Leadership and Management: Styles, Approaches, and Employee Behavior

This essay delves into the contrasting yet interconnected realms of leadership and management, highlighting their distinct roles in organizational success. It defines leadership as the ability to guide individuals, contrasting it with management's focus on organizing resources to achieve goals. The essay emphasizes the importance of leadership, noting that poor leadership often leads to organizational failures. It explores various leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, team, cross-cultural, facilitative, laissez-faire, transactional, coaching, charismatic, and visionary approaches, and examines their effects on employee behavior and organizational outcomes. Furthermore, it discusses the Path-goal Theory, which identifies directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented approaches, emphasizing how these styles influence employee satisfaction, motivation, and performance. The essay concludes by advocating for a shift towards leadership styles that prioritize employee satisfaction and development to foster organizational success.

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LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
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Introduction
Management and leadership are different qualities even though used interchangeably. Leadership
is definable as the practical and social skills that encompass the capability of an individual to
offer guidance the people who voluntarily participate in an activity (Mumford, Todd, Higgs &
McIntosh 2017, p. 24). Management on the other hand, is definable as the organization and
coordination of production resources in an organization to achieve a specific goal (Welch-Devine
2012). Both leadership and managers are focused on specific goals; however, it is observable that
managers tend to have their titles as honorary, paid to achieve a goal with an authoritarian style.
Therefore, managers tend to have people work for them, while leaders are observable as
charismatic individuals who guide the people transformational way.
It is very common that most business organizations don’t perform as expected mainly because
of over-management and poor leadership by the authority (Candido & Santos 2015, p.241). A
number of the failures are due to the fact that most of the managers are under pressure to incite
their staff to perform the assigned duties as most of them are more focused on the results and
tend to forget about the team feelings. Workers form the primary functional tool in every
organization, therefore losing a contact with them or having a weak relationship eventually pose
a company to a verge of failure.
Real Leadership according to the path-goal theory developed by Robert House in 1971 which
insist that the behaviors of leaders have a direct influence on the participation, satisfaction,
motivation and the overall performance of the followers (Malik, Aziz, & Hassan 2014, p.173) .
The theory identifies the following; achievement-oriented, participative, supportive and directive
as the leadership approaches that are more influenceable to a successful organization as leaders

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are flexible and ready to change their styles depending on the situation. The article therefore,
looks at the leadership styles approaches and their effects on the overall behavior of employees.
Leadership styles
There different leadership styles that are used to influence staffs to work more efficiently to
achieve a specified goal (Burns 2017). These are; Autocratic Leadership focuses on the authority
and power given to an individual allowing them to make all the decisions on their own and then
communicate them to the subordinates; therefore the communication is a one-way route.
Democratic leadership focuses on including the subordinates in every stage of decision-making
process even though the leader holds the final responsibility. Unlike the autocratic Leadership,
the communication is both downward and upward. Team leadership entails the creation of a clear
picture of its future, what it stands for and where it is heading to hence the clear vision provides a
strong sense of the organization’s objective. Cross-Cultural leadership is common in societies
formed by different cultures like most the international organizations that employ various
nationalists.
Facilitative leadership focuses more on the measurements and the outcomes rather than the skills
of the leader whereby the leader will either facilitate the functionability of the staffs (Burns
2017). Laissez-faire Leadership is a style that transfers the authority to the employees whereby
they are allowed to work in accordance to choice of their styles, while crating minimal
interference. Transactional Leadership insists on the status quo of the organization, whereby the
manager gives the final directions to the subordinate by clarifying for them their expectations
and awarding those that are compliant. Coaching Leadership is the process of teaching and
monitoring the followers. The leaders are responsible for identifying aspects and stages that

