Path-Goal Model Assignment (Sample)

MANAGEMENT
Are companies over managed and under led
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MANAGEMENT
Are companies over managed and under led
In this era of globalization and internationalization, human resources are the biggest
assets for any organization. Today, the large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc.
have expanded across the world as this expansion has been possible with the focus on human
resources (Belias & Koustelios, 2014). Therefore, it is important the organizations should
provide a culture where employees can work with high level of productivity. In an organizational
setting, the employee productivity would be high only when employee motivation is high, and it
is the responsibility of leaders to ensure that employee motivation is high. Therefore,
organizations are dependent on strong leaders at top. For example, the success of Apple Inc. can
be attributed to the leadership styles and qualities exhibited by Steve Jobs. However, it is not
always easy to have strong leaders at top. Many a times, organization would hire the people from
leadership position, but they would fail. Hence, it is important that organizations should
understand the difference between management and leadership (Chu, Leino, Pflum & Sue,
2016). There is an increased debate in today’s world about the large companies’ management
style and leadership approach. It is believed that companies do get good managers, but it is hard
for organizations to get qualified leaders and eventually this results in over management and
under leading. This issue can actually be resolved with the use of path goal theory of leadership.
The Path-Goal model is a theory based on specifying a leader's style or behaviour that
best fits the employee and work environment in order to achieve a goal. The benefit with path
goal theory of leadership is that it is open and flexible in nature. This theory acknowledges that
employees are different in nature and likewise a different style of leadership should be used to
treat employees (Belias & Koustelios, 2014). The four types of leadership style that path goal
theory advocates are directive, supportive, participative and achievement. It is interesting to

MANAGEMENT
analyse the ways by which these four styles can actually help the leaders s powerful within the
organization. At the same time, it is important that along with path goal theory, leaders should
also focus on cultural aspects of employees because in large and multinational companies,
employees would belong to different cultures. Chu & Leino (2016) argued, that the knowledge of
different culture helps people to adjust in the different culture and people face less internal
resistance if they are comfortable with the different culture. It is recommended that people
should not fear the unknown factor while dealing with the people from different cultural
backgrounds (Tyssen, Wald & Spieth, 2014). The four leadership styles of path goal theory and
its connection with companies over managed and under led can be discussed as:
Directive leadership style: This leadership style is based on the fact there would always be
some employees that would need direction. This leadership style works best in the case when the
direction of the team is not clear, and employees need direction from their leaders. It works best
when people are not sure about the task that they have to do, and they seek help from others. In
this case, the leader act as the person who shows the direction to the team. It is important to
mention that leader does not do the work of others and he or she would just show the direction so
that team is on the right path (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016). The directive leadership
style enables organization to have tight knit teams in place that can work in cohesion with high
level of productivity. It is observed that people have high trust on their leaders when the leaders
have directive leadership style.
Supportive leadership style: The leaders who have supportive leadership style would develop a
unique relationship with employees (Jing & Avery, 2016). In this style of leadership, the leader
makes work pleasant for the workers by showing concern for them and by being friendly and
approachable. The healthy relationship between leaders and employees enable leaders to