Relationship between Leadership and Communication Styles

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THE REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION METHODS USED BY LEADERS EMPLOYING VARIOUS BASIC LEADERSHIP STYLES

TT Haswiny Deva1 Center of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Of Help College of Arts and Technology, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Email: [email protected] Rashad Yazdanifard2 Center of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Of Help College of Arts and Technology, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Email: [email protected]

2 Abstract In today‟s era of globalization, communication is the key tool used by individuals and organizations to elicit their desired response. As such, leaders being the initiators of such communication in a given organization have to be able to differentiate the various leadership and corresponding communication styles to receive the ideal response from their subordinates. This paper focuses on the relationship between three basic leadership styles and their corresponding communication methods that are to be implemented specific to a given organization and target audience.

Keywords: Leadership communication, basic leadership styles, communication methods

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Introduction

A leader is an individual who influences and motivates a group of people towards the achievement of a common goal. While leadership has a wide range of definitions, it is however, commonly understood to be the ability of an individual to influence others to achieve a common goal of his or her choice. Leadership style is the manner in which an individual influences others to achieve a common goal by providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. In 1973, Kurt Lewin led a research which aimed to identify the various leadership styles. The findings of this research illustrated what is now known as the basic leadership styles. Kurt Lewin and his group of researches found that there are three basic leadership styles; namely, the autocratic leadership style, the democratic leadership style and the laissez-faire leadership style. (U.S. Army Handbook, 1973) Communication is defined as a two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange information but also create and share meaning. Hence, communication is the key determinant of the response one receives. Therefore, communication methods can be said to be a factor of differentiation between a mediocre leader and a good leader since the main role of a leader is to influence their subordinates. Hence, this research paper will look into the various communication methods used by leaders employing the autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles. According toYukl (2002) as cited in “How Leaders Influence Employee‟s Innovative Behaviour”,[Jong 2007; Hartog 2007] leaders have a large influence on employee behaviour. Thus, in order to get the best out of their employees, leaders must be sure to use the right leadership style complemented by effective communication methods which depends entirely on their target audience; which in this case, would be their respective subordinates. Therefore, leaders should identify communication methods that would go hand in hand with their chosen leadership style to augment the strength of employees in an organization and the organization as a whole.

2. Basic Leadership Styles Research in the field of leadership has revealed that the basic leadership styles consists of three categories; namely‟ the autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style and the laissez-faire leadership styles (Lewin, 1973). Researches also found that effective leaders had similar behaviours while ineffective leaders also had common behaviours (Palmer, Walls, Burgess,& Stough, 1980; Posner & Brodsky, 1994; Rutherford, 1985). Hence, it is evident that leaders who fall under a certain leadership category are also likely to have similar behavioural characteristics. a) Autocratic Leadership Style The autocratic leadership style has often been regarded as the most classical and orthodox approach to organizational leadership. In this style of leadership the leader is solely in charge on making all decisions and closely supervising employees. Employees or subordinates have no say in the decision making process

3 and has to completely obey the decisions of the leader without question. As would any other leadership style; this leadership style has its very own pros and cons. For example, this mode of leadership would work well given the employees are of low-skill and experience or are new to the job. The autocratic leadership style might also work well when employees require disciplinary action or have a track record for making huge mistakes resulting in loss to the organizations. However, leaders who use the autocratic style have to be mindful of their intensity especially when dealing with employees of higher calibre. This is because such employees might tend to become more closed up and unwilling to provide suggestions for the betterment of the organization. Employees who cannot stand the pressure leave eventually; leading to high turnover and talent loss for the company. b) Democratic Leadership Style Leaders who employ the democratic leadership style are usually those who give importance to employee participation and empowerment. Employees in such organizations are given the opportunity to express their thoughts and suggestions in the context of organizational improvement. Having said that, organizations that employ the democratic leadership style still has a functional leader who acts to compile and improvise on employee suggestions as well as make the final decision. This leadership style works best for most organizations as employees are pleased with the prospects of growth and trust whilst leaders get better input from their subordinates.

c) Laissez- faire Leadership Style On the contrary from the rigid ness of the autocratic leadership style; the laissez-faire style provides minimal or no guidance and supervision to employees. A specific instruction is often never given to employees, they are expected to set their own goals as well as find their own way to solve problems in work. Just like the other two leadership styles, the laissez-faire style too has its pros and cons. The laissez-faire leadership style has great potential to bring about the best in employees provided these employees have a lot of experience or they serve as external consultants to the organization. Nevertheless, this leadership style can also be the cause for many organizational problems if the employees are incompetent or are used to being precise instructions on their respective tasks.

3. Communication methods used in each leadership style. Bentele (2006) defines internal communication as all communication and processes that occurs within an organization; regardless of whether it occurs in a company, an association or even a society. For the purpose of this research, we will be looking into the details of communication that occurs in a formal context, whether in our out of the workplace. We shall assume that managers or supervisors play the role of leader and that the employees are their subordinates. a) Autocratic Leadership Style As mentioned earlier, the autocratic leadership style places a high importance on the leader as the sole entity in charge of all decision making processes. In this leadership style, leaders tend to use a more authoritative communication style. Autocratic leaders give order in a certain manner, which shows directness and straightforwardness. This is called The Eiffel Tower Culture as orders come from the top to the bottom. Also, leaders who employ this style are most likely to have a high task, low relationship manner. This goes to show that employees who have leaders who fall under this category will usually receive information specific to their task. However, this also means that they will be given no room for protest or even questioning for that matter. In this autocratic communication style, leaders are the only ones who initiate a conversation and the response of subordinates to the matter is hardly taken into account. All in all, leaders make the presentation of their information in a close manner where employees have to comply with the instruction exactly without having any say or input towards the matter. It is observed that, when an entire organization from the top to the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid employs this method of leadership; they also seem to adopt a vertical communication strategy. This means that only upward or downward communication occurs throughout the organization. The weakness of this kind of communication is usually that it may take a longer time for the initial message to reach the final audience as it has through travel through various channels before arriving at its final destination. Other

