Critical Literature Review: Leadership And Management Of People

Transformational leadership

It is a well known fact that leadership determines the organizational effectiveness in the contemporary business scenario. Traditionally, leadership holds an important position in the current organizational affairs but in the recent time, utility of leadership is more than just motivating the employees. Hence, in the current time, leadership covers different aspects and factors in the organizational affairs (Dinh et al. 2014). However, with time, the complexities regarding the concept of leadership got increased and different forms and types of leadership are being introduced. Thus, it is also initiating the issue of how to align the different types of leadership with that of the respective organizational situation. In addition, it is also a major argument in the recent time that if the leadership approach should be variable in nature or they should have singular approach in different organizational situations (Meuser et al. 2016).

In order to discuss over the above argument, it is important to first identify the different leadership theories and concepts in determining their elements. This essay will discuss about the opinions of different authors regarding leadership concepts along with discussion on the implications of the concepts in the workplace from the perspective of HRM. In addition, the limitations and benefits of using the particular article will also be discussed in this essay.

Transformational leadership is one of the most common and critically acclaimed concepts of leadership in the current time. This concept refers to the visionary skills of the leaders along with their ability to influence on the larger section of the stakeholders (Drenkard 2013). In addition, transformational style of leadership is being adopted by the organizations in order to have the involvement of the employees in the decision making process and higher degree of innovative orientation in the workplace. According to Bush (2018), some of the major multinational brands in the recent are adopting transformational style of leadership in order to have the competitive edge in the market by the forms of innovation. The author has also stated that with the help of the transformational leadership approach, employee motivation is being given the major focus along with concentrating more on their workplace satisfaction and productivity. Thus, HRM approaches with having this mode of leadership will have lower probability of employee issues in the workplace.

On the basis of this theory, Saleh, Khine and Asghar (2014) further stated that initiation of the transformation leadership is having positive impact on the leading, managing and developing people in the workplace. This is due to the reason that according to the Maslow’s theory of motivation, it is important for the leaders to meet the needs of the employees to keep them motivated. Thus, as per the authors, transformational leaders are more employees oriented and they prefer the welfare of the employees more over the output. This led to fulfillment of the needs of the employees and enhances the level of motivation among the employees. In addition, the authors have also stated that with the effective fulfillment of the needs of the employees, the level of engagement and involvement in also more and this is helping in managing them. Thus, the effectiveness of the entire HRD will get enhanced.

Authoritarian Leadership

 Thompson et al. (2016) stated that as transformational leadership is more centered towards the welfare of the employees, thus staff training and development is also given an added concentration. Hence, the more effective process of training and development program for the employees is ensuring that people development in the workplace is proper and efficient. In the workplace, if the employees are properly trained and skilled then their productivity will also get increased along with their enhanced level of motivation. However, it is identified that each of these authors has only one sided approach in discussing the concept of leadership. This is due to the reason that the current business situation is much diverse in nature and evolving rapidly. Thus, discussion of the leadership concepts based on one sided organizational affair will not have much effectiveness in the real world situation. In this case, the authors have discussed about the transformational leadership based on favorable business condition only.

There are some others authors such as Tourish (2013) stated about the drawbacks of initiating transformational leadership. This is due to the reason that, in the case of this leadership style, decision making process becomes more complex and time consuming. Transformational style of leadership engages all the internal stakeholders in the decision making process and thus it will consume more time in the process. In addition, contrary to the above theories of other authors, it is stated by Tourish (2013) that in the case of challenging organizational situation, transformational leadership may not have the similar level of effectiveness due to the fact that quick and efficient decisions are required at that point of time. Thus HRD will face the issue of managing their employee accordingly.

