6 Leadership Styles (pg. 171-172)

How do these leadership styles help/hurt the change process? When would you use each style in your work setting?

1. Coercive - the leader demands compliance. ("Do what I tell you.")
As discussed in the text, leaders using a coercive leadership style will often produce employees who "resent and resist". When employees have these types of feelings about the work environment, change will be very difficult to achieve. However, if presented with an employee who is resisting authority, and jeopardizing productivity, I believe that it may be beneficial to use the coercive style, and make sure that the subordinate is aware of the hierarchical structure of the organization.

2. Authoritative - the leader mobilizes people toward a vision. ("Come with me.")
I believe that the authoritative leadership style would definitely be beneficial when trying to implement change. It is important to have subordinates buy into the leader's vision. One way of doing this would be to make the subordinates feel as if they are included in the process. However, I think that if you tried to implement change, with the support of the subordinates, and the change failed - this would likely be detrimental to the degree of influence that the leader holds over the subordinates. After losing that influence, or respect as a leader, it may be difficult to regain your previous leadership status. With that being said, I think that this leadership style would be usable in a situation where the leader felt extremely confident that the change was going to take place smoothly. Then, the leader could use the "come with me" strategy to make the subordinates feel empowered.

3. Affiliative - the leader creates harmony and builds emotional bonds. ("People come first.")
If leaders make a conscious effort to make their subordinates feel important, I think that this could both help and hinder the change process. First of all, if the leader gives off the "people come first" vibe, then subordinates will likely feel a closer emotional bond with them. And, generally, I think that when people feel closer emotionally, they will not want to disappoint the other involved party - which could definitely be a step in the right direction when trying to implement change. However, on the other hand, I think that being too close to subordinates may give off the impression that you can be easily swayed, which could be detrimental to change. For instance, if there is a big deadline approaching, and one of your subordinates' children becomes ill, it would be more difficult (and could possibly hinder the progress of the organizational change) to tell that person that he/she cannot take the afternoon off of work to go and get their child from school, because there is a deadline to meet. On a different note, I do believe that the affiliative leadership style could be quite useful when trying to reward employees.

4. Democratic - the leader forges consensus through participation. ("What do you think?")
I think that the democratic leadership style can only help the change process. After all, if the leader is getting feedback from his/her subordinates, that will allow the employees to see that their opinions do matter, AND may even give the leader some ideas or insight that they had been overlooking. So, simply put, I think that this leadership style could be used in the majority of work settings and situations.

5. Pacesetting - the leader sets high standards for performance. ("Do as I do, now.")
As stated in the text, the pacesetting style can be negative from a change standpoint because, "people get overwhelmed and burn out". The only situation that I can think of where this would be a good type of leadership is if there were an emergency situation. For instance, if the building is burning to the ground, and nobody knows where the fire escapes are, the leader should definitely step in with the "do as I do, now" attitude.

6. Coaching - the leader develops people for the future. ("Try this.")
I believe that coaching can be very beneficial to leadership. It allows subordinates to feel as if their supervisors trust their judgment and their work ethic. In relation to change, I think that coaching should prove to be a positive concept. For instance, if you were trying to make a change, but the subordinates were not very clear on how this was supposed to take place, the leader could make suggestions on how the employee could make adjustments to their work.