to meet each quarter which causes them to live in a short term perspective. This can be detrimental to organisational goals but is deemed to carry more benefits than drawbacks in the current economic climate.

3. Nature of relationship with collegues

It is said that managers have subordinates, while leaders have followers. What this displays is that people who obey managers act like unwilling tools at their disposal, whereas followers of leaders are willing and intrinsically motivated.

4. Risk Adversity

Leaders; especially entrepreneurial leaders, enjoy risk. Risk brings rewards if approached in a successful way. However for a manager, the upsides of accepting risk are minimal. A flat salary or limited bonus package ensures that managers will be more worried about losing their job or respect, than they would appreciate the limited benefits of succeeding. A manager certainly wishes for a more comfortable job than an true leader.

Leadership Styles – Autocratic vs Democratic vs Bureaucratic

Research and investigation into different management leadership styles has been fragmented and inconsistent. The key to good leadership development is a good knowledgebase.  That’s why we bring you an in-depth look at 3 key leadership styles that will highlight the benefits and shortfalls commonly associated with each. We won’t just be covering the leadership development theory; this article will also help to describe some of the practical issues that arise in the workplace as a result of implementing these styles, and I hope you find this ‘down-on-the-ground’ view will help you determine which style is right for your own leadership development. This article will also be useful for students researching leadership development or styles for essays.

What is Autocratic Leadership?

Autocratic leadership is a classical leadership style with the following characteristics:

1. Manager seeks to make as many decisions as possible

2. Manager seeks to have the most authority and control in decision making

3. Manager seeks to retain responsibility rather than utilise complete delegation

4. Consultation with other colleagues in minimal and decision making becomes a solitary process

5. Managers are less concerned with investing their own leadership development, and prefer to simply work on the task at hand.

The autocratic leadership style is seen as an old fashioned technique. It has existed as long as managers have commanded subordinates, and is still employed by many leaders across the globe. The reason autocratic leadership survives, even if it is outdated, is because it is intuitive, carries instant benefits, and comes natural to many leaders. Many leaders who start pursuing leadership development are often trying to improve upon their organisations autocratic leadership style.

What Are The Benefits Of The Autocratic Leadership Style?

Despite having many critics, the autocratic leadership styles offer many advantages to managers who use them. These include:

Reduced stress due to increased control. Where the manager ultimately has significant legal and personal responsibility for a project, it will comfort them and reduce their stress levels to know that they have control over their fate.

A more productive group ‘while the leader is watching’. The oversight that an autocratic manager exerts over a team improves their working speed and makes them less likely to slack. This is ideal for poorly motivated employees who have little concern or interest in the quality or speed of work performed.

Improved logistics of operations. Having one leader with heavy involvement in many areas makes it more likely that problems are spotted in advance and deadlines met. This makes autocratic leadership ideal for one-off projects with tight deadlines, or complicated work environments where efficient cooperation is key to success.

Faster decision making. When only one person makes decisions with minimal consultation, decisions are made quicker, which will allow the management team to respond to changes in the business environment more quickly.

What Are The Disadvantages Of The Autocratic Leadership Style?

Short-termistic approach to management. While leading autocratically will enable faster decisions to be made in the short term, by robbing subordinates of the opportunity to gain experience and start on their own leadership development,  and learn from their mistakes, the manager is actually de-skilling their workforce which will lead to poorer decisions and productivity in the long run.

Manager perceived as having poor leadership skills. While the autocratic style has merits when used in certain environments (as highlighted below), autocratic leadership style is easy yet unpopular. Managers with poor leadership skills with often revert to this style by default. To improve your leadership skills, I, and other leadership professionals usually recommend Apply Leadership, which is an effective and respected way to build your leadership ability.

Increased workload for the manager. By taking on as much responsibility and involvement as possible, an autocratic leader naturally works at their full capacity, which can lead to long term stress and health problems and could damage working relationships with colleagues. This hyper-focus on work comes at the expense of good leadership development.

People dislike being ordered around. They also dislike being shown very little trust and faith. As a result, the autocratic leadership style can result in a demotivated workforce. This results in the paradox that autocratic leadership styles are a good solution for demotivated workers, but in many cases, it is the leadership style alone that demotivates them in the first place.

Teams become dependent upon their leader. After becoming conditioned to receive orders and act upon them perfectly, workers lose initiative and the confidence to make decisions on their own. This results in teams of workers who become useless at running operations if they loose contact with their leader. This is the result of a lack of time dedicated to leadership development on the employees part.

When is the Autocratic Leadership Style Effective?

Following on from the merits and drawbacks listed above, the autocratic leadership style is useful in the following work situations:

1. Short term projects with a highly technical, complex or risky element.

2. Work environments where spans of control are wide and hence the manager has little time to devote to each employee.

3. Industries where employees need to perform low-skilled, monotonous and repetitive tasks and generally have low levels of motivation.