4 than that, there may also be discrepancies in the final message received when compared to the initial message sent out. b) Democratic Leadership Style Democratic leadership is a form of leadership that has undergone a paradigm shift when compared to the previous definitions of leadership which were usually denoted a position of undeniable authority. According to Gastil (1994), democratic leadership has defined its performance in terms of three aspects, namely, distributing responsibility, empowering subordinates and allowing for input in the decision making process. This shows us that democratic leaders are likely to use communication styles such as the consultative communication style and participative communication style. White.R.A(1982), mentioned that democratic communication is the result of a dialectical tension between social factors including the concentration of a social power and complementary factors causing the distribution of that power. The communication style used by leaders operating by this leadership style plays an important role in eliciting the co-operation and response of their employees. Leaders are still the key initiators in this type of communication. However, the difference between this style of communication and the autocratic style is that, this style of communication places a higher importance on the feedback and inputs from the employees. In the democratic leadership style, leaders may use a high task-high relationship approach or a low task-high relationship approach depending on the importance and complexity of the task. Either way, leaders express concern and care towards the employees‟ emotions and feelings. Also in terms of the openness of the communication used by democratic leaders, it depends solely on the subordinates‟ response. Often, the leaders are bent on employees understanding and executing their tasks seriously; only then do they accept suggestions and solutions from the receiver. Democratic leaders, just like their autocratic counterparts, have zero tolerance for employees who fail to see the importance of the task at hand. c) Laissez-faire Leadership Style The laissez faire leadership style can be described as the most „free‟ leadership style out of the three basic leadership styles. The leaders who adopt this leadership style are most commonly known to demonstrate low task-low relationship behavior. This is because leaders under this category often present employees with information regarding the tasks their required to complete but the strategies and solutions used are left entirely up to the employees‟ discretion. Leaders using this style of leadership are also less likely to pay attention to employees‟ feelings and emotions as well as have periodic checks on the employees‟ work progress. 4. Discussion According to Henninger and Barth (2009), for a leader to adopt ideal communication skills, he or she has to be open to changes in inherent communication styles as well as positioning of the message the best way possible to solve a given problem. Also, Clutterbuck and Hirst (2002) mentioned that a key aspect of a communication initiators‟ role is to develop their communication competence. Hence, it is evident that it is the leaders‟ role to choose the appropriate leadership and communication style suited to their organization in order to elicit the desired response from their target audience, who are their subordinates. In the basic leadership style, we have learnt that there three categories; namely, autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style and laissez-faire leadership style. Leaders who follow each of this leadership are sure to have a common trait. For instance, all autocratic leaders are bound to have certain character similarities which leads them to adopt that given leadership style and its corresponding communication methods. That is the reason why we can group a number of communication methods and hypothesize that leaders adopting a certain style would have a strong inclination to use given communication methods. Other factors that influence the success in communication include affective variables, such as attitudes, motivation, perceived competence, and anxiety (MacIntyre & Charos 1996) As this paper highlights, it is up to the leader to assess the situation, organizational behaviour as well as target audience to ensure he or she adopts the right pairing of basic leadership style as well as communication methods that will suit the situation best. 5. Conclusion Communication is the response you get. As such, leaders should be mindful of their leadership styles and strategies, of which communication is a part. Only with effective communication can a leader expect to be understood and receive his or her desired response.

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The basic leadership styles which are autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style and laissez-faire leadership style are a form of categorizing individuals who express their leadership capabilities in a given manner. These individuals are also said to most likely adopt an exhibit certain communication methods corresponding to their natural inclination to a given leadership style. As such, a general assumption is made whereby, autocratic leaders go by high task and low relationship methods, democratic leaders go by high task and relationship methods and laissez-faire leaders use a low task-low relationship approach. All in all, if the basic leadership styles were to be arranged in an order of increasing freedom of subordinates, autocratic leadership style would come first followed by the democratic leadership style and finally the laissezfaire leadership style. In that we can say that communication tools and methods are a means for leaders to interact with their subordinates. Also, communication methods are used by leaders to clearly illustrate the position of their authority and to give subordinates a rough idea of their rights on whether or not certain issues are questionable. REFERENCES [1] Barry, P. Z.,Brodsky, B. (1994).Leadership Practices of Effective Student Leaders: Gender Makes No Difference. NASPA Journal, Volume31(2), 113-20. [2] Bavelas, A.; Lewin, K. (1942). Training in democratic leadership. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol 37(1), 115-119. doi: 10.1037/h0060358 [3] Bentele, G. (n.d.). Public Relations. Available from http://www.springerlink.com/content/n37p11g0p8222q26/ [4] Clutterbuck.D., Hirst, S. (2002) Leadership communication: A status report", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 6 Iss: 4, 351 – 354. doi: 10.1108/13632540210807170 [5]Communication (n.d.). Retreived from the World Wide Web: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/communication.html#ixzz1zHilAtsf [6]Communication is the Response You Get (n.d.). Retreived from the World Wide Web: http://www.trainingmag.com/content/communication-response-you-get [7] Definition of a Leader (n.d.). Retrived from the World Wide Web:

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