Democratic Leadership Or Participative Leadership
Question
Task: Provide a short report on the concept of democratic leadership or participative leadership.
Answer
Introduction
If taken the concept of the leadership in detail, its formation could be dated back from the origin of the human species. In the democratic movements or democratic form of governments, it is the democratic style of leadership which is majorly implied by the leaders. The followers are being encouraged to actively take part in the crucial processes like drafting policies and strategies related to it by the leader. Compared to other leadership styles, it is the democratic leadership style that demands high ethical value in the leader who is following it. It is the responsibility of the democratic leader to ensure the active participation of each subordinate in the process and thus provide timely instructions to them for the effective working of the system. In the corporate environment, democratic leadership is often termed as an effective leadership style because of the high effort to turnover ratio. It is being highly observed that when the democratic style of leadership is being implied in a working environment, the employees have displayed a high level of job satisfaction, increased engagement in the assigned task, and high productivity of the company. The employees are being assigned with a high degree of responsibility and are consecutively being allotted with challenging task to pursue. Job satisfaction is the primary goal of the democratic leadership style and hence the opinion of the employees matters a lot in the companies which imply the democratic leadership style. This attitude of the leaders would surely lead the company gradually towards a much balanced and powerful position. As per the scholar, Bass in 1990, job satisfaction was observed to be very high in the institutes which had implied the democratic leadership style in their system. The leader thus has much more conviction and faith in the performance and decisions made by the employee of the respective company. The leader is not required to interfere actively in all the issues since the employees would be much efficient and empowered to solve mediocre problems occurring in the business processes. It is by observing the majoritarian point of view that all the crucial decisions in the company would be taken. The crucial decision includes even the financial decisions of the company. However, there has been raised a very frequent criticism that the democratic leadership style would consume a significant amount of time to arrive at a crucial and significant decision. Whatever the criticism would be, it has been widely observed that the democratic leadership style would bring high efficiency in the workforce and consecutively in the manufacturing unit of the company.
We have conducted a detailed study on the topic of democratic leadership in this report. We have considered a sample of 50 leaders from both the private and government sector to research the topic of democratic leadership in this report. The criteria for choosing the private institutes were there extend of turnover in the recent financial year. The mode of collecting the primary data was through interviews and questionnaires. It was by using the data from information and responses in the questionnaire that the productivity and implacability of the democratic leadership style are analyzed. For the analysis of the democratic leadership style, different parameters have been considered by which these leaders were measure upon their efficiency, which are
- Crucial suggestions and recommendations
- Ability in making decisions
- Negotiating ability
- The level to which the employees involve themselves in the work.
- The readiness of the leader to work among the employees.
- The ability of the leader to share his knowledge and skills with the employees.
- The aptitude of the leader in motivating his subordinates
- The commitment of the employees towards the company
1.Crucial suggestions and recommendations: The current corporate scenario has been changed a lot by the introduction of most modern technologies, and new theories of market sense and demographics. The working environment of the organizations has been significantly changed by the introduction of these factors into the business processes. It is the leader of the company who is expected to take adequate actions when the environment where the organization works get subjected to changes. In this situation, the advice of a selected group would not be enough since the situation would demand the intervention on a wholistic basis. The involvement of all the employees would be very crucial since they could provide very crucial and relevant recommendations regarding the issue. The inclusion of new and innovative ideas would the company in itself in new heights. From the survey, it has been observed that the seeking process of the recommendations from the employees has to turn out to be pure success n 40% of the instances. The partially relevant cases have been reported on 25% of the instances. Hence in some of the institutes, it has been observed that the leaders have selected for the suggestion from the employees in a very selected period of instances. Some leaders have placed their opinion on the top and thus denied the directions of the employees.
2.Ability in making decisions: It is no doubt that the process of decision making is the most important one in any institution. Every leader has a unique way of deriving out certain decisions and implementing it in the business processes. Hence the difference in operation would bring variation in the leadership styles of the leaders. By checking the methodology of making the decisions in the organizations, the style of leadership could be determined. The major factor in this instance is to check the involvement of the employees in the decision-making process of the company. In around 40 % of the companies, the leaders refer to the opinion of the employees on a strict basis and hence the mindset of the employee matters a lot in these instances. Since the employees are being endowed with the additional responsibility to draft the strategical decisions for it, they feel much more empowered and connected to the company. This approach has observed to be very productive from the company’s point of view and hence both job satisfaction and high productivity could be attained by a single democratic approach. In this parameter, it has been observed that although the leaders give their own opinion higher priority, the opinion of the employees is taken into account to a considerable level.
