Leadership Philosophy: Overview, Styles, and Application

This article provides an overview of leadership philosophy and its importance in organizations. It discusses different leadership styles, including authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire, with a focus on democratic leadership. The article also explores the application of democratic leadership in a real-life scenario and highlights its advantages and disadvantages.

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LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
Name:
Department:
School:
Date:

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Introduction
Philosophy is the study of how people think about matters that affect them day-to-day activities
(Hughes & Sharrock 2016). It tends to seek answers to basic questions about the nature of the
universe, our existence and the different thoughts that human beings tend to believe, knowledge,
values and their sense of reason. In this paper, I am going to discuss about an overview of
philosophy and leadership in the society that we live today. This involves a leader coming up
with his own set of beliefs and values to help him in governing a group of people and to respond
to particular situations affecting an organization (Goetsch & Davis 2014). A good leader should
have his own set of values and norms that he believes are making a good leader out of him. With
these, he will turn out to be the best leader as he will enjoy the leadership experience.
Part A: leadership philosophy
There are various philosophical leadership styles that different leaders use to formulate their
set of rules and values to help them in governing a particular group of people. The following are
the commonly used styles: authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire (Nanjundeswaraswamy &
Swamy 2014). Autocratic leaders make decisions on their own without considering other
people’s opinions. They have a clear view of where they are and give instructions to subordinates
without citing explanations for the instructions. They strongly believe whatever they do and say
is very right and hence give final says in each and every matter that affect the organization.
Laissez-faire leaders on the other hand also known as delegative leaders who believe in their
subordinates. They believe their subordinates are capable of performing their tasks perfectly well
under minimal supervision. This leadership style is commonly found in areas where a high
degree of creativity is implemented in handling tasks. Laissez-faire leaders work on building

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strong teams and give the members their own space and time to perform the allocated tasks. The
third leadership style is democracy or participatory leadership. Democratic leaders seek support
from their subordinates. They use a collaborative way by seeking every ones opinion so as to
meet organizational goals (Kane & Patapan 2012),They believe everyone has an ability to lead
hence consider their opinions and ideas before ruling on the way forward. Their decisions tends
to favor almost everyone in the organization because they were involved in the decision making
process. Personally, I emulate this style of leadership because I do believe it is very collaborative
and friendly and can be used in any organization (Iqbal Anwar & Haider 2015). This is because
individuals are given room to participate but the leader is the one to come up with the final say
after putting into consideration other people’s ideas (Braithwaite 2017).
There are very many good principles of a good leader that all leaders must adhere to for
them to be termed good leaders and to show case good examples. The following are leadership
principles that are important and personally I would not like anyone to violate them. Number
one is that people should understand that leadership is a behavior and not a position. A leader
should act like one and take responsibility in making decisions and influencing positive change.
A leader should also set a good example to the rest of the team. Be able to face challenges with
confidence and give good directions. Give instructions and be the one on the frontline in helping
team performance. Make an impact in the society you are living in to bring a positive change.
Good leaders chase visions and not money. Have a vision and inspire each team member to work
towards that vision. In order to be effective, good leaders speak less and act more. Choose those
actions wisely and perform them. Good leaders must admit their mistakes. This is a good
indication that you are wise enough to learn from others and accept correction. Lastly, good
leaders are aware that unity is strength. Consider organizing and teaching your members to work

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as a team and embrace the team. Also consider room for improvement because satisfaction is a
short term feeling.
In democratic leadership leaders are just there to offer guidance and control as ideas are
being exchanged freely. Democratic leadership style is highly recommended by both Christianity
and Islamic religions (Frunză 2017). Christians believe that democratic leaders encourage
creativity and the team members are highly engaged in the leadership hence leading to job
satisfaction and increased productivity. However most religions state that democratic leadership
takes more time thus slowing down the decision making process (Hage & Posner 2015).
According the Islamic “Sharia” laws, democracy should be practiced when people are electing
their leaders. Many people recommend this type of leadership because it is inclusive of
empowerment and involves everyone in decision making and this fosters creativity. They also
say it seeks to develop commitment and values expertise and different skills. However they say it
is demanding to do consultations to achieve a consensus. Despite it wasting time, it should not be
a reason for postponing ideas, people should learn to discuss and consult before coming up with
decisions.
Democratic leadership is a style for the people hence participative kind of leadership. It
involves everyone at any level thus gives everyone a chance to showcase and develop what they
have got (Giltinane 2013) .It encourages collaboration which makes unity. Leaders work hand in
hand and find solutions to problems together with their people. There will be very little or no
difference arising since each and every one is satisfied and happy. It fosters equality in decision
making. This kind of leadership involves everyone regardless of their status. People feel
appreciated and included which gives them a sense of belonging. It improves employee
performance through participation and frequent involvement in activities. Employees raise their

