EFFECT OF MANAGERIAL LEADERSHIP STYLE ON EMPLOYEES PRODUCTIVITY

MANAGERIAL LEADERSHIP STYLE

The following are effects of managerial leadership on employees productivity:

1.     Improving Morale: When company morale is low, some leadership styles work better than others do. Democratic, coaching and affiliative leadership styles encourage employees to identify with the company and with one another. While authoritarian leadership styles increase morale, they often don’t provide enough opportunities for employees to get excited about work. Coercive leadership styles almost always decrease morale, and pace-setting styles can cause employees to feel overwhelmed.

2.     Improving Performance: Employee performance is affected by an employee’s competence, motivation and independence. Coercive leadership styles may work with employees who are lazy or refuse to work, but this leadership style can lower performance in highly competent, highly motivated employees. Coaching and pace setting are also effective at improving performance, particularly when employees either don’t have the skills they need or are unclear about the company’s goals. Democratic leadership styles can help managers get insight into why performance is suffering but typically must be coupled with coaching to bring about results.

3.     Increasing Profits: There are many ways to increase profits, including expanding your client base, reducing turnover, shrinking your staff and improving your product. Affiliative leadership styles can decrease turnover and improve employee morale, while coercive and pace-setting leadership styles often increase turnover. Coaching is excellent for improving the quality of your product as well as customer service. Authoritarian leadership styles work best for maintaining a company that is already working efficiently, and democratic leadership styles may be helpful when you have to reduce staff.

4.     Decision-Making: If your employees lack skills and experience, choosing an autocratic leadership style allows you to make decisions without their input and direct work efficiently. Using this style with experienced employees, however, typically produces poor results. Autocratic leaders who issue commands and refuse to acknowledge the value of their employees tend to disenfranchise employees, resulting in lower job satisfaction, poor morale and diminished productivity. Effective leaders assess the effect of their actions before making decisions.

5.     Deadlines: Using the democratic leadership style, you listen to your employees’ feedback. When your team misses deadlines, using this type of leadership allows you to gather input from employees about the problem and include them in an action plan to rectify the situation. Using the pace-setting leadership style, you set lofty  goals to motivate hard work. The way you direct your subordinates’ achievement directly affects their behavior. By not tolerating poor performance with autocratic commands, you get short-term results, but when you use this style for long periods, burnout typically occurs.

6.     Innovation: If you want to foster creativity and innovation, using the affiliative leadership style typically results in the most positive results. An affiliative leader focuses on improving collaboration and cooperation. Using the coaching style, you also can encourage people to try new ideas and examine alternatives to problems. For example, run brainstorming sessions to discuss potential new markets, new ways of building customer loyalty and options for solving common complaints. You might come up with new solutions, such as using social media technology to connect customers to each other for troubleshooting.