FBLT050 Human Resource Management : Heterogeneity of Leadership Styles

1.1 Introduction:

The following report is based on the drawbacks associated with autocratic leadership style.  There are several types of leadership styles usually followed and implemented by different organisations. However, Autocratic leadership style helps in streamlining the entire work process with proper implementation of different techniques (Bader 2015). The following report is carried out under certain themes related to disadvantages of such style. While discussing the disadvantages of the style, the report also talks about shortcoming of factors such as it is one way process of communication wherein leaders do not have the liberty to develop objectives and it creates problems for both employees and affects production.

Autocratic leadership is defined as the type of leadership that will help in analysing issues and solves them with proper implementation of techniques that help in their reduction (Bader, 2015). The report also focuses on the impact of such leadership practices on an organisation and its employees. In order to understand the relevance of the analysis and discussion, the report also considers real context such as an organisation where the autocratic leadership style has been applied in my organization. Autocratic leaders are present in many organisations worldwide that have dictatorship attitude towards employees. Employees of such organisation should not feel like they are not given proper importance as there are different employees who feel to provide their suggestions to assist in success for the organisation (Rast, Hogg and Giessner 2013). On the other hand, there are employees who do not feel like taking up responsibilities and according to them the leaders are the right ones to take proper responsibility as this will help them in working the way they are presently performing (Rast, Hogg and Giessner 2013).

Furthermore, in today’s scenario, organisations want individuals who feel like working with proper leadership qualities leaders. This involves that there are employees who feel like showcasing ideas that are necessary, to provide success to the organisation. On the other hand, there are various kinds of employees who do not feel like working hard and generating the innovative as well as creative ideas into the discussions that could help in the success of their organisation.

The report starts with providing a critical discussion regarding the concept of autocratic leadership style. Autocratic leadership is characterised by governance of individuals as well as control of decisions of the individuals wherein only small amount of importance is provided to team members and this possibly creates dictatorship in an organisation. Leaders in the autocratic leadership feel they are the superiors and all decisions will be taken by themselves and this might have enormous impact on the individuals. These are the kind of leaders who do not provide much importance to team members which affects all involved.

Likewise, the report goes forward with another theme in terms of impact of such drawbacks on organisational performance. It is important to analyse the impact of such characteristics of leadership because autocratic leadership style is often used by organisationsbut their impact on business and employees have not been properly discovered (Karodia et al., 2016)..  Hence, the discussion has also been supported with appropriate literature. The analysis of the studies helps to learn and determine the impact of drawbacks associated with the research context.

1.2 Concept of autocratic leadership style

It is quite certain that leadership style plays very significant role in managing people effectively and operation in an organisational setting (Landa and Tyson, 2017). Autocratic leadership is defined as one wherein team members are not given proper deserved importance. Leaders are considered authoritarian as they feel the decisions that are taken by them are flawless (Karodia et al., 2016). Autocratic leadership needs to be changed a bit as there is a fine line between autocratic style and dictatorship wherein leaders will be dictating the employees which would create issues in the workplace as this could potentially have huge influence on organisations along with the employee’s wellbeing. 

On the other hand, the employer feels that the decisions that are taken by them are correct and do not require any further assistance from employees, those who build the organisation up. However, there should be different norms that would help employees and employer to take different decisions jointly and with proper collaboration as this would help in reducing conflicts.

The leaders lead an organisation towards the goals and objectives. Not only, the leaders lead operations to achieve the objectives, they also help others to achieve their individual and organisational goals (Bader, 2015). The present report only focuses on autocratic leadership style because according to Karodia Mentasti and Mulligan (2016) such category is often developed in several large and medium size organisations. As put forward by Rast and Hogg (2016) like every leadership style, autocratic style also provides certain advantages. For example, first and foremost advantage is that it helps some organisations in making quick and centralised decision (Rast, Hogg and Giessner 2013). Nonetheless, there are many disadvantages observed in autocratic style, which is the fundamental focus of this report. Autocratic leadership has few disadvantages as well that includes issues in entire group when team members are not provided with equal opportunity and this creates distress for the entire group. There is a thin line between a dictator and an autocratic leader. Due to autocratic leadership, the employees feel frustrated by dictatorship of their leaders which has huge effect on performance and affects employee’s morale (Karodiaet al., 2016).  Company’s performance is totally dependent on the nature of leaders as it affects the entire team as an organisation operates in vacuum leading to further issues.