3.Negotiating ability: For the employees of an institute, the leader could be considered as a coach who would help them in developing new skills and implying them effectively for the betterment of the company. A leader is endowed with the responsibility to boost the morale and spirit of the employees when they are feeling low in a challenging situation. An ideal leader is expected to negotiate and interfere with the crucial matters of workers and thus maintain a proper and effective relationship with the employees. He required to give crystal clear guidelines so that the employees would not face any confusion regarding what is the expectation of the company regarding their performance. In around 80 % of the taken case in the sample, we have observed that the factor of negotiation is given very high priority.
4.The level to which the employees involve themselves in the work: No matter how much a leader is skilled, the ideas and opinions provided by his subordinates and the co-workers would be of much value for him. Though it Is the leader of the company would take the final decisions, it would be based on the data provided by his employees and subordinates that the final decision is derived from. The leader should take into account that the major stakeholders should agree with the decision he has arrived. It has been confirmed by 60 % of the leaders from the sample that they would prefer to make decisions by referring to the pieces of information and recommendations provided by his subordinates regarding a certain matter.
5.The readiness of the leader to work among the employees: In the corporate world, the democratic leadership style is often referred to be the participative leadership style. The leaders who have implied the democratic leadership style have realized that the best possible solution for the problems encountered by the workers daily could only be calculated by the active participation in between them. In many of the instances, the leaders have been successful in finding a relevant solution for the workers by actively working with them. Not only the reader but also the worker's testimonies that this parameter is very effective in solving the issues in the business processes.
6. The ability of the leader to share his knowledge and skills with the employees: The major characteristic of the leaders who have accepted the style of democratic leadership should have trusted over the capabilities of the employees retained in the company. The whole human resources should be allocated effectively all over the business processes so that the maximum of productivity should be devised out of the employees. In the majority of the responses, it has been observed that the leaders wanted to work amidst the workers to understand the actual problems in the prevailing business processes. In this research, the frequent affirmative answers of the leaders have made it clear that they are well ready to work among the mass for the betterment of the company. In this case also, the leaders the put their own opinion a little superior to the recommendations of the workers.
7.The aptitude of the leader in motivating his subordinates: It is by only ensuring the active participation and the empowerment of the employees that the productivity of the company could be increased. To ensure the active participation of the employees they should be motivated in between the regular interval of times. We have taken the sample and checked for this parameter among the leaders that only 30 % of the leaders have been frequently providing the motivational programs for the employees. Many of the leaders in the corporate world have not given much significance to the awareness or training program for the employees. Though some of the leaders have observed it that motivating the employees would be far equivalent like working among the workers and hence should be viewed with utmost significance. If the workers are provided with motivation on a regular basis, then it is most probable that the productivity of the company would touch a very high limit.
8.The commitment of the employees towards the company: The parameter is being checked by observing whether the employees display any interest in the policy drafting process of the company. The leader could only have declared as a good and efficient democratic leader if would infuse moral values into his followers my regular programs and interventions. He should have belief in their performance and should display a great deal of faith in them by including them in the policy generating processes.
When the checked the responses of the leaders in the taken sample, it has been observed that in most of the institutes, the workers have taken part in the decision making process with utmost sincerity whenever the leaders have endowed trust in them.
In this article, we have discussed quite detailed research regarding the democratic leadership or participative leadership. By the term leadership, it is majorly meant to signify the ability to guide a particular group within an organization. Hence the leader should possess the qualities of high communication skills, transparency in his expectations, wholeheartedness to share the crucial skills with the workers, etc. When an organization is encountering any challenging situation, the leader is expected to come forward and provide the workers with effective guidelines to tackle the situation. Different from the principles and ideologies of the management, the leadership generates from the actual personality of the personal being and could not be infused into anyone by just giving any sort of training or mentoring. In both the corporate and public environment various type of leadership is being practices which could be as in the below section.
- Transactional leadership
- Bureaucratic leadership
- Transformational leadership
- Autocratic leadership
- Task-oriented leadership
- Charismatic leadership
- Laissez-faire leadership
- Servant Leadership
- Participative leadership or democratic leadership
- Relations oriented leadership or people-oriented leadership
Let us take two prominent instances of the company and discuss the differences in their leadership style. For convenience let us take the instances of Bill Gates and Li Ka Shing.
