Effective Leadership Skills : Assignment

Running head: EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Two important leadership styles will be described in the assignment.
The first one is the autocratic leadership style. This leadership style is also called the
authoritarian leadership style. This style is characterized by the leaders taking an overall control
of the decisions and providing little scope to the members of the groups. They make choices
based on their own ideas and judgments (De Hoogh et al., 2015). They rarely invite advice,
suggestions or feedbacks from the followers. They mainly dictate all the work methods as well as
processes. Group members are rarely trusted regarding any decisions or other significant tasks.
This type of leaders highly discourages creative thinking and encourages working styles which
are highly structured and very rigid. This working condition stresses the workers and makes
them feel disrespected and not cared by the company. Some may even become demotivated and
tensed, fearful and resentful. Lack of empowerment in decision-making processes results in
developing low morale and lack of commitment from the employees. However, they also have
certain advantages (Vail, 2014). They bring out positive results when adverse situations arise all
of a sudden and urgency rises to take decisions quickly.
The second type of leadership skill is the transformational leadership skills. This type of
leadership style makes the leaders work in harmony with their followers by setting a clear vision
and guiding them through every path and helping them to align with the objectives of the
organization (Avolio & Yammarino et al., 2013). It is determined as the model of integrity as
well as fairness. This type of leadership encourages others not only to work beyond expectations
but also invites followers with their suggestions, advices and feedbacks. This help in developing
an environment of innovation and creativity. The leaders provide support in innovation and goals
(Kark & Shamir, 2013). At the same time, they inspire and motivate them to look beyond their

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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS
individual interest and work towards goals. Building stronger and trust based relationship is yet
another attribute of this leadership.
Two leaders with different styles:
Steve jobs had been an American entrepreneur, industrial designer as well as business magnate
who have served the position of the chairman, co founder as well as the CEO of Apple.inc. He
was an autocratic ruler and had received tremendous success with his leadership style.
A very good example of the transformational leader is Richard Branson. He is the founder of the
Virgin Atlantic groups. It is one of the most recognized as well as respected brands that has over
400 companies.
Comparison of the leadership style:
Steve Jobs was an autocratic ruler. Critics are of the opinion that he had a meticulous eye for
every minute detail of the organization. He was extremely demanding form his employees. Many
of his co-followers who has worked under him had described him to show manipulative
behaviour and had even described his behaviour in meetings to be rude, authoritative as well as
obnoxious. Job used to exhibit a domineering presence for which many of his employees used to
fear him and his consideration levels were rather low (Heracleous & Klaering, 2017). However,
his autocratic style helped him for making a quick decision whenever any certain serious
conditions arise and he had complete control over the decisions taken for his company. He was
very demanding not only towards his employees but also towards himself. Some of the deadlines
are so short that it used to become difficult for the employees to achieve. He centralized his
authority in such a way that he never used to give chance to his subordinates in decision making