In autocratic leadership employees do not have proper rights to express their views which tend to have an adverse impact on my organisation. Within such leadership the boss does not seek acceptance from employees for the decisions that are made. They are dominant in nature and this has serious impact on organisational performance as there can be times when the superior may not be right but in order to maintain the status quo, the leader would not take any suggestions from employees. As put forward by Babiak et al. (2017), autocratic manager could miss valuable strategic insight that only people in the group could provide, meaning that instead of calling for a brainstorming session for e.g. new campaign, the manager decides on a strategy as well as orders their employees to carry on. As put forward by Bader (2015) their strategy may not come out as the best available option and the manager could fail to capitalise on his employees’ valuable, expertise, feedback and insight, potentially having huge impact on the entire group along with performance and effectiveness. At times, there are employees who find various reasons not to complete the entire task and this could have an impact on company’s performance as employees might look for the reasons/justification they are not aware of. From psychological perspective, it can be added that every individual wish to know the reason behind any action (Rast and Hogg, 2016). Thus, whenever, managers decide to do something leaving others’ ideas, they might have to deal with issues that might turn out to be entirely wrong, and then it is entire and sole responsibility of managers to take the responsibility to rectify the mistakes. Similarly, if the decisions that has been taken are correct theybenefit the entire company, assisting in further repressiveness.  Rast and Hogg (2016) mentioned that some workers who stray from taking proper decisions themselves and do not feel like making decisions by themselves could respond effectively to an autocratic manager as well as accept their roles as automatons to be ordered about. This happens because autocratic leaders have tremendous skills, charisma and communication ability, so they, could convince people about the purpose, which they work on (Karodia et al., 2016). If the disciplines are properly maintained within a business that includes both employees and employers then the autocratic leadership is in the right place and provides desired output (Thyne and Powell 2016).  To gain proper advantage from such leadership, managers need to develop discipline and prepare strategies that will help employees to engage into different activities as well as decisions that will be taken on behalf of all. For example, few outstanding leaders such as Bill Belichick, Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes fall under the category of autocratic leaders and none of these leaders managed their football team with democracy in mind (Thyne and Powell 2016). Karodia et al. (2016) described autocratic leader as one who is very conscious about his/her position and has little faith in subordinates. Babiak et al. (2017) mentioned that a leader thinks that pay is a reward for work as well as it is the only reward that could motivate. The leader gives orders and ensures they are carried out. From the entire analysis, it can be understood that the examples of these autocratic leaders. They help in proving that there are various kinds of leaders wherein few are autocratic but they generate positive outcomes in the coming future.

Rast et al. (2013) focused on another shortcoming of autocratic leaders embedded in the concept is that the denial of personal development or satisfaction from self-actualisation. Satisfaction from self-actualisation is essential in nature as it helps in understanding the difficulties that are faced by employees (Karodiaet al., 2016). Bader (2015) mentioned that this leadership also antagonises human being and influences the co-operation. As put forward by Rast et al. (2013), previously, it was usual among the business executives to make plans and discussion as well as to possess them. Such practice could enable subordinates to do what the situation demand as well as the responsibility of the decision, inappropriate communication and the goals could lead to issue. A study conducted by Rast and Hogg (2016), presented a fact that autocratic leadership is not inappropriate management style, that business owners who fail to carry out this style effectively tend to receive negative outcome, meaning that business owners need to be sensitive to employee’s personalitiesand working style. Therefore, it is assumed that creating an open and understanding work environment could enable employees to deliver the business with feedback about operations. The business owners could use this information to refine their management style and enhance working relationship of the owner and the employees.