4. Projects where the work performed needs to be completed to exact specifications and/or with a tight deadline.

5. Companies that suffer from a high employee turnover, i.e. where time and resources devoted to leadership development would be largely wasted. Although one could argue that a lack of leadership development in the first place caused the high turnover.

What is Democratic Leadership?

Democratic Leadership is the leadership style that promotes the sharing of responsibility, the exercise of delegation and continual consultation. The style has the following characteristics:

1. Manager seeks consultation on all major issues and decisions.

2. Manager effectively delegate tasks to subordinates and give them full control and responsibility for those tasks.

3. Manager welcomes feedback on the results of intiatives and the work environment.

4. Manager encourages others to become leaders and be involved in leadership development.

What Are The Benefits Of The Democratic Leadership Style?

Positive work environment. A culture where junior employees are given fair amount of responsibility and are allowed to challenge themselves is one where employees are more enthused to work and enjoy what they do.

Successful initiatives. The process of consultation and feedback naturally results in better decision making and more effective operations. Companies run under democratic leadership tend to run into fewer grave mistake and catastrophes. To put it simply – people tell a democratic leader when something is going badly wrong, while employees are encouraged to simply hide it from an autocrat.

Creative thinking. The free flow of ideas and positive work environment is the perfect catalyst for creative thinking. The benefits of this aren’t just relevant for creative industries, because creative thinking is required to solve problems in every single organisation, whatever it’s nature.

Reduction of friction and office politics. By allowing subordinates to use their ideas and even more importantly – gain credit for them, you are neatly reducing the amount of tension employees generate with their manager. When autocratic leaders refuse to listen to their workers, or blatantly ignore their ideas, they are effectively asking for people to talk behind their back and attempt to undermine or supercede them.

Reduced employee turnover. When employees feel empowered through leadership development, a company will experience lower rates of employee turnover which has numerous benefits. A company that invests in leadership development for its employees, is investing in their future, and this is appreciated by a large majority of the workforce.

What Are The Disadvantages Of The Democratic Leadership Style?

Lengthy and ‘boring’ decision making. Seeking consultation over every decision can lead to a process so slow that it can cause opportunities to be missed, or hazards avoided too late.

Danger of pseudo participation. Many managers simply pretend to follow a democratic leadership style simply to score a point in the eyes of their subordinates. Employees are quick to realise when their ideas aren’t actually valued, and that the manager is merely following procedure in asking for suggestions, but never actually implementing them. In other words, they’re simply exerting autocratic leadership in disguise.

When Is The Democratic Leadership Style Effective?

Now you’ve heard about the benefits and drawbacks of this leadership style, let’s look at where its actually implemented in the business world.

1. Democratic leadership is applied to an extent in the manufacturing industry, to allow employees to give their ideas on how processes can become leaner and more efficient. While ‘Fordism’ is still applied in some factories across the country, truth is that production managers are now really starting to harness the motivational bonuses associated with not treating employees like robots anymore.

2. Democratic leadershp is effective in proffessional organisations where the emphasis is clearly on training, professional & leadership development and quality of work performed. Democratic procedures are simply just one cog in the effective leadership mechanisms firms like The Big Four have created over the years.

3. Non profit organisations also tremendously benefit from drawing upon the creative energies of all their staff to bring about cost cutting techniques or fund raising ideas.

4. As previously mentioned, creative industries such as advertising and television enjoy alot of benefits from the free flow of ideas that democratic leadership brings.

What Is Bureaucratic Leadership?

The bureaucratic leadership style is concerned with ensuring workers follow rules and procedures accurately and consistently. Bureaucratic leadership normally has the following characteristics:

1. Leaders expect a employees to display a formal, business-like attitude in the workplace and between each other.

2. Managers gain instant authority with their position, because rules demand that employees pay them certain priveledges, such as being able to sign off on all major decisions. As a result, leaders suffer from ‘position power’. Leadership development becomes pointless, because only titles and roles provide any real control or power.

3. Employees are rewarded for their ability to adhere to the rules and follow procedure perfectly.

4. Bureaucratic systems usually gradually develop over a long period of time, and hence are more commonly found in large & old businesses.

What Are The Benefits Of The Bureaucratic Leadership Style?

Increased safety. In dangerous workplaces where procedures save lives, a bureaucratic management style can help enforce health and safety rules.

Quality work. Some tasks, such as completing proffessional work or medical examinations, need to be done in a meticulous fashion to be done correctly. Laziness can result in poor work, and hence one solution is to enforce the rules via the bureacratic leadership style.

Ultimate control. An environment whereby employees are intrinsically motivated to follow rules in order to be promoted and succeed results in the tightest control management can ever assume over a company. This control can be used to cut costs or improve productivity.