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key performance indicators as they are motivated enough to deliver. An increase in performance
increase productivity in output. It is an easy approach to apply particularly to any form of
organization. It promotes a healthy competition among employees and thus everyone is unified
towards a common goal. However, democratic leadership has few unpleasant experiences which
include: some individuals becoming regretful because their ideas were not put into consideration
hence creating the need to apologize to individuals whom their ideas were not considered (Van
Wart 2013). It is also time consuming since the management has to list to quite a number of
decisions from different individuals before landing on one. I believe it is vital for organizations
to strike a balance between democratic leadership and other styles in situations where democracy
may fail to apply fully.

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PART B: APPLICATION OF LEADERSHIP.
Democratic leadership style has a lot of advantages but at the same time it may bring
negativities. A good leader should weigh those disadvantages against the positivity before
planning accordingly. Some times last year I was working for a computer company in town
which was faced by a major issue that required me to make critical decisions. The company was
hit by a subsequent change in the market by introduction of a new brand of machines which had
a higher demand than the ones we were selling. Different individuals had different opinions on
how we were going to do about it since there was a big reduction in the amount of total sales
and targets were not being met hence fear of the company going into liquidation.
This issue was growing rapidly and sales were reducing on a daily basis. The company
started reporting loses. As a leader I was considering changing our range of products to stop
selling computers and venture into some other business like specialized dealing with softwares
and web designing. I decided to seek ideas on how to face this challenge from quite a number of
individuals in the organization. The board of management was into the idea that we start dealing
with the new brand and dispose of the old products. One of the employees was so against this
idea of disposing those old machines because he thought they were still very useful. His
suggestion was that the company should embrace the change by hiring more marketers to market
the existing products and to advertise widely about the old computer brand with an aim of
targeting new clients. As a democratic leader I chose to listen to all those ideas and i didn’t rush
into making conclusions. I also had to seek for guidance before coming up with the final
decision. All those team members had ideas and everyone wanted his idea to be put into
consideration because he believed it was effective. However this was impossible because we
were only supposed to end up with one common solution to adapt.

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As a good manager the first step I took was to call for a meeting to communicate to the
employees the state of the company and explain to them in detail the challenge we were facing as
a company. By doing this I gathered a lot of information from the team members who had a lot
to recommend on the way forward concerning the introduction of a new product. I had to
understand every ones idea before commencing on evaluating the list of possible solutions. After
doing this I then decided to pick on the best option which was mentioned by one of the team
members. The idea was that the company should stick to the products it sells and look for ways
of improving the product by doing a lot of advertising and marketing. Even though some of the
team members were not into the idea and were thinking it was not the right path to follow, I had
to take the initiative to explain to them the pros and cons of the idea. Having done this we were
all at par in the idea and the decision was put into effect. I landed on this style of leadership
because it values collaboration and affirmation from every member of the organization. The
performance preference of each employee is highly acknowledged and accepted. This makes
them feel appreciated and boosts their morale to work for the organization and to actively
participate in decision making (Taleghani Salmani & Taatian 2010). As a result of this, the
organization improves its performance and will be able to successfully meet its goal.
Conclusion
Philosophy sets a difference between you and other leaders in the society. Business
practices should be accompanied by a company’s philosophy to be able to explain the culture
and values that the company believes in. As a leader one should be able to maintain his behaviors
in order for them to earn trust from his subordinates (Glynn & DeJordy 2010). A leadership

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philosophy strongly affects how you interact with people, how you interpret reality and how you
react to events and different situations. By writing a leadership philosophy members get to know
what you expect from them and how you will react in different circumstances. This improves
productivity at the work place as it keeps a leader on track of the set beliefs, cultures and norms
governing the organization. Confidence and adaptability are the greatest core values that should
not miss in a personal leadership style in order to have a clear and realistic vision (Ciulla 2013).
Confidence comes from a leader being able to understand his strengths and weaknesses. It helps
in evaluating and analyzing the decisions before finally settling down on them.
Individuals should put into consideration the following things when reviewing their
leadership philosophy: consider the primary focus of your beliefs, consider what you want to
accomplish in your reign as a leader, keep in mind how you want other people to describe your
behavior and leadership style, consider your expectations from the people you govern, mind the
level of delegation that makes you comfortable and lastly consider writing down your rules and
regulations (Eagly & Chin 2010). Keep in mind that no leadership philosophy is fit for everyone
in this society we are living. This is because different leaders work in different backgrounds and
encounter completely different situations and challenges. With this in mind, a leader should
choose a leadership style that works well with the situation he is facing and should also consider
the custom beliefs and norms of the organization he is serving.

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