Page 287 - Introduction to Business

CHAPTER 7 Motivating and Leading Employees 261

and practices of labor unions also use democratic leadership styles. While the
advantage of such a leadership style is obviously the strong participation of all con-
cerned—no policy implementation without representation—the drawback is the
likely slowdown of the decision-making process.
A variant of a purely democratic style of management is consultative leader- consultative leadership The leader
ship. Consultative leaders confer with colleagues and employees before making the conferring with colleagues and
employees before making the final
final decision. Although thoughts and ideas are sought from subordinates, the
decision
firm’s leader, who is held responsible for corporate performance, makes the ulti-
mate decision. The decision-making process is quicker than those in a purely dem-
ocratic system. Yet, it has the advantage of worker participation, which motivates
employees and enhances performance. This approach is widely used in assembly
line and team operations.

Free-Rein Style
In a free-rein style of leadership, also known as a laissez-faire (a French term that free-rein style An approach to
means “leave it alone”) style of management, employees are given complete free- management where employees are
given complete freedom to perform their
dom to perform their jobs the way they want within the framework of company jobs the way they want within company
rules and regulations. Management informs the employees or employee teams of rules and objectives
what is expected of them and when. Then it is left to the employees to decide on
how they want to perform their jobs to meet corporate goals. The employees or
employee teams are of course encouraged to consult with management if they
require any guidance. This approach works well in some professions, as with pro-
fessors at universities. Department heads inform professors about the number and
type of courses that they will need to teach each semester, the quality and quantity
of research expected, and the service they will need to provide to the department or
college. Once these objectives have been clearly spelled out, the professors are
given free rein to accomplish their task. If the professors meet the objectives set by
the department heads, they get promoted and receive salary increases. If they don’t,
they remain on the same level or are not retained. The free-rein style provides
unlimited freedom for people to work the way they want as long as they accomplish
the task. Some professors may choose to come to work late and leave early during
the week and work on Saturdays. Others may feel more productive working at night,
especially in laboratories, when things are quiet. While some employees may prefer
this unstructured leadership style, there are others who may not like it.

The Contingency Approach to Leadership

The FT/PwC report on the world’s most respected companies clearly shows that for
corporate success, an honest, nonconformity style of management was preferred to
the conventional management styles discussed. This is primarily for two reasons.
First is the attitude of the employees or subordinates to the three leadership styles.
Do subordinates prefer the autocratic, participative, or free-rein style of manage-
ment? There is no clear answer. Some employees resent autocratic managers since
these employees don’t like to be pushed around and told what to do. On the other
hand, there are some who like to be told what and how things need to be done. The
latter find this approach to be clear-cut and prefer managers to tell them what to
do, since they believe that executives know their business better than their employ-
ees. This is typical in the fast-food industry, where employees are specifically
trained to do what, when, and how as they are told.
Quite a few employees may like the participative management leadership style
because they feel their ideas or suggestions are valued by management and they get

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