Autocratic style has been used by many organisations and lot of leaders have shown positive results from using this style of leadership (Rast et al. 2013). The best example is Jeff Bezos who has amalgamated the transformative type of leadership into autocratic style. Amazon is one of the leaders in their industry and was the first movers in their industry to accommodate these changes (Stone 2013). However, even though the organisation has generated huge revenue and has become the market leader there are lot of problems the organisation is facing due to this leadership style. The most prominent one is the rate of attrition, which means that the organisation is spending more revenue on their human resources due to the turnover rate. In this leadership, it is essential to take a proper look at different activities that are required in order to understand the advantages and disadvantages. Autocratic leadership affect diverse issues in the workplace. Proper measures must be taken as this will help in analysing the issues and sorting them with proper utilisation of resources available, aiding in sorting out the problems of dictatorship, helping in completion of other issues within a specific time frame. Thus, it can be said that even though there are certain advantages to this style, a lot of drawbacks are attached to it which have significant impact on the workforce (Rast et al. 2013). The drawbacks of the autocratic style of leadership will be discussed below:

• A thin line separates dictator and autocratic leader, as soon as the leader crosses that line it will lead to development of large number of problems within an organisation (Thyne and Powell 2016). Leaders will try to impose all their decisions and opinions on employees, which will create frustration and suffocation among them (Bader 2015). The impact of this could affect individual employees, their performance and organisational output. Employee’s need to be given proper opportunity as this will help them in achieving their duties and goals. Even though the leader is wrong about a subject, employees will have to oblige to all the decisions requested.
• In autocratic leadership, leader makes all decisions and they do not consult employees or managers, so it causes lack of creativity (Landa and Tyson 2017). Moreover, it is a one-way communication channel where no information is provided to the subordinates who are provided with instructions about the work but they do not have the view on what they do and why (Thyne and Powell 2016), and are not provided information about businesses goals and objectives so it is natural the purpose of their work is not clear to them (Landa and Tyson 2017). This may lead to ineffective work, as employees are unable to align their personal goals to that of an organisation (Thyne and Powell 2016).
• The workforce in modern organisation has changed significantly and most belongs to the millennial generation (Karodiaet al., 2016). Employees in modern organisation prefer flexibility and too much interference in the work will frustrate them increasing attrition rate, leaving a void, makingthe company spend more capital on human resources (Landa and Tyson 2017). This will also hamper employee’s performance, especially in sectors highly dependent on employee’snumber.
• This type of leadership is very dependent on leader’s individual ability so organisational success depends on decisions made by an individual which could create complications, as it is not possible for a person to solve corporate problems on their own (Karodiaet al., 2016). In this scenario, the leader is the person who will provide direction to organisation and a slight misjudgement can affect the sustainability.
• In this type of leadership, the leader takes all the responsibilities and decisions so it stops employee’s growth who do not get the opportunity of taking responsibilities and initiatives (Thyne and Powell 2016). Even if they get the opportunity, they become reluctant in taking actions, as they understand that the leader would interfere with what they do anyway.
• Employee’s potential is not used to its fullest, as they are not allowed to grow during their career. Innovation and creativity develops with teamwork but even if employees have great ideas, they will not be allowed to integratethem into structure and operations (Rast and Hogg 2016). Thus, employee’s ability remains unexploited due to the lack of flexibility.
• This also increases leader’s burden level as they take full responsibility of decision-making, leading to extreme stress and eventually affecting health. When a leader does all the decision-making it is natural that stress level increases.
• Such leadership is not appreciated by highly motivated and skilled employees as they are aware of their role and too much interference in the work they do will hamper their and team’s productivity. Basing on their sole judgement autocratic leader in many occasions will not make appropriate decisions (Babiak, Bajcar and Nosal 2017) which will lack the input of experienced and motivated team members. Moreover, there are employees who do not react well to this type of leadership and it diminishestheir motivation level.
• In autocratic style, whole organisation depends on leader’s guidance. Whenever the leader is absent, employees and subordinates will not work accurately as their motivation level remains low, hampering overall productivity, due to lack of monitoring at that particular time.

