Factors Influencing Leadership Case Study

Several factors can directly and indirectly influence and affect choice of leadership styles in workplaces, bearing in mind that a leader’s responsibilities include but are not limited to: organising, evaluating, motivating, coaching, co-ordinating, communicating, building trust, continuously improving the team, planning, monitoring, empowering (Pet&r 2017 class notes), different factors will influence leadership styles at different times.

Different leadership styles include: Situational Leadership, which is broken down into directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. Also, autocratic leadership, democratic leadership, strategic leadership, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, laissez-faire leadership, charismatic leadership,

This leadership style is known as the ‘hands off’ management approach, because the manager usually provides very little or no directing and allows the employees go about their tasks with little supervision and minimal or no interference. This is usually practised by leaders whose subordinates have attained a high level of self-sufficiency and specialist status. Usually, over time the boss will put in less and less input as the quality of subordinates’ work improves and attains specialist status.

The last leadership style I will be discussing in this section of this essay is the Democratic style of leadership. This leadership style is participatory in nature, and employees are highly encouraged to contribute and partake in all aspects including the preparatory and decision making stages of the project or task phase. Information is contributed by all members of the team and freely disseminated with all team members being involved and contributing their quota for the successful execution of projects and

A leader is likely to be autocratic if they have several years of experience in handling a task that their team has never encountered before. A team’s responsiveness to a given task can also influence the leader’s leadership style. A good manager will seek to evolve and seamlessly transit different leadership styles based on his or her abilities, task at hand, operating environment and team strength.

1.2 Explain why these leadership styles or behaviours are likely to have a positive or negative effect on individual and group behaviour (24 marks)

Leadership styles can be positive or negative depending on the task, the individual, team and environment. Different leadership styles have their positive and negative effects. Below are how different leadership styles can have positive and negative effects on individuals and