The cultural background could impact the style of leadership in a very tremendous way and evident variations in between influence of both the Chinese civilization and Western civilization could be observed in the leadership style of both the leaders. Though from the different parts of the world, the leadership style of Li Ka Shing and Bill Gates signifies certain similarities also. As discussed in the above section, the major difference between both of them is the background they are coming from. If taken into account the childhood of Li, it was very miserable and because of the absolute destitute and the war they had to immigrate to Hong Kong. At the time of migration, he was just at the age of 12. To support his family financially, he had to find an earning even at the age of 14. Though at the same time if taken the instance of Bill Gates, he was born in a much better family which was financially sound, his father being a lawyer and mother being a teacher. Because he had received a much better education in the initial stage of his childhood, he had started computer programming even at the age of 13.
They are o which these leaders have extended their business also constitutes to the variation in the style of leadership and operation among them. In the case of LI, he has extended his business into the areas of products made from plastics, telecommunication, ports, real estate, etc. If taken the case of Bill Gates he has limited himself and is concentrating majorly on the Information Technology sector. Though these dissimilarities exist in between them, bot of them is engaged in societal and philanthropist activities. Li is the leading contributor to the cause of human welfare and is providing the support of around $ 450 million for the betterment of the educational field. He is also a major contributor and donator for the betterment of the medical field. For the cause of the social betterment, Bill gates have also raised the NGO’s like The Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation. By the means of this body, they have been providing much of the support to health care, education, maturing the information industry, etc. are done.
Whether the case of the Li or Bill is taken, both of them have widened their business to the wide corners of the world.
It should also be taken into account that the presence of cultural awareness also brings a lot of impact on the leadership followed by the leaders. If the cultures around the world could be understood by the leaders then various altercations in the market and the incongruity in the opinions and ideas among the human resources could be alleviated. The understanding of various cultures would also help the leaders in increasing the level of confidence among the employees since he could acknowledge the practical differences and could handle any negative vibes in the official environment because of it. The leader has to make aware of the employees regarding the existence of the cultural differences in the working environment and effective guidelines should be passed by him to the subordinates. This would help in spreading awareness regarding diversity in religious, gender, cultural, and ethnic background eventually reducing any conflicts because of any variation in it. Only of the multicultural diversities are being accepted in an institute then only it could survive in the global platform. It should be noted that the physical appearance of a person has nothing to do with the cultural background he is from and it s by the amalgamation of various cultures that a unique attitude is generated that could help in working efficiently in any diverse or strange environment. In any multinational company, it could be observed that employees coming from different cultural backgrounds would work as a single team casting aside the differences among them for the betterment of the organization they are working for. For a company to reach the top position of productivity and profit in a certain market, it should portray a great deal of respect towards diverse cultures.
Cultural awareness in the aspect of New Zealand
The culture of New Zealand could be characterized by social cohesion among civilians. As per the attributes of the New Zealand culture, it is the efficient learning and experience that would remove the factor of prejudice in the human mind. It could be understood that no person is perfect and every one holds a certain level of prejudice in his mind. It could only be after casting aside the prejudice in the human mind that various cultural diversities in the society could be acknowledged. It is the acceptance of various factors in the society that would lead to the betterment as a whole rather than restricting or neglecting the presence of any cultural factors. The societal bodies should behave as participatory democracy and should provide equal opportunity and voice for all.
The task of a leader becomes much more challenging when he is operating in a very less diverse country. The citizens of the country would be much less aware of the foreign cultures and there is a chance of sudden and abrupt reactions towards them. The leader should possess high reasoning capability so that he could understand the actual capability behind the person rather than just viewing them with the prementioned prejudice. If the leader lacks in-depth and creative thinking then it would be very hard for him to understand the ideology and efficiency of the diverse cultures. The multi-cultural human resources would strengthen the business processes and even provide management with diverse factors and trends in the operating market. By taking advice from the employees of different cultural backgrounds, the people of every division could be brought under the customer base of the company. It is very strongly recommended that all the institutes should install the business processes which should suit the working capability of employee’s cultural backgrounds so that the company could match the international standards.
One of the major steps towards the recognition of accepting the diversity in culture by the government of New Zealand was the treaty of Waitangi. It is officially also known as Trite o Waitangi. It was signed in the year 1860. The treaty was signed in between the British Crown and the owners from Maori backgrounds who belonged from the North Island regions of New Zealand. The population of Maori had been recognized with their ownership by the British government. Though the British version of the treaty was different it is still ambiguous what the actual motive behind establishing the treaty. As per the British point of view, the treaty had provided the regime of British crown supremacy over New Zealand. As per the point of view of Maoris, the right was handed down as the exchange for protection from them. It was around 500 majors in the society of Maori that signed the Treaty of Waitangi in the year of 1840. Of these 500 majors, 13 of them constituted with female members.
