Comparing Autocratic and Democratic Leadership Styles

The assignment provides an analysis of autocratic and democratic leadership styles, discussing their implications on organizational performance, communication, and employee participation. The essay compares the two styles, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of each approach, and argues that a balanced approach can lead to more effective management.

Business Report on Approaches to Leadership
and Management in A Global Context

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Functional area and hierarchy of management.......................................................................1
Importance of communication in leadership and management..............................................3
Drivers of globalisation..........................................................................................................3
Compare and contrast styles of leadership.............................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERNCES ..................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is a capability of individual to manipulate or influencing their followers to do
certain actions which would assist them to achieve their common goals. Management refers to
art and science of using other skills and capabilities to accomplish assigned task. For this essay,
Captify is taken for discussion which is a medium size organisation in United Kingdom and
deals in market research by using semantic technology (THE ONE TO WATCH’ FORBES,
2019). Functional areas of company will be discussed with its hierarchy. Importance of effective
interdepartmental communication will also be explained. Different types of drivers which affects
company globalisation will also be elaborated.
MAIN BODY
Functional area and hierarchy of management
Management work in the company is to utilise the resources which are already available
in the company so that company can attain growth in the near future. Whole Captify is managed
under the guidance of CEO Dominic Joseph and marketing department is headed by Laura
Pleasants. Captify has opted hierarchical management because it clarifis the authority of
individual working in different functional areas.
For instance, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Operations
Officer will report to Chief Executive Officer of Captify. Though on the other side it leads to
centralisation of power which can affect the company's performance in to negative sense as
leader could opt autocratic style to run their business. So, it can say that Mr. Dominic should opt
leadership styles which motivates their employees to work even more harder so that competitive
advantage would be attained in future.
According to this table, CMO of Captify Laura Pleasants will report to the CEO of
Captify Dominic Joseph. Manager/VP of marketing will report to the CMO about the daily
activities they have conducted in a whole day. Junior level manager will report to the VP of
marketing and so on. They follow democratic style as opinions of every authorised person is
considered by the leader of Captify.
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Marketing is the only department in whole organisation whose work is to sell or market
the product so that company can satisfy the needs of customers in exchange of monetary value
(Hargie, 2016). So as Captify is the search intelligence company, functional role of marketing
department is to design the marketing plan of company to enhance their brand image in the mind
of customers. Besides this, marketing department conduct market research for their clients so
that consumer insights and information would be attain. Moreover, digital marketing individual
work is to evaluate billions of searches in a day to find out needs and demands of the potential
customer all over world.
Apart from this, there is finance department is another functional area whose work is to
maintain the spending of Captify so that their profitability would increase to a certain level.
Besides this, they have to make the budget of every department so that their spending limit will
be restricted to a fix points resulting in utilisation of resources. For instance, if Captify has
earned 5 million dollars in profit after tax then more amount of funds should be allotted to
marketing as they are the one brings money in to the organisation, then upgrade or procurement
of technology etc while main motto should be the proper utilisation of resources.
Human resource department work is to identify proper skills and capabilities which should
be there at the workplace so that company can attain sustainable business performance (Cole,
2017). For instance, if there are requirements of data mining associate, then HR department work
is to find out potential candidates who has knowledge and skills related to data mining like SAS
language, python, SQL etc.
Last and one of the most important department of Captify is Analytics department whose
work is to run the simulation so that company can come up to the results which would be
forwarded to the clients. For instance, if clients want to know about the about the customer
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insights related to food products, then their work is mine the data with the help of software like
SAS which would assist them to identify patterns of customers buying behaviour resulting in
client’s satisfaction.
Importance of communication in leadership and management
Effective communication in the organisation is important as it assist them to carefully
plan their functions i.e., planning, organising, controlling. Communication by leaders helps
managers to perform their roles and responsibilities as managers are not clear about the
information disseminate by leader then it won’t be possible for management to properly manages
workers to perform their assigned task. For instance, if leader of Captify is planning to launch
new change in the company then they have to transmit it to the management so that they can
remove resistance to change within employees (Ansoff and et. al., 2019). Communication among
leaders and managers promotes coordination and cooperation at workplace.
On the other side, if management would not be able to properly communicate with the
leader regarding the problems they are facing while operating the business then mission and
vision would not be aligning with the activities of companies resulting in unfavourable result for
company. So, it can be said that, communication is central to leadership and management and
needs to be free and open as it will leads to favourable employee relations resulting in fruitful
working environment. Apart from this, all the departments of Captify is interrelated to each other
as then only they will be able to attain market leader position in the market. For instance, Human
resource department needs to hire those individuals who has excellent communication and
interpersonal skills with regard all functional areas in business.
Communication is central to leadership and management because both are focused on
managing employee relation in own different ways. For example, if marketing team of Captify
requires 1 million dollars of funds for next year and finance team has only assigned 50000
dollars then it would decrease the efficiency of marketing instead of increasing it. That's why
they have to contact with the finance team so that fund allocations will be done according to the
