Leadership Styles Health, Medicine, Nursing Research Paper

Leadership Styles to Attain the Common Goals
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Leadership Styles
Define Leader
A leader is someone with vested authority to manage a particular group of people or organizations towards achieving a specific goal.
Define Leadership
Leadership is the art of motivating people to act towards attaining a common goal. It is also the act of managing a particular group or organization towards achieving a common goal. In a business setting, leadership can mean directing employees and colleagues with a strategy to meet the needs of the company (Al Khajeh, 2018).
Define each of the two leadership styles you have chosen
The two types of leadership style I have chosen are democratic leadership and autocratic leadership. Autocratic leadership, also known as authoritarian leadership, is a style in which the management demonstrates control over an organization's decisions without consulting the team (Bhatti et al., 2020). The leader has almost all the authority and power to make decisions and disregards the opinions of the junior staff. Leaders using this leadership style do not provide the employees with justifications for their assigned tasks. Instead, they have to follow their leaders' instructions without asking questions. Under autocratic leadership, there is a complete centralization of power, with the leader developing all policies and controls (Dyczkowska & Dyczkowski, 2018). Employees are required to follow the rules and guidelines of the organizations strictly. In this style, the motivating factor is an organized form of rewards and punishments given to workers.
In contrast, democratic leadership is a type of leadership style in which the leader allows the employees to participate in the decision-making process and the organization's management (Fiaz & Saqib, 2017). In this style, the leader values the suggestions and opinions of the subordinates, who are frequently consulted on different matters of the organization. Additionally, democratic leaders keep the employees informed on all the activities within an organization. This leadership style is characterized by open communication, which allows the employees to communicate directly with all members (Surbhi, 2017). In such an environment, the workers are free to share their ideas and opinions. Despite the freedom given to employees working in a democratic environment, the ultimate decision is made by the leader.
Describe and compare each type of leadership style Leader characteristics
Numerous characteristics differentiate democratic leadership from autocratic leadership. Firstly, authoritarian leaders enforce their ideas or judgments and tell the employees what to do (Harms et al., 2018). Their action often leads to micromanagement. They also make decisions solely without consulting their subordinates. In contrast, democratic leaders encourage employees to participate in the decision-making process and management (Terms, 2019). In this leadership style, the collaboration of ideas is free-flowing, implying that employees are allowed to share their opinions freely.
Secondly, having a team is almost irrelevant to autocratic leaders since they rarely ask the members of the inputs. In democratic leadership, having a team is significant because the leaders regularly involve the employees in the activities of the workplace (Puni et al., 2016). As such, they frequently ask the members of the inputs.
Thirdly, democratic leadership maintains mutual respect within the organization and welcomes open conversations, suggestions, and objective criticisms (Surbhi, 2017). However, autocratic leaders do not respect the opinions, recommendations, and ideas of subordinates. This leadership style does not maintain mutual respect as the total authority is granted to the leader. In other words, democratic leadership has freedom of expression, while autocratic leadership lacks freedom of expression.
Lastly, democratic leadership allows the sharing of responsibility among subordinates, unlike autocratic leadership, that does not allow responsibility-sharing among the employees (Terms, 2019). All the duties are delegated to the leader. They control and dictate all the activities in the workplace.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the styles?
The strengths of democratic leadership include the following: it provides solutions to complex problems; can improve the employees' knowledge, participation, and productivity; boosts individuals’ self-esteem and enhances quality work through collaboration; and encourages a creative environment (Bhatti et al., 2020). Its weaknesses include: time-consuming, can cause disharmony if misapplied, and does not guarantee a positive outcome (Puni et al., 2016). It also provides too much liberty to the employees, making it difficult to differentiate the leader and the subordinate.
For autocratic style, the strengths include the following: allows prompt decisions, reduces the risk of employee stress, improves productivity, and counters team inexperience (Harms et al., 2018). One of its weaknesses is micromanagement. It sometimes forces employees to report every activity, leading to a decrease in productivity. Another weakness is that it cr...