Leadership Styles and Leadership Research Paper

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Leadership Style on Employee Performance Management?

This paper looks into the effects of various leadership styles on the productivity of employees. The conceptual, theoretical and historical background of the study are elaborated along with a problem statement, objective of this study, research question, hypothesis, and the significance of conducting a research on the effects of leadership styles.

More and more stakeholders are looking into various leadership styles to better manage employees and the companies at large. The initial concept of personnel administration has all but been replaced by Human Resource management. This has led to the need for integration of various leadership styles to better manage employees and enhance their performance. An effective leader is one who quickly diagnoses problems and adopts relevant styles to prevent problems or do away with them. There are various leadership styles based on the empowerment given to employees, directions and their decision-making power.

Several studies have looked into employee performance verses various leadership styles such as democratic leadership, participative leadership and autocratic leadership. All these styles have their own benefits and drawbacks some of which will be investigated and later discussed in this study. The investigation of leadership styles and how they all differently affect performance dates back to the seventeenth century as companies grew and managers started treating people as machines and not human capital that must be motivated, encouraged and treated well to accomplish various goals (Iqbal, Anwar &Haider, 2015).

Conceptual Perspective

In this research, various styles of leadership such as participative, democratic and autocratic will be regarded as independent variables while employee performance will be regarded as a dependent variable. A conceptual approach will be developed based on the relationship between the variables so as to find out which leadership styles is the best for enhancing employee performance. Performance in this study will be looked at as: accomplishing departmental or organizational goals, executing the set duties and responsibilities, meeting deadlines and accomplishing team goals. If the above was met, it would lead to better organizational relations, better feedback, efficiency, specialization and increased revenues and profits (Iqbal, Anwar &Haider, 2015).

According to Carter (2008), leadership is the ability to use different managerial tools to inspire and motivate teams to achieve various organizational goals. By looking into how various leadership styles can affect performance, we can see which styles are most efficient in leading employees to achieve various goals in an organizations.

Theoretical Perspective

According to the Fiedler leadership contingency model, employee performance is based on a leader's ability to lead, which, in turn, is based on the leader's capability, his style of leadership, and the competency and behavior of his employees (Fisher, 1995). The conclusion was that leaders ought to adopt a style of leadership which they deem fit for their particular organizations so as to immediately stimulate the performance of their employees.

More and more people are understanding leadership not only as a persuasion, but also the ability to identify and promote values that would enhance performance. And not only that; a good leader is also supposed to give guidance and share knowledge so as to lead employees to improved performance and help them maintain or improve on that performance (Iqbal, Anwar &Haider, 2015).

Statement of Problem

Employee performance is all about accomplishing departmental or organizational goals, executing the set duties and responsibilities, meeting deadlines, accomplishing team goals and achieving efficiency and effectiveness in doing work. Organizations require strong leadership to improve performance. Almost all organizations will periodically face problems such as lower than expected performance, lower productivity and poor innovation. The root cause of such problems is often lack of strategic or effective leadership for that particular situation. It is for this reason that this study is looking to find out which leadership style is the best suited to stimulate employee performance. For without effective leadership such low performance problems are bound to persist or become worse and reduce revenues and profits (Iqbal, Anwar &Haider, 2015).

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to find out the effects of participative, democratic and autocratic leadership on the performance of employees.

Specific Objectives

1. To investigate how exactly the above-mentioned leadership styles contribute to performance.

2. To look into the relationship between various leadership styles and performance.

3. To explain the theoretical background of why certain styles work and others don't.

4. To provide recommendations that can help leaders inspire their staff to better performance.

Research Questions

1. How do various leadership styles affect employee performance?

2. What outcomes can be achieved using an effective leadership style?

3. How does participative leadership affect employee performance?

4.

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How does democratic leadership affect employee performance?

5. How does authoritative leadership affect employee performance?

Study Significance

The significance of this study is to provide a deeper understanding of how various leadership styles affect performance so that those in leadership positions can come up with the right strategies and designs that will inspire their employees to perform better in the highly complex, diverse and competitive modern business world.

By accomplishing the study objectives set out above in this paper, this study will also help other researchers to better understand what effective leadership is. The most notable significance will, however, be that other researchers could use the findings in this research paper for their own studies that could end up creating a huge impact in the business environment. The findings and most especially recommendations of this study could help business leaders to make changes in their leadership so as to achieve enhanced performance (Iqbal, Anwar &Haider, 2015).

Scope of the Study

This study focuses on how democratic, authoritative and participative leadership styles affect employees' performance -- the execution of duties and responsibilities and the meeting of deadlines and organizational objectives.

Literature Review

Under this section, what researchers, authors and other relevant stakeholders have noted or argued about various leadership styles will be discussed. The theoretical framework of the effect of various styles on performance will also be discussed.

Leadership

Leadership is defined as the process of influencing, guiding and directing the conduct of others so as to achieve certain goals in any given situation. It can also be defined as the capacity of a leader to inspire a group to accomplish a goal. To be an effective leader, one needs to have a vision and to motivate his or her followers to achieve the vision within the set timelines. Leadership can also be thought of as the human factor that binds people or employees together and inspires them to improve their performance so as to achieve set visions (Adair, 2002).

Leadership Styles

According to researchers Goleman, Boyatzis and Mckee (2002), there exists different styles of leadership. These styles of leadership include autocratic, democratic and participative and are based on the degree of decision-making power and authority of the leaders and their subordinates.

The democratic leadership style is characterized by sharing inputs. In this style of leadership, decisions are made in teams and each member has an equal right to provide input. In this way, everybody feels vested in the performance of the team and the organization at large.

Participative leadership is that which entails all team members working to identify important goals and objectives and coming up with the necessary strategies and processes to achieve those goals. This, in essence, means that in participative leadership, the leader is more of a facilitator and not a manager of human resources or a giver of assignments and orders. According to Iqbal, Anwar and Haider (2015), participative leadership can be used and will work well in a variety of scenarios including volunteer organizations, at home and most especially in business settings.

One of the key advantages of participative leadership is that it allows for the grooming or development of potential leaders within the workforce who have the potential to effectively serve their organizations in high positions in the future. This is because, this style of leadership encourages active involvement among all staff on the team, which means all the employees have the opportunity to show their creativity and talent. This kind of freedom and opportunity would not be allowed in other styles of leadership. The expression of creativity and talent within teams will ultimately improve their performance. It would also help the organization they are working for to notice those with a potential to lead so that they can be provided with opportunities to further develop their leadership skills.

Even though each person is different and his or her own preferred style of leadership, the best leaders are those who adopt a style that best suits their current situation. To find the most appropriate leadership style for a situation, one needs to consider the following main factors:

a. The task -- How important is the business? Is there a need to make a decision immediately? What would be the potential impact of the business?

b. The Team -- Does the team being led have the right resources for that style? Is the team used to decision-making?….....

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