Directive Leadership Style
This style is characterized by leaders making decisions for others and expecting followers to follow instructions. The directive leader is adept at giving instructions, setting expectations, and establishing timelines and performance standards. However, it is possible for the same leaders to display both directive and supportive behavior as per the demands of the situation.
What is Directive Leadership?
This style is an autocratic style focused on the high task/low relationship. The leader defines the roles of followers and tells them what, when, where, and how to do different tasks. One way communication flows from the leader to the followers. Leaders tell their people exactly what to do, and how to do it. In this approach, the leader focuses his interactions with followers on goal achievement and spends a smaller amount of time using supportive behaviors. Task behavior reflects how much a leader is concerned with the actual task at hand and ensuring that those following him complete it. Using this style, a leader gives instructions about what and how goals are to be achieved by the subordinates and then supervises them personally.
Activities associated with directive behavior are guiding and structuring followers’ activities, planning, scheduling, and assigning responsibilities, defining roles and communication patterns for followers, motivating and conveying expertise, monitoring and following up on assignments, clarifying expectations, goals, and work methods. Transformational leaders can be directive or participative, authoritarian, or democratic based on the demands of the situation.
Characteristics of Democratic Leadership:
- Directive behaviors help followers accomplish goals by getting clear directions, establishing their goals and objectives, evaluation criteria, timelines, roles, responsibilities, and specific sub-tasks to achieve the goals.
- A directive leader sets clear standards of performance and makes the rules and regulations clear to subordinates.
- Being directive ensures accuracy and eliminates time-consuming mistakes
- Rewards may also be increased as needed and role ambiguity decreased (by telling them what they should be doing).
Situations where Effective:
- This may be used when the task is unstructured and complex and the follower is inexperienced.
- From the follower’s perspective, this kind of behavior provides role clarity, clear expectations, satisfaction with work and supervisor, satisfaction with the organization, lower stress, and increased performance.
- This style is used at length within the law enforcement and military communities as well as on manufacturing assembly lines, providing a means of managing a diverse group of people that span a wide range of experience and maturity levels.
- This style is generally appropriate for professionals who are in the early stage of their career and need to learn organizational behaviors.
- This increases the follower's sense of security and control and hence is appropriate to the situation.
Situations where Not Effective:
- The directive leader usually aims to restrict or limit the creativity or initiative of the follower.
- This style of leadership avoids collaborating or empowering others
- Directive behaviors are most of the time is one-way communication that specifies what is to be done and the task can be accomplished and assigning the responsibility for doing it.
Related Links
You May Also Like
-
Emergent leadership occurs when a group member is not appointed or elected as leader, but rather that person steps up as the leader over time within-group interactions. Have you ever faced challenges in getting accepted into your new role of position as a leader? Groups don't automatically accept a new "boss" as a leader. Emergent leadership is what you must do when taking over a new group. Learn more about emergent leadership.
-
Frederick Winslow Taylor started the “Scientific Management Movement”, and attempted to study the work process scientifically. Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. It is a system for increasing the efficiency of manpower to its maximum potential and streamlining production to improve efficiency. This article explores this theory in more detail.
-
Leadership has been defined in different ways by different sets of scholars. In very simple terms leadership can be defined as the skill of a person to influence an individual or a group for achievement of a goal in a given situation. One can use different dimensions and perspectives to define leadership. Through the evolution of leadership thought, leadership has been defined in various ways discussed here.
-
Laissez-faire is a style of leadership that affords the group members a great deal of independence. Tasks are delegated to the group members and they are responsible to see the project through to fruition. Research has shown that this style of leadership leads to the lowest levels of productivity. This article explains this style and covers the implications of having a hands-off approach and the situations where this style could be effective.
-
There are four characteristics of leadership that help us to understand the character of leadership as a concept. 1. Leadership is a process, 2. Leadership involves influence, 3. Leadership always occurs in a group context and 4. Leadership involves goal attainment. These are the four components that make up the character of the 'leadership' term and help us to define the leadership concept. All of these components of leadership have common characteristics.
-
Understanding of how individuals of different cultures interact with each other is very important. Not all individuals can adapt to the leadership styles expected in a different culture whether that culture is organizational or national. In a fast-paced business environment, developing a richer understanding and sensitivity to other cultures is a skill that leaders must possess. Learn to be effective in a cross-cultural setting.
-
“Level 5 Leadership”, this term was coined by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” and it is all about achieving "Greatness" as a leader. This article will explain what we mean by Level 5 Leadership and what the characteristics of a Level 5 leader are. What it takes to achieve greatness as a leader, and what are the steps and strategies that one can use to move up to this top level of leadership.
-
Charisma is a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men. Charismatic Leader gathers followers, through dint of personality and charm. Understand the meaning and concept of Charismatic Leadership and the qualities of a charismatic leader. Gain an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of using charismatic leadership. Finally, explore the difference between charismatic and transformational leadership.
-
Facilitative Leadership is all about involving the employees in the decision-making process at all levels enhancing their sense of ownership, responsibility, and motivation. Facilitative leadership style uses a number of indirect communication patterns to help the group reach consensus and build commitment for the decision taken. To be effective in modern organizations, managers need to become facilitative leaders, learn what it means to be a one.
-
Appreciative leaders encourage contributions from those around them and facilitate the discussion to mutually solve problems. Understand the concept of Appreciative Leadership and learn about tools to create and ask powerful questions - that lead to new discoveries and possibilities. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong in the workplace, learn about, and build upon what works. Learn in this article the art to apply appreciative inquiry to specific situations and challenges at your workplace.