requirements of various departments. Hence, leaders and managers of departments are
responsible for conveying information and changes and therefore communication is central to
management and leadership.
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Drivers of globalisation
Globalisation is a process of expanding the business operations of company by opening
their business in other countries. Globalisation is risky in nature as investment in the starting is
high and chances of getting failed is also high but on the other side, if company succeeded in
globalisation then their profitability and market share will increase. But along with positive
points, globalisation also brings negativity for company like complex market structure and
rivalry, rapid change in strategies, political problem etc. For instance, if Captify is planning to
launch their business in Australia then they will have large number of customers and market but
on the other hand they will face competitions with big players of McKinsey, JP Morgan, etc.
There are different types of globalisation of driver, first is technological drivers refers to
advancement in technology which help company to conduct their business operations smoothly
and more effectively. For instance, with the help of technology any company can sell their
product all over world. As Captify is a technology-based firm so it would help them to perform
their operations and fulfil the requirements of customers in a more efficient manner. Moreover,
with the help of technology advancement and globalisation, Captify can connect with various
clients resulting in better profitability for them.
International trade is the second driver of the globalisation as it strengthens the
interdependence of countries which leads to better relationship between them. Moreover, due to
globalisation, company like Captify gets subsidiary which helps in increasing their profitability
and decrease in investment of funds. International trade is also crucial driver of globalisation
because due to elimination of trade barriers and reduction in foreign investment, it enhances the
expansion of frim in other country.
Last driver of globalisation is international investment. Foreign countries are promoting
to other companies to launch their business in their countries so that they can run their business
and in return increase in job development will enhanced the GDP of country in a positive way.
Moreover, countries are now giving subsidiary, less interest and easy commercial leans, etc
which motivates the company to operate their business in other country. So, it can be concluded
that Captify should try to enter in to foreign market so that their business would increase to a
certain level resulting in positive growth in future.
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Compare and contrast styles of leadership
Leadership is a skill which individual possess so that they can influence others to
stimulate their efforts so to achieve the common grounds of them. There are two styles which
mainly used by an organisation i.e., autocratic and democratic leadership. Autocratic refers to
when whole power is centralised to the one person and no opinions would be entertain by the
leader while taking any business decision. This style is used by leader is task oriented which
means that leader can do anything to complete the task which are assigned to them by ignoring
all the relations aspects. In this, leader considered employees as a machinery and no connection
is developed between the leader and followers. This style should not be use by Captify as it
demotivates the employees as their acumen is not considered by the leader and as a medium
sized organisation, they should focus on enhancing motivation of employees as then only they
can achieve their pre-set mission and vision of the company (Alsaid, Alawattage and Mutiganda,
2017).
On the other side democratic style embraces all the opinions, sharing of ideas, debates of
employees within organisation before coming up to final decisions. Both these styles are
contrast in nature as in democratic style, leaders prefers to make the relationship between their
followers and try to satisfy their needs and demands before taking any decision which helps in
boosting performance in the company and in autocratic, leaders prefers to complete their task
within deadlines and ignore all the possible factors which could affect the performance like
relationship, behaviours of employees etc.
Time taken is also a factor on which both can be compared. In autocratic style, it is less
time consuming as leader takes their decisions according to their past experience, judgements,
expectations, etc. But in other it takes time as leader takes opinions of other and then try to make
their decision according to their employees so that their motivation will not get affected
(Differences Between Autocratic & Democratic Leadership, 2019.).
For company like Captify, their leader should opt democratic style as it would motivate
their employees to work harder resulting in sustainable business performance of Captify but
sometimes they should also opt autocratic style as external environment is rapidly changing and
to cope up with that, leader have to take decision quickly. Hence, encouraging employee’s
participation will assist the business in managing innovation, coordination and cooperation with
regard to changes in business environment. Incorporating democratic style of leading at
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workplace helps the leaders in gaining employee participation and managing interest of
employees. Also, in modern era it is supportive style of leading a sit encourages innovation and
motivation at workplace without additional efforts by management of organisation.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay, it can be concluded that communication play an essential part in
the success of organisation. As it helps leaders and managers to perform their duties and also
assist various departments of company to perform with highest efficiency and productivity.
Organisation have to opt the hierarchy of management very carefully as it is important for
employees to work harder and vice versa. Drivers of globalisation are outlined which helps in
deriving growth of business sin particular context. Thus, the study concluded by comparing and
contrasting to leadership style.
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REFERNCES
Books and Journals
Alsaid, Alawattage and Mutiganda, 2017. How does leadership style influence the use of the
management control system and technological innovation?
Ansoff and et. al., 2019. Implanting strategic management. Springer.
Cole, G., 2017. Making corporate social responsibility appropriate and effective: The importance
of communication. Annals in Social Responsibility.3(1). pp.65-67.
Cuervo‐Cazurrra, A., Mudambi, R. and Pedersen, T., 2017. Globalization: Rising skepticism.
Global Strategy Journal.7(2). pp.155-158.
Hargie, O., 2016. The importance of communication for organisational effectiveness. Mayıs.2.
p.2017.
Online
THE ONE TO WATCH’ FORBES. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.captify.co.uk/company-overview/introduction/>
Differences Between Autocratic & Democratic Leadership. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://careertrend.com/differences-between-autocratic-democratic-leadership-
13655994.html>
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