Workforce is the most important aspect in an organisational setting and its proper management is the key to maintaining sustainability (Rast et al., 2013). Thus, it is the duty of the organisation and the leader to consider employee’s wellbeing which typically is not maintained so the quality of the workforce deteriorates.

1.3 Controversial characteristics of autocratic leadership style

As put forward by Stone (2013), the autocratic leadership style is often considered as autocratic approach in which a manager retains as much power and decision-making authority as possible. The leader usually does not consult employees and they are not authorised to provide any opinion or other input. Hence, the workers are expected to follow orders without any explanation or consideration. Moreover, the motivation environment is manufactured by creation of a structured penalties and rewards system. This leadership style has largely been criticised byThyne, and Powell (2016) who mentioned that organisations with several autocratic leaders have higher turnover as well as absenteeism than other. As put forward by Antonakis and House (2013), particularly, Generatio X workers have proved to be highly resistant to such management practices. In addition to this, it has also been found that autocratic leaders tend to rely on threats and punishment to influence the employees. Autocratic leaders do not trust employees at lower or middle management level. Here, Mulki et al., (2015) argued that autocratic leadership is not bad and it could be most effective style to use, if there was proper supervision. Nevertheless, Chege et al., (2015) also mentioned that autocratic leaders usually expect high range of production on regular basis within conveniently limited time. The management takes a lot of time to make any strategic decision and as a result, the employees deal with the pressure.

As put forward by Vann, Coleman and Simpson (2014), authoritarian leadership is characterised by individual control over all strategic or managerial decisions and little input from group members. It is also observed that autocratic leaders usually make choices based on their opinions and judgments and rarely accept advice from the followers and others.  Such practice of leadership involves absolute and authoritarian control over a team with little or none input from individuals because leaders make almost all decisions. As put forward by Lumbasi, K’Aol and Ouma (2016), under autocratic leadership style, group members are rarely trusted with decisions and significant tasks; hence, the works tend to be highly structured or very rigid. The employees do not receive the opportunity to form their own ideas or out-of-the-box thinking. As managers play key roles in such management practice, rules ordered by leaders should be clearly followed and implemented. Due to the gap of communication, management often observes the gap in communication, which creates rivalry among group members. In addition to this, groups freedom is weakened due to authority of leaders. Employees do not have any scope or opportunity to show their talents, which means their skills and potential abilities are not recognised. Therefore, fear turns into aggression and eventually, they face violence among themselves.

1.4 Impact of autocratic leadership style on the organisational performance

The major issue of autocratic leadership is that colleagues and subordinates are not informed about why they are ordered or asked to take responsibility or conduct new tasks not being aware of the work purpose to be performed (Karodia et al., 2016). Under this practice, jobs are assigned, facilities provided and instructions issued without having any consultation with the individual who is to perform that duty. Hence, colleagues are enabled to implement the direction provided by the leader properly even though the direction given might not be of an appropriate one. This could eventually increase employee’s feelings of frustration. Success of such leadership practice could depend wholly on leader’s efficiency who often failed to utilise full potential, talents and creative ideas of their colleagues.

Even though, there are certain advantages associated with autocratic leadership, critics mainly focus on shortcomings. Moreover, in the competitive market environment, employees have become more conscious about their positions and values; therefore, they seek to gain future growth opportunities. Thus, employees prefer to be involved in organisational decision-making, strategies and development. As put forward by Girma (2016), lack of involvement from employees in decision-making could lead to employees not perceiving ownership of their work, contributing to low morale, poor commitment and manifesting in high turnover. It has been identified by the researcher that heavily centralised command of autocratic leadership makes sure that the system completely relies on the leader. More specifically, if the leader acts strongly, capable, potent, the organisation could perform well, whereas, if the leader is weak, incapable and has low ethical, moral standard, the whole organisation could suffer due to single person.

Furthermore, it is also observed by the researcher that even though autocratic leaders perform an intensive instruction to minimise stress and enhance productivity, such practice could inert employees and lead them to face tension or work anxiety. Prasad (2016) raised the point in his study stating that all influence or power vested with the leaders could lead to the risk of leaders with low morale exploiting employees, indulging in favouritism or discrimination.  

