Laissez-faire brings freedom to subordinates, and allows them to function creatively and within boundaries defined by superiors. The leader applies minimal input to the running of the organisation. It gives individuals maximum scope to perform and show what they are capable of in a given business environment. This style is closely linked with the 1920’s America Government.
Although the above are the extreme styles of management, leaders tend to incorporate different elements from each style into their own preferred style.
Above is an organisational chart which outlines the different hierarchy levels, the roles of each department and each span of control and chain of command.
The above image (left) shows the skills that leaders generally possess. Although they are important not all leaders necessarily have all five skills. This justifies why some leaders are ‘better’ than others.
At different levels of an organisation some of the skills that leaders have, appear more important than others.
At the top of an organisation ‘vision’ and ‘intuition’ can be seen as more important because the visions a leader, at this level, has can determine the nature of the business, the ethos/culture and the organisational direction. These qualities are required at the top of the organisation in order for ‘strategic decisions’ to be made.
These skills that top level leaders have are utilised by the Board of Directors, Directors and high level managers. It is important to realise that leadership and management are not the same, although the two are interlinked. This is because a manager is in the position to influence subordinate behaviour; therefore the manager is occupying part of the role of leadership. It is then necessary for employees to respect and respond to their authority positively for the manager to qualify for the role of a leader.
The leaders at the middle level can include supervisors, team leaders and depending on the industry, foremen. The leadership at this level differs from higher and lower levels because at this level, it is concerned with more individual tasks and operational activities of the organisations on a day-to-day basis.
This is an example why management and leadership are not the same because a supervisor can be a leader whilst they are not in a managerial position.
The lower level consists of employees either core workers or peripheral workers and initially their role is to carry out simple operational activities such as working machinery, packing stock etc. The leaders of the lower levels is achieved in situations when a leader is required to is identified qualities through reputation and experience instead of being physically appointed as a leader. These leaders achieve their status through the people they are leading as opposed to being appointed by those above. These leaders are considered to be role models and will probably achieve promotion because of their leadership qualities.
Leadership of a Burger King restaurant
In a Burger King restaurant the hierarchy starts with the Restaurant Manager assisted by a Senior Assistant Manager, an Assistant Manager and two managers. Supervisors assist them and at the bottom of the hierarchy are the staff.
The Restaurant manager tends to be very autocratic but is sometimes open to suggestions. He or she believes that they are the most qualified, based on their position, and that they know best. They have the vision of where they want to be, in terms of profitability and have the intuition of how to get there. The meetings that take place on a monthly basis tend to dictate to staff what is going to happen (mainly dictated to them by their superiors) and how it is going to happen. These managers fall mainly into the X category from McGregor’s theory. They tend to lead the staff by the reigns and put their ‘aces in places’ and prevent development of staff, typical of a firm trying to achieve maximum short-term profit. However, some mangers do have a tendency to fall into the Y category and delegate tasks to their direct subordinates. This leadership occurs because they work to achieve success as opposed to friend-making.
The remaining management team is a coalition of leadership styles. One tends to carry favour with the staff by taking a democratic leadership style incorporating views the staff have in an attempt to create high motivation. This tends to be the newest promoted manager who still has links to the staff, hints of paternal leadership may also be present as they have the power to implement certain ideas for the benefit of the staff. Another may have the same leadership style as the restaurant manager. They believe that pay and punishment are the motivators to work and hinder performance through unpopular cash- saving changes. It is important to note that the restaurant works better with a balanced group of leaders who can adjust to different situations, rather than a group with the same styles.
The supervisors tend to lead through their authority but many lead by their personality. The supervisor leads by example and is in constant contact with the staff and can appreciate the changes and rules enforced by the management staff. They are considered to be more approachable than the managers. In turn managers consider them more educated and respected than staff, so their opinion matters more. Some supervisors are poor leaders because their personality and credibility fall short of those required
The bottom level or the staff also has leaders. Although they have no actual authority in the workplace, they command respect due to their experience or personality. They are constantly viewed as leaders by others subconsciously, although they specifically lead when situations arise that require them to step forward and command. It is in these instances that help them to climb up the ladder to positions of greater authority.
A Burger King restaurant sees leadership in three ways assertive, aggressive and passive. Assertive leadership is recommended for success, aggressive and passive leadership bring short-term success but many problems come hand-in-hand
Leadership in a Woolworths PLC Store
Burger King’s leadership styles contrast with Woolworths PLC from Woolworths Group because their leadership style is mainly autocratic. At Woolworths the leadership style doesn’t fluctuates like Burger King does throughout the different levels. This is due to Woolworths culture and the nature of tasks carried out at Woolworths.
The levels at Woolworths consist of Sales Assistant, Service Team Leader (STL’s), Assistant Manager and the Store Manager. During the working day leaders in Woolworths have an autocratic style due to the nature of the job and the emphasis on stock turnover to lead to profit maximisation. Empty shelves give a bad impression to customers and leads to loss of sales.
This is where the Autocratic style benefits Woolworths because in this firm jobs have to be done as it’s hands on and tasks need to completed so autocratic leaders use assertive techniques to “tell” employees what tasks to carry out and when to do it. This approach that Woolworths adopts would link with F W Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory as he thought employees had to be ordered to do tasks in a specific way in a certain given time.
Taylor broke down tasks as small as possible so employees could work faster at those tasks and had less empowerment. This gave them less thinking time as Taylor did this for them. At Woolworths this is the same case. Managers do the overall thinking and STL’s do the thinking for lower employees. Tasks are given daily from STL’s to employees and employees are expected to carry them out without any aid of thinking. This style of leadership has always worked the best because management have learned what is the best way of doing tasks and getting tasks complete. Getting the job done is a main priority so therefore they simply tell what is to be done and expect the tasks to be carried out in the shortest possible time.
Summary
- From the diagram below it shows that the whole business is interlinked and that leader can effect the whole organisation. Leadership occurs at different levels and individuals can adopt many different leadership styles.
- From the companies that have been explored we can see that people in organisations feel a certain individual leadership style is more beneficial to have.
- Leaders can be managers but managers don’t have to be leaders.
Bibliography
- Organisational Behaviour and Analysis – An Integrated Approach – Derek Rollinson with Aysen Brodfield 2nd Edition
- http:www.burgerking.com
- http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=5537
