Let's Style Leadership (Theory 1)

One of the first theories I learned about leadership was theory XY, which looks at how you view your employees.

How you figure out if you have a more X or Y type of leadership style is by answering questions that are focused on tasks and relationships. You place a number 1-10 depending on how much you agree with the statement. Certain questions are assigned to X and the others to Y. You add the numbers up according to whether they belong to X or Y then subtract the smallest number from the larger. The higher the number, the more strongly you believe in the higher scored category. In contrast, if your number is lower it means that you are more flexible. Theory Y leadership means that you are more relationship based and you view your employees as people who are self-disciplined, seek responsibility, are empowered where they can make creative and effective decisions, and like to work. They will basically “exercise self-direction and self-control if they are committed to the objectives.” On the other hand, if you are an X theory leader, it means you are more task oriented and tend not to trust your employees. You see them as people who do not like their work, lack ambition, avoid responsibilities thus seeking direction, and “must be coerced, controlled, or threatened to achieve goals.” When I took this test I scored high in Theory Y leadership, however since I knew what each meant before taking the test, I feel that I may have subconsciously skewed my answers to reflect more of a relationship oriented leadership style. When I objectively observe the way I work with my co-workers or peers in group projects I tend to be less trusting that they will get their individually duties done, which is really more of Theory X. Personally, I would like to be led by and be more like a Theory Y leader.

Another type of leadership style involves the combining of task and people. If you are high in both task and people you are categorized as Team Leader. If you are high in people but lower in task, then you are categorized as country club. Low in people but high in task is authoritarian and low in both is Impoverished. A team leader type of leader, really tries to create a team spirited environment the encourages growth and success as a team and individually. They lead by example and encourage their team to bond and reach goals. A Country Club leader tends to focus on relationships and maintains discipline through a reward system. They stray away from stricter use of powers in fear that they may damage those relationships. Authoritarian Leaders are incredibly task oriented, strict to the schedules, and hard on their workers. They do not encourage questions, debate, or creativity. Lastly is the impoverished leader, who “delegates and disappears”, which essentially means that they let their team do whatever they want and tend not to be apart of the team process. With all this in mind, being a Team Leader is not always the best. It depends on the situation. For example, and Authoritarian type of leadership can be effective when the employee is new and is just starting to learn. And an Impoverished leader can be great when you have a team with a lot of experience and knows what needs to be done and how. There is not a right or wrong type, just the most effective type depending on the given situation.

There are also leadership styles based on the amount of control the leader needs in the decision-making process. High control (Authoritarian), medium control (participative), and low control (delegative). Authoritarian needs to be the one to make the decision, all decisions. Participative, the leader interacts with team to come up with decisions. Delegative, leader leaves it up to his or her team to make decisions.

From what I have investigated about leadership styles from my experiences at work is that is hard to categorize a leader because there are so many different factors that go into it that could be contradictory to that category. I have manager who is super sweet, no mean bone in her body, but does not know what she is doing half the time. We all love her but find her to be quite frustrating when the event is not going as planned and we need someone to step up and direct us. Another manager, just delegates. She is not really willing to join in with us and can come off rude when giving us tasks. However, everything is usually in order and events tend to run more smoothly. And my favorite manager who is kind, competent, willing to get her hands dirty, and truly cares about us, gets flustered at times of high stress, which in turn puts stress on all of us. All of them have their strengths and weakness and each of them shine in different situations. An effective leadership style, I feel, really depends on the type of people you are leading and the situation everyone is in.