The importance of leadership pattern in strategy implementation

Extract

[...] The adaptation period required until the organization sets the new organizational culture, necessitates a leader who has the ability to motivate employees by making clear to them how their work fits in the new organizational vision. Authoritative leadership drives organizational climate and maximizes commitment to the organization's goals and strategies, by allowing subordinates to understand what they are doing, while accepting that the leader has the absolute authority. Within this context, authoritative leadership has a strongly positive impact on the organization leading to successful strategy implementation Democratic Leadership Democratic leadership allows and desires the participation of subordinates in the strategic decision making (Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1973). [...]

[...] In that sense, democratic leadership has a positive impact on the organization leading to successful strategy implementation. Within the context of democratic leadership, the Distributed Leadership Model (DLM) emerges in an effort to view leadership as a changing process. The model holds that leadership should shift from command and control people to cultivate and coordinate them (Ancona, Malone, Orlikowski, & Senge, 2007) and it is viewed as a set of four dimensions. Sensemaking: associated to organizational structure, it refers to the understanding of the surrounding organizational environment (market realities, competition etc) and focuses on shaping how people understand themselves, their work, and others engaged in that work as to pursue the strategies required to meet the organizational objectives. [...]

[...] On the other hand, both authoritative and democratic leadership could result in effective strategy implementation. One of the most important factors defining the leadership behavior is cognition. Through self- awareness leaders need to recognize and understand their own behavior and its effect on subordinates. They should be able to create a supportive, productive, respectful and ethical corporate environment as to empower their subordinates and to make them feel members of a wider family, the organization. In doing so, leaders actually recognize the importance of skill complementarity as a framework where the contribution of other people in the strategic decision making is essential. [...]

[...] After a description of the characteristics of authoritative and democratic leadership, in section 2 I present the importance of cognition in leadership as the key element which defines the leadership behavior. In section the importance of the learning organization and the Distributed Leadership Model (DLM) is also explained in relation to the four dimensions of leadership (sensemaking, relating, visioning, inventing). Conclusions are presented in section while References complete this paper The Continuum of Leadership Behavior The continuum of leadership behavior (Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1973) investigates mainly the authoritative and the democratic leadership, as the key factors, affecting strategy implementation, but also the stages in- between (Exhibit 1). [...]

[...] In that sense, democratic leadership might lead to unsuccessful strategy implementation, particularly in times of crisis when consensus might be ineffective Leadership and Cognition The approach to authoritative and democratic leadership, as presented above, suggests that both leadership styles could result in successful strategy implementation. Although one would expect that authoritative leadership impedes strategy implementation, theory holds that it may actually facilitate it. Similarly, although democratic leadership favors open communication and employee participation and commitment to the organizational goals, it might impede strategy implementation as a result of lack of strategic consensus. [...]