Management Styles

Managers have to perform many roles in an organization and how they handle various situations will depend on their style of management. A management style is an overall method of leadership used by a manager. There are two sharply contrasting styles that will be broken down into smaller subsets later:

• Autocratic
• Permissive

Each style has its own characteristics:

Autocratic: Leader makes all decisions unilaterally.

Permissive: Leader permits subordinates to take part in decision making and also gives them a considerable degree of autonomy in completing routine work activities.

Combining these categories with democratic (subordinates are allowed to participate in decision making) and directive (subordinates are told exactly how to do their jobs) styles gives us four distinct ways to manage:

Directive Democrat: Makes decisions participatively; closely supervises subordinates.

Directive Autocrat: Makes decisions unilaterally; closely supervises subordinates.

Permissive Democrat: Makes decisions participatively; gives subordinates latitude in carrying out their work.

Permissive Autocrat: Makes decisions unilaterally; gives subordinates latitude in carrying out their work.

In what situations would each style be appropriate? Inappropriate?

Managers must also adjust their styles according to the situation that they are presented with. Below are four quadrants of situational leadership that depend on the amount of support and guidance needed:

Telling: Works best when employees are neither willing nor able to do the job (high need of support and high need of guidance).

Delegating: Works best when the employees are willing to do the job and know how to go about it (low need of support and low need of guidance).

Participating: Works best when employees have the ability to do the job, but need a high amount of support (low need of guidance but high need of support).

Selling: Works best when employees are willing to do the job, but don’t know how to do it (low need of support but high need of guidance).