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require improvement through motivating and inspiring the followers. Charismatic Leadership is a
style whereby the leaders manifest the revolutionary power to transform the followers’ values,
and beliefs and the Visionary Leadership style involves the recognition of the leadership steps,
methods and process are obtainable through and within the followers by transforming their
visions into reality.
It is observable that most of the organizations tend to fail mainly because of the poor
management and lack of leadership skills. Most of the managers always fail to influence positive
behaviors among the staffs since they are more focused on the result, aggressive and demanding
rather than the human element of the company (Candido & Santos 2015, p. 243) .For the
productivity of an employee, there should be development and empowerment by the leaders
through the strategies and skills, so as to perform to a higher level (Eacott 2011). The improved
individual performance eventually boosts the overall organizational performance. Most of the
managers also fail to show the leadership skills like offering better conflict resolutions, forming a
collaborate and efficient work team.
There are four different leadership approaches identified by the Path-goal Theory which is;
directive, achievement-oriented, participative and supportive approaches (Malik, Aziz & Hassan
2014, p. 174). Directive approach direction is more the same with the autocratic style of
leadership whereby the leader commands the subordinates on what and how is required to be
done and without their opinion. The directive leadership approach is standard in traditional
companies that respect the seniority and experience for example in Japan and China and most of
the national militaries. Supportive leadership is an empathetic approach whereby the leaders are
focused on delivering guidance and motivation to the follower to achieve individual development
and the objective of the organization. The supportive approach is common in game activities;

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whereby the coaches and trainers help the players to reach their goal of becoming the best hence
assist the teams against their opponents. The participative approach entails the involvement of
the employees in goal setting, problem-solving and team building, though the final decision lies
upon the leader. For example, in Toyota Motor in North America, participative style applied by
Jim Lentz who is the chief executive officer. Jim Lentz offers guidance to the team by addressing
the challenges and failures together with the employees. Finally, the achievement-oriented
approach is whereby the leader has a conviction that the followers can do better and therefore,
sets up the challenging goals and offer training to the members to achieve better results.
In all the leadership paths it is observable that the main aims are to achieve a goal, even though
the supportive, participative and achievement-oriented brings the followers close to the leader's
ideas, the directive approach tends to make the followers more subject to the goal by not
allowing their opinions. The directive approach takes charge of everything by asserting authority
from the start in set standards.
Conclusion
In conclusion, most organizations are under led and over managed as most of the managers aim
at giving instructions to achieve goals rather than focus the basic factor of production; the
workers issues that when not addressed properly leads to reduced moral and bad behaviors of
workers. Therefore, managers need to be reformed to adopt the leadership styles and approaches
to create employee’s satisfaction thereafter increasing their performance and the success of the
organization.

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List of References
Burns, W. (2017). A Descriptive Literature Review of Harmful Leadership Styles: Definitions,
Commonalities, Measurements, Negative Impacts, and Ways to Improve These Harmful
leadership Styles. Creighton Journal of Interdisciplinary Leadership, 3(1), p.33.
Cândido, C. and Santos, S. (2015). Strategy implementation: What is the failure rate?. Journal of
Management & Organization, 21(02), pp.237-262.
Eacott, S. (2011). Leadership strategies: re-conceptualising strategy for educational leadership.
School Leadership & Management, 31(1), pp.35-46.
Holtz, B. and Harold, C. (2012). Effects of leadership consideration and structure on employee
perceptions of justice and counterproductive work behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior,
34(4), pp.492-519.
Malik, S., Aziz, S. and Hassan, H. (2014). Leadership Behavior and Acceptance of Leaders by
Subordinates: Application of Path Goal Theory in Telecom Sector. International Journal of
Trade, Economics and Finance, 5(2), pp.170-175.
Mumford, M., Todd, E., Higgs, C. and McIntosh, T. (2017). Cognitive skills and leadership
performance: The nine critical skills. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), pp.24-39.
Welch-Devine, M. (2012). Searching for Success: Defining Success in Co-Management. Human
Organization, 71(4), pp.358-370.
Winterton, J. (2013). Book review: Management and the Dominance of Managers: An Inquiry
into Why and How Managers Rule Our OrganizationsDiefenbachThomas, Management and the

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Dominance of Managers: An Inquiry into Why and How Managers Rule Our Organizations,
Routledge: New York, 2009; 272 pp.: 9780415443350, £110.00 (hbk); 9780415888684, £26.00
(pbk). Management Learning, 44(2), pp.200-204.