Opposite to the concept of the transformational leadership style, authoritarian style of leadership is also being relevant in the current business scenario. This refers to the concept of initiating leadership in the workplace without being consulted with the different internal stakeholders (Chen, Zhou and Klyver 2018). Thus, in this case, upper level managers initiate the decision making process by their own and lower level employees follow them. Regarding this concept also, there are different opinions being given by different authors in terms of its utility. According to Hogg and Adelman (2013), radical behavior of the managers is associated with the authoritarian style of leadership. This is due to the reason that in the case of this leadership approach, radical decisions are being taken by the leaders without having consent of other stakeholders. The authors have also stated that in the case of authoritarian style of leadership, power distance is more between the employees and managers and the employees act as the followers to their leaders.

According to Duan et al. (2018), authoritarian style of leadership is having both positive and negative impact on the employees. This is due to the reason that there are different types of traits of employees relevant in the workplace and the effectiveness of this leadership style will have different sets of impact. In this case, the authors have stated the McGregor’s two factors theory, which states that there are two types of employees evident in the workplace namely X and Y type. X types of the employees are more self-centered and avoid taking responsibilities. In addition, they expect to be directed by their managers. On the other hand, the Y type of employees is more responsible and accountable in the workplace and they prefer to take decision by their own and involves in the organizational affairs. Thus, according to Duan et al. (2018), authoritarian style of leadership is applicable for X type of employees. This will help the managers to effectively directly these types of employees while on the other hand, these employees will be motivated enough under this style of leadership.

Based on this theory, Guo et al. (2018) further elaborated that employee creativity and authoritarian style of leadership is being direct relationship. This is due to the reason that in the case of this style of leadership, employees are not being involved in the decision making process and other organizational affairs. Thus, they are having more time in respect to their respective job profile and can engaged more in initiating the creativity. In the HRM scenario, authoritarian style of leadership can help the managers in developing and leading the employees. This is due to the reason that if the employees can be directed in favorable manner then the employees will be engaged more in their workplace. In addition, with the help of the authoritarian style of leadership, workplace environment can be made effective and cooperative without involving the employees in every organizational affair. As per the authors, apart from the transformational style of leadership, initiation of the authoritarian style of leadership can also enhance the level of motivation among the employees. However, the articles used in this section are also having some sort of limitations as identified. One of the major limitations being identified is the assumption of the authors of having majority of the X type of employees. In the current business scenario, employees are more skilled and trained and they tend to get motivated by having challenging positions (Russ 2013). Thus, evaluating the effectiveness of authoritarian style of leadership by assuming only the X type of employees is not relevant in the present era. In addition, it is also identified that these journals are based on the secondary research and not on primary data. Thus, the real world implications of the authoritarian style of leadership are not being identified by the authors.

On the other hand, Jiang et al. (2017) have a contradictory view against the above authors. They have stated that initiation of the authoritarian style of leadership may lead to unsafe working conditions in the workplace. This is due to the reason that in this case, issues and feedbacks of the employees are not being considered. Thus, the decision taken by the managers may have negative impact on the employees. In addition, it is stated by Jiang et al. (2017) that employees will have deviant behaviors due to the authoritarian leadership style. This is due to the reason that, this approach may increase the gap between the leaders and employees, which will have adverse impact on the workplace.

The above discussion of both the transformational style of leadership and authoritarian style of leadership concluded that both the approaches are having different set of effectiveness in different situations. Salehzadeh et al. (2015) stated that in this case, situational style of leadership will be more effective. As per the authors, situational style of leadership refers to the initiation of different leadership styles according to the different business situations. Thus, it includes characteristics of both the transformational and authoritarian style of leadership and provides the scope to the leaders to implement them in different situations. Thus, this leadership approach can be opted as an alternative style of leadership to the mainstream concepts (Pyc, Meltzer and Liu 2017).

However, on the other hand, Lynch et al. (2018) stated that situational leadership style may not be successful if the current business trends cannot get determined effectively. This is due to the reason that if the initiated leadership approaches of the managers are not aligned with the organizational situation and the requirement of the employees, and then this approach will also not get effective in real world situation (Zigarmi and Roberts 2017). Thus, person orientation should be considered in the initiation process of the situational style of leadership.

