Effective Management Styles Tutorial | The Ultimate Guide

Management Styles

Management consists of the planning, prioritizing, and organizing work efforts to finish objectives within a business organization. A management style is the specific way managers go about completing these objectives. It includes how they make choices, plan and arrange their work, and exert authority. Management styles differ by company, level of management, and even from person to person. A good manager is one that can adjust their management style to suit various environments and employees. An individual’s management style is shaped by various factors including internal and external business environments, and how one views the role of work in the lives of employees.

Best style of management?

The best style of management depends on the workplace, industry, existing processes, the size of staff, personalities within the staff and your own strengths and weaknesses as a manager. This style has authoritative, persuading, and paternalistic variations. Finding the most effective style for organization is a process that takes careful consideration, experimentation and company-wide participation. Sometimes, traits and features from more styles of management may be the most beneficial for the company. May take philosophies from more than one style or apply various aspects of various styles to different situations. Generating a hybrid style of management with some different management types may be the most beneficial option for a customized approach to leadership.

Types of management styles:

All management styles can be categorized by 3 major types:

• Autocratic,
• Democratic,
• Laissez-Faire,

with Autocratic being the more controlling and Laissez-Faire being the least controlling.,

Autocratic:

• Autocratic management is the most controlling of management styles.
• Variations of this style are authoritative, persuasive, and paternalistic.
• Autocratic managers made all of the decisions in a workplace.
• Communication with this type of management is one way, top-down to an employees.
• Employee ideas and contributions are not supported or considered necessary.
• Roles and tasks are clearly explained, and workers are expected to follow these directions without question while being consistently checked and supervised.
• This type of style is specifically useful in organizations with hierarchical structures where management made all of the decisions based on the positioning in the hierarchy.
• Employees that benefit from this style of management contain those who are new, unskilled, or unmotivated, as they require supervision and clear direction.
• Managers can benefit greatly by using this style in times of crises or serious time constraints.
• The advantages of the autocratic management style are small uncertainty, clearly explained roles and expectations for employees, and the speed of decision-making.
• All decisions are made by the manager and employees are expected to be compliant leaving small room for variation or confusion.
• Decision-making speed is ideal and is not slowed by conflicting thoughts or agendas.
• Disadvantages include lack of staff input with ideas that are not supported or shared.
• This can lead to the job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, and employee turnover.
• Because managers made all of the decisions, the employees are not inclined to act autonomously and become too dependent on the manager.
• Not all the employees need supervision, and as a result can become resentful and unhappy.
• Too many dissatisfied employees and the separation of power with an autocratic management style .

Authoritative style:

• With this management style, there is small trust or confidence in employees.
• This manager dictates orders to employees and expects that they do exactly as needed.
• These employees are unskilled people.
• This needs constant teaching and coaching of the staff as well as consistent supervision.

Example of an authoritative style:

• More restaurants use an authoritative style of management.
• Diners expect orderly service and quality food.
• Since more restaurants run on slim margins and suffer from even little mistakes, autocratic management works well to maintain everyone focused on results and efficiency.

Persuasive style:

Using this management style, the manager still makes all decisions for an employee but then convinces employees that decisions were made in the best interest of the team. The only real difference here is that it can establish a morer level of trust between management and staff.

Paternalistic or Exploitative/Authoritative style:

In this type of management, the manager continues to be in charge of all decisions and exhibits a patronizing or paternalistic attitude toward the staff. The decisions are made in the best interest of an employee and the manager defines these decisions and the importance of them to the employees. These employees feel well taken care of and looked after by the paternalistic manager but may become resentful of not being taken seriously. This style breeds more dependent employees.

Democratic:

The democratic management style involves the managers reaching decisions with an input of the employees but responsible for making the final decision. There are more variations of this style of management containing both top-down and bottom-up and made for a cohesive team. This type of style is versatile with the advantages of having many diverse perspectives involved in the decision making. As employees are being taken into account before the manager makes decisions, the employees feel valued which improves motivation and productivity. Disadvantages of the democratic management style are the time it takes to make a decision due to the collection of ideas and opinions. There is also the potential conflict of various viewpoints playing a role in the decision making and as a result, employees can feel less valued if the input is not taken, leading to decreased morale and productivity.

Example of a democratic style

• Save managers often use the democratic style of management.
• They hire team members who can work together to finish store layouts, marketing campaigns and customer service.
• These managers act as a moderator to help the team move forward with their ideas and are available to answer the questions.

