Factors That Influence Leadership Styles

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Identify the factors that will influence your choice of leadership styles and explain why your leadership styles are likely to positively affect your team. There are many factors that influence an individual’s leadership style. Firstly, an individual’s background; what personality, knowledge, ethics, values and experiences does a person have? This will play a big part in the natural selection of a leadership style a Leader makes. Other determining factors are: ❖ Individuals within the managed team may have different backgrounds, personalities or differing levels of maturity and expertise. In this instance, it is what the team will respond best to. ❖ The organisation within which a Leader works may have specific traditions,…show more content…
A colleague is about to put out a fire with a bucket of flammable liquid. The Leader would adopt the autocratic style, shouting at the individual to stop. In this instance the autocratic method is most appropriate as there needed to be an immediate intervention with the need for an order. The Leader should however address hurt feelings or group process later on. 2. If the purpose is to enhance and empower group process and development, a laissez-faire or consensus style of leadership might be most appropriate. Using this style, the leader purposely steps back so the group can struggle with decision-making and norm-setting. This approach to leadership is quite common in group initiatives. The group is given a task, and the leader serves only as a safety net or resource; the group must do all the work and establish group norms and behaviours for themselves. 3. You are trying to solve a problem, for example a quality issue that needs resolving using the best possible approach. In this instance, a participative or democratic leadership style would be most appropriate. Although the team needs formal representation in terms of seniority, each member of the team would be required to offer their own opinions based on their own knowledge and experience. Brainstorming is one example of this. A final decision would be made based on the ideas of the…show more content…
One reason, is that each method, if applied suitably i.e. to the right individual or group, is designed to achieve results. If an individual or the general orientation of the group for example is to react best to the democratic style of leadership, then the group or individual would be at their most comfortable or happiest under the leadership style. Assess your own leadership behaviours and potential by referring to a relevant leadership model, your organisation’s working practices and by collecting feedback from others. Describe what actions you could take to improve as a leader. Using Adair’s Leadership model (Questionnaire), I have concluded that my own leadership style is balanced with a slight orientation towards the team. This reflects the approach that I would take to managing a task in that although I am focused on the objective, I will take into account the capability and the opinions of the team. I employ the democratic style when leading a group. This style fits in generally with the practices of the organisation I work in. To confirm this, I carried out a simple questionnaire to gain the opinion of others (see attached). There was only one instance of someone indicating that they used/observed a “Laissez-faire” style and nobody indicated

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