As mentioned by Kriger and Zhovtobryukh (2016) weak autocratic leaders could make decision based on ego instead of sound management principles and penalise the employees who disagree with the context of their decision. On the other hand, leaders protecting the right to make all decisions accustom their colleagues to become largely dependable on leaders. Therefore, the team could become inoperable when they lose contact with the leader or there is any gap in communication between the leader and the employees. In addition, leader’s rude or arrogant behaviouras often seen in autocratic practices, could restrict creativity and employee’s leadership skills and interferes in their growth. This affects the organisation and employees remain incapable of assuming larger responsibilities to perform anything outside the guidelines. Javidan, Bullough and Dibble (2016), say that an autocratic leader, taking all responsibilities and being heavily engaged in regular operation, remains compelled to work at full capacity, which leads to stress and other significant personal problems. Van Wart (2014) argued that autocratic leaders generally become unpopular, affecting working relationship with subordinates; thereby, the leadership is unsuited to develop trust relationship.

Furthermore, it is also observed that autocratic leadership practice lacks a two-way communication, which could be de-motivating. For example, large car manufacturer, Honeywell established autocratic leadership in internal operations. As the organisation has several branches around the world, lower level management faces delay in communication (Toyota-Global 2017), which slows down the decision-making. Whenever, management proposes new idea or business strategy, the strategy approval takes plenty of time and the operation gets delayed. It has been further identified that under autocratic leadership all decisions are implemented by the manager that did not make any consultation with subordinates or group members, which in turn could lead to lack of creativity; whereas, personal biasness of leaders into the decision-making leads to further loss for the organisation.

Furthermore, it is also observed by the researcher that in autocratic leadership, significant challenge faced by management is resistance to any strategic change.  When an organisation decides to apply new strategy to existing operations, management faces a challenge under autocratic practice as they do not consider employee’s opinions. Employees are not properly communicated about the strategies, the organisations is going to apply. Hence, employees also face the challenge of accepting change, as for example, they must deal with new environment or culture. Here, the managers inform employees about the change, the workers could present their opinion and contribute to the initiative. Instead of providing opinion, they feel lack of values under autocratic leadership. However, Mulki, Caemmerer and Heggde (2015) commented that autocratic leadership needs to be used when employees become tense or resentful. It should not be applied when employees expect to have their opinions heard.

Absolute power-As put forward by Chege, Wachira and Mwenda (2015), leadership, where power is only exercised by one single individual. If leaders are greedy or not professional, they might use power to have control over the operation. They could discriminate people by their level of management, which could create negative impact on organisational performance.

No election- With an autocracy in the operation, the leader could stay in power as long as they remain in the organisation.  When the focus is on large context such as a nation, there might not be any election unlike in democratic governments. Moreover, in autocratic leadership, succession of power could be within the family of autocratic leaders. As there is no scope for election to occur, people are not able to demand for change and voice out the issues that could go against the leadership of an autocrat.

Instils fear- A dictatorial organisation with only one individual controlling operation could leave people worrying about their job position. This is because, in such form of organisation, the people are expected to suggest the roles.

Recommendation:

• To avoid such disadvantages of leadership in operations, large and medium size organisations could implement democratic leadership style, where employees might not have to face management imposed barriers.
• Moreover, the organisation could involve the employees in the decision-making to avoid resistance to the different activities.
• Democratic leadership is relevant or it is similar to open management style, where employees without fear come up to managers and discuss their issues to find solutions.
• The major advantage is that in democratic leadership, management could review employee’s performance on regular basis as they engage the team members. Hence, the team members are encouraged to work effectively with each other and this is widely important to every organisation.
• In addition to this, such leadership practices are typically effective and excellent at resolving complicated issues. This leadership style promotes and helps build a creative environment by encouraging innovation as well as input among team members. Moreover, creative leaders often find success under such type of practice because of employee’s large involvement.

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