Consultative style

With this management style, trust and confidence is placed in the employees and management actively finds out their opinions. Participative style Similar to the consultative, management trusts the employees, but trusts them fully and not only seeks out their opinions and ideas, but they act on them. They work together to make decisions as a group and the staff is more involved. As a result, employees feel valued and show improved motivation and productivity. However, a drawback to this style is that some employees do not need to be involved in decision making and can come to resent a manager with this style.

Collaborative style[edit]:

Managers with the collaborative style communicated extensively with employees and made decisions by the majority. The manager believes that involving everyone and making the team to take ownership will result in the best decisions made. The major disadvantage of this style is that it is time-consuming, and the majority decision is not the best decision for the business entity, in which case, the manager should take control of the final choice.

Laissez-faire:

The laissez-faire management style involves little or no interference from the management. The staff do not require supervision and are more skilled which permit management to take the hand’s off approach and leave the problem solving, and decision making to the staff. Variations of this style contain the delegative style and what is referred to as bossless environments or self-managed teams. In firms with flatter decentralized management, this type of style performs well. Typically, the staff is more skilled, more so than the management, and is trusted with setting the bar for new and setting the objectives. The advantages of the Laissez faire are improved innovation and creativity through the autonomy of expert staff. Some examples of these factors are a competitor who provides a more autonomous environment for skilled employees and controls the job pool. Disadvantages include the risk of little productivity by unsupervised staff, loss of direction due to the hands-off style of the management.

Example of a laissez-faire style:

Given the unpredictable nature in the fashion industry, allowing fashion buyers the freedom to choose their own products often works best. As long as they are knowledgeable and passionate, individual buyers are typically much more in tune with fashion trends than the management.

Delegative style:

• A delegative management style permits employees to take full responsibility of the work areas.
• The manager assigns tasks with little or no direction and expects the staff to achieve results of their own accord.
• The manager retains responsibility for the meeting objectives.
• The major disadvantages of this style are lack of uniformity among team members and uncoordinated efforts towards productivity.
• Also, because little leadership and advice is provided, the team may lack concentration and direction.

Factors that shape the management style:

Internal factors:

• Internal company factors that find a management style include, but are not limited to, policies, priorities, corporate culture, staff skill levels, motivation and management structures.
• In order to be effective, a manager’s style and outlook must suit the business’s organizational culture.
• Their style must adhere to the policies and rules set forth by the organization, and they must be able to achieve company objectives.
• They are responsible for controlling an effective work team and must be uphold organizational believes within that team
• A manager who cannot do this likely be deemed ineffective and be removed from the position.
• Staff skill levels and motivation highly affect management styles as it is needed for a manager to finish objectives while maintaining a content and effective work team.
• Less skilled or motivated employees would need a style that is more controlling and fosters consistent supervision to ensure productivity.
• Highly motivated or skilled employees need less supervision and direction as they are typically more technically skilled than management and have the ability, and desire, to make more autonomous decisions.
• These employees would benefit from the management style that is less controlling or hands-off.
• Hierarchical management structures call for decisions to be made solely by the upper management, and within the scope of a manager’s position in the hierarchy.
• These types of organizations need more controlling management styles in order to meet objectives and get things done as specified.
• Flatter structures with high decentralized decision-making benefit from management styles that support team communication and employee’s contribution with regard to decision-making.

External factors:

• External factors affecting the management styles are those that are outside of the control of an organization.
• These contain, but are not limited to consumers, suppliers, competitors, the economy, and the law.
• Some examples of these factors are a competitor who provides a more autonomous environment for skilled employees and controls the job pool.
• The economy for a particular manufactured goods results in a spike in demand causing a production crisis.
• the laws for a particular industry change and need employees who have extensive knowledge and certification causing the company employees talent and motivation to change.

Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor introduced Theory X and Theory Y in 1957. This psychological concept proposed that how one viewed human relationships to those of an enterprise find their style of management. Theory X proposes that people inherently lack the motivation and desire for responsibility and require to be closely supervised, directed, and tightly controlled in order to achieve team objectives. Without it, workers become unwilling to work. This is considered the high conventional theory and results in the management styles that have high degrees of control over employees. Theory Y conversely suggests that it is human nature to be motivated by objectives and gain satisfaction through the finish of work. Those who believe in Theory Y believe that it is the responsibility for management to foster environments where employees can develop potential and utilize their skills to achieve objectives. This perspective leads to management styles that give the workers more decision making control and offer less supervision.

Conclusion:

A manager will primarily be adopting one of the constant styles as per individual personality and nature. But a great manager can develop the ability to suit a suitable style of management under various situations and handle them in the best possible ways.