Leadership Styles and Conflict

This assignment delves into the contrasting leadership styles of participative and autocratic leadership, exemplified by Josh Martin and Tom Saunders. It analyzes the conflict arising from their differing approaches, explores strategies for resolving such conflicts, and outlines the key characteristics of an effective leader. The assignment also provides a hypothetical solution for Josh's dilemma regarding his challenging work environment.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behaviour
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Answer 1
Josh Martin is a 41 year old deputy agency administrator at the Centre Street
Settlement House, whereas Tom Saunders is the executive director of the agency. Both have
very different style of leadership. Josh’s behavior and activities at the agencies are reflective
of participative leadership style whereas Tom’s behavior is similar to autocratic leadership
style. Participative leadership style is the managerial activity that embraces employee’s inputs
in decision making. Participative leaders believes in openly sharing organizational issues with
employees and they like to involved their subordinates while solving any issues (Ghaffari et
al. 2017). Josh also did this which is seen from the conversation of Phil Jones who states that
Josh tries to listen to them and try to implement some of their ideas too. This action has
raised the morale of employees. Hence, Josh as leader is very effective in motivating his
employees in job and he has tried to increase their morale by proposing salary hike for two
employees with excellent performance appraisal. He justified the action of pay hike for the
employee very well on ground of employee’s excellent contribution to the success of the
organization. In contrast, Tom’s action has an autocratic style of leadership as he likes to
have control over all decisions and rarely accepts input or advice from others (Rast et al.
2013). Due to this attitude, he rejected Josh’s proposal and behaved irrationally when Josh
could not attend the meeting because of flu. Such leaders dictate others and do not trust other
members of the organization which is seen in Tom’s case too.
Autocratic leadership style tells about the leadership trait of power, authority and
dominance, where as the participative leadership style tells about the trait of team orientation
and empathy.
Answer 2

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Many organization problems arise due to the presence of conflicting leadership style
where two leaders with different style cannot get along well. There is always a disagreement
in such situations. Such issues in organization can be solved if at least on manager has the
capability and maturity to handle conflict. In such case, leaders can work together to
understand the root cause of conflict and readily accepting impact of personal communication
styles or behaviour on conflict. After identifying this, both parties can make honest attempt to
make specific changes in their individual action such as behaviours, attitude and
communication styles to resolve the conflict (Moore 2014).
Answer 3
Honesty, integrity, vision, courage, communication skills and team building are the
important elements or characteristics of an effective leader. Such leaders keep best interest of
the company at the forefront and regard all employees as accountable for the success of the
organization (Wheelan 2014). Good leaders maintain a level of transparency in the
organization and always welcome feedback and opinion of others. They are strategic thinkers
and establish and communicate clear goals to all members of the organization. Through their
positive attitude and communication skills, they build an outstanding team and put all efforts
to retain top talent (Oreg and Berson 2015).
Tom Saunders is not an effective leader because he lacked insight and vision for the
success of the organization. He had no trust on any team members and had no intention to
retain best talent. This is also seen when Josh recommended salary hike for two employees
and he rejected it without analysing the contribution of specific employees to his agency. In
addition, he did not had strategic thinking ability too as without Martin, he was always found
to behave irrationally and took no attention to agency’s detail. In contrast, Martin is an
effective leader because he has a vision and he is transparent in his actions too. He always

3ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
took ideas from his employees and gave them chance to increase their morale by recognizing
their contribution to the organization. In addition, he is committed to the organization by
remaining on call twenty four hours a day and attending all agency strategy meeting.
Answer 4
Josh Martin is finding hard to cope with autocratic style and erratic mood swings of
Tom. Tom has been very irresponsible towards the agency. Josh is thinking of leaving the
job, however he is at a fix because it will be hard for him to retain the same salary and
benefits package at other agencies. If I were Martin, I would handle the situation by having a
talk with Tom Saunders first regarding the impact of his irresponsible behaviour on the fate
of the agency. Even if things could not have worked out, I would have left the job and used
my experience in the field to find another job. I would have also checked other multiple
managerial activities too that I could do on a part time basis.

4ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Reference
Ghaffari, S., Shah, I.M., Burgoyne, J., Nazri, M. and Aziz, J.S.S., 2017. The Influence of
Respect for Employees on the Relationship between Participative Leadership and Job
Satisfaction: A Case Study at Universiti Teknologi Malays. Australian Journal of Basic and
Applied Sciences, 11(4), pp.17-28.
Moore, C.W., 2014. The mediation process: Practical strategies for resolving conflict. John
Wiley & Sons.
Oreg, S. and Berson, Y., 2015. Personality and charismatic leadership in context: The
moderating role of situational stress. Personnel Psychology, 68(1), pp.49-77.
Wheelan, S.A., 2014. Creating effective teams: A guide for members and leaders. Sage
Publications.
Rast III, D.E., Hogg, M.A. and Giessner, S.R., 2013. Self-uncertainty and support for
autocratic leadership. Self and Identity, 12(6), pp.635-649.