Conclusion

It is concluded that different types of leadership styles are effective considering the exact organizational situation. In addition, in the current business scenario, the organizational situation is changing at faster pace and it is important for the managers to change their leadership approach accordingly. From the discussion of different leadership theories in this essay, it can be concluded that contemporary managers should follow the situational style of leadership in order to have the required flexibility and mobility to deal with the rapidly changing scenario of HRM.

Reference

Bush, T. 2018. Transformational leadership: Exploring common conceptions. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(6), 883-887.

Chen, Y., Zhou, X. and Klyver, K. 2018, “Collective Efficacy: Linking Paternalistic Leadership to Organizational Commitment”, Journal of Business Ethics, , pp. 1-17.

Dinh, J. E., Lord, R. G., Gardner, W. L., Meuser, J. D., Liden, R. C., and Hu, J. 2014. Leadership theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing perspectives.The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 36-62.

Drenkard, K. 2013, “Transformational Leadership: Unleashing the Potential”, JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 57-58.

Duan, J., Bao, C., Huang, C., and Brinsfield, C. T. 2017;2018;. Authoritarian leadership and employee silence in china. Journal of Management and Organization, 24(1), 1-19.

Guo, L., Decoster, S., Babalola, M. T., De Schutter, L., Garba, O. A., and Riisla, K. 2018. Authoritarian leadership and employee creativity: The moderating role of psychological capital and the mediating role of fear and defensive silence. Journal of Business Research, 92, 219-230.

Hogg, M. A., and Adelman, J. 2013. Uncertainty–Identity theory: Extreme groups, radical behavior, and authoritarian leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 69(3), 436-454.

Jiang, H., Chen, Y., Sun, P., and Li, C. 2017. Authoritarian leadership and employees’ unsafe behaviors: The mediating roles of organizational cynicism and work alienation. Current Psychology, , 1-11.

Jiang, H., Chen, Y., Sun, P., and Yang, J. 2017. The relationship between authoritarian leadership and employees’ deviant workplace behaviors: The mediating effects of psychological contract violation and organizational cynicism. Frontiers in Psychology, 8 

Lynch, B. M., McCance, T., McCormack, B., and Brown, D. 2018. The development of the Person?Centred situational leadership framework: Revealing the being of person?centredness in nursing homes. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(1-2), 427-440.

Meuser, J.D., Gardner, W.L., Dinh, J.E., Hu, J., Liden, R.C. and Lord, R.G. 2016, “A Network Analysis of Leadership Theory: The Infancy of Integration”, Journal of Management, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 1374-1403.

Pyc, L.S., Meltzer, D.P. and Liu, C. 2017, “Ineffective leadership and employees’ negative outcomes: The mediating effect of anxiety and depression”, International Journal of Stress Management, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 196-215.

Russ, T.L. 2013, “The relationship between Theory X Y: assumptions and communication apprehension”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 238-249.

Saleh, I. M., Khine, M. S., and Asghar, A. 2014. Reframing transformational leadership new school culture and effectiveness. S.l.: SensePublishers.

Salehzadeh, R., Shahin, A., Kazemi, A., and Shaemi Barzoki, A. 2015. Proposing a new approach for evaluating the situational leadership theory based on the kano model: The case of university students. International Journal of Public Leadership, 11(1), 4-20.

Thomson, Norman B., MD, MBA, Rawson, J. V., MD, Slade, C. P., PhD, and Bledsoe, M., MSPH RN. 2016. Transformation and transformational leadership. Academic Radiology, 23(5), 592-599.

Tourish, D. 2013. The dark side of transformational leadership: A critical perspective. New York: Routledge.

Zigarmi, D., and Roberts, T. P. 2017. A test of three basic assumptions of situational leadership® II model and their implications for HRD practitioners. European Journal of Training and Development, 41(3), 241-260.