What Are The Disadvantages Of The Bureaucratic Leadership Style?

Dehumanises the business. Bureacratic companies tend to remove as much potential for ‘human error’ out of the picture as possible. Unfortunately this also has the effect of removing all the enjoyment and reward that comes from deciding how to do a task and accomplishing it.

Lack of self-fulfillment. The bureaucratic way of working hampers employees efforts to become successful and independent, because the system becomes too contraining. This is why managers who experience ‘Apply Leadership‘ (one of the few audio courses that are respected among leadership professionals.) start working straight away to remove excess bureaucracy from their teams and organisations.

Parkinson’s Law. Cyril Northcote Parkinson made the scientific observation that the number of staff in bureaucracies increased by an average of 5%-7% per year “irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done.”". He explains this growth by two forces: (1) “An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals” and (2) “Officials make work for each other.” Parkinson’s findings suggest that bureaucratic leadership encourages inefficiency and waste of internal resources in the long run.

‘Position power’ obessession. After working in an environment that reinforces the idea that authority is created by rules which in turn support senior positions. Employees become attached to the idea that simply being in a job position creates authority. This can lead to intense office politics, arrogant leaders and little incentive to perform well once an employee has landed a top job.

Lack of creativity. It goes without saying that a rule-based culture hinders creativity and encourages workers to simply perform puppet-like work rather than think independently. This may result in a lack of growth in the business due to employees simply not thinking out of the box or looking for new areas to develop.

Poor communication. A common feature of a bureaucratic system is a complicated network of communication lines. Managers who don’t want to be ‘bothered’ by junior staff simply create procedures that allow them to avoid communicating with those below them. ‘Go through the formal process’, ‘Talk to my secretary’ and ‘My schedule is full’ are common rule-based excuses for blocked contact. Barriers to communication can hinder the success of any company. For example, the board may be charging ahead with a doomed product simply because their shop floor workers cannot pass on the message that customers are giving very negative feedback.

When Is The Bureaucratic Leadership Style Effective?

Bureaucratic leadership is found in extremely large corporations such as General Electric, Daimler and General Motors. However these cultures have evolved due to the age and size of these companies, and are generally blamed for the slow growth and recent failures at these companies.

1. Governmental bodies often have bureaucratic systems, and while these are often despised by the public, they ensure accountability to the tax payer and fair treatment for all. Excessive form-filling also serves the purpose of passing effort from the government authority (with a tight budget) onto the individual, helping to save costs.

2. Dangerous workplaces such as mines, oil rigs, construction sites and film sets all benefit from the tight control over health and safety that rules offer.

What Different Leadership Types Are There?

These 3 key management leadership styles are by no means a comprehensive list. Different leadership styles include laissez faire leadership, where the leader sets tasks and leaves workers up to their own devices to complete it.

Leadership Development

Leadership development is a complicated area, and thus countless styles have been theorised and researched. Good leadership development often involves using resources such as Leader House to be ’sift’ through these different leadership development tips and ideas. Once you’ve been able to pull together a solid leadership development plan for yourself, you can start to really engage your employees – and maybe even set them off on their own leadership development quest!

Leader House also has articles on another leadership style: charismatic leadership. You may also want to read our articles on leadership theories and common leadership traits.

Author – Simon Oates – Leader House.

Expert Guide To Leadership Classes

Are Leadership Classes for you?

Due to wide and varied nature of leadership, and a variety of different needs, leadership classes can take several different forms.

Personal Leadership Classes

A one-on-one leadership class is also known as leadership coaching, and can be really effective at improving leadership skills. Leadership coaches normally charge between £40-£100 per hour, but they’ll also spend time preparing for your meeting too. These sessions will help you set goals for your personal development, and your coach will ensure that you’re keeping up with your commitments to fulfill those goals. Your coach can also suggest practical techniques and actions for you to use during your work. Coaches normally have a wealth of experience, and so hopefully you can learn from their tips and previous mistakes and effectively apply the technique yourself.

In a different approach, smart people have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, most tend to be rather disappointing, but one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself is ‘Apply Leadership‘, which I consider an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life.

Group Leadership Classes

These types of leadership class usually involve 3-10 people and resemble group therapy classes. The ’students’ are led by a teacher who seeks to engage and interact with every member as much as posssible. Less attention is paid to personal achievement, and the class becomes a platform to teach and share ideas and experiences concerning leadership styles and techniques.

Leadership Seminars/ Conferences

Leadership conferences are led by a highly paid motivational speaker who is capable of speaking confidently and energetically to crowds of thousands. I personally believe that these seminars are the least effective form of leadership class, but that is to be expected, as the cost per head is significantly lower than a personal leadership coach.

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