Participative Leadership

Participative Leadership

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Introduction:

Leadership is inherent in each and every portion of society. In this world that we are living in, a sense of direction is what is most important to take others forward. Participative leadership is a style of leadership in which the subordinates in a team are also involved in some part of the decision process. This invokes a sense of responsibility in them and thus promotes them to get involved in positive organizational citizenship behavior. Particularly, taking the context of the Chinese society, the Chinese have always predominantly followed an authoritarian form of leadership. Because of this authoritarian leadership style, there is a kind of power distance in between subordinates and their leaders. This is because the Chinese society has a sense of Confucianism prevalent in it in such a way that everyone assumes that they have specific roles to play. This leads to an increase in acceptance of authoritarian leadership. This has somewhat led them to take up participative leadership in the work place. It is also noteworthy that participative leadership gives rise to affective, normative and continuance commitment. That is why it is necessary to study about participative leadership and look at its possible impact in society. (Qing Miao, 2013)

Literature Review:

Participative administration alludes to shared impact in basic leadership amongst the leaders and their followers. Earlier research recommends it may impact work environment conduct through two unmistakable components: a subjective, choice quality effect and a motivational effect. Higher level performing managers describe themselves as more participative in organizational work than the lower level performing managers which is predominantly due to their predispositions and leadership styles. Furthermore, higher level performing managers often benefit from greater employee participation due to the common goals and longer timelines which in turn results in prompt and improved performance. It is expected that followers as managers of top management teams should perceive themselves having the ability to be involved in their work and performing highly in attaining the organizational objectives. It is also expected of the CEOs to portray participative leadership and supportive of leading top management to attain the objectives as a team (Clement Bell, 2014).

Participative leaders increase their subordinates’ performance by using motivation as an influencer to increase their organizational commitment and efficiency. These leaders encourage their subordinates to participate, discuss and exert influence in decision making process. Consequently, the subordinates feel that their opinions are of participate and as such they are actively involved in the organizational commitments. It also leads a greater level of trust in the organization. This participation is found to promote commitment in decisions that are made to be carried out and subordinates along with leaders feel a greater sense of responsibility in carrying out the work with the customers. (Andre Delbecq, 2013)

Although the effect of participation of subordinates in decision making process may not be that high but it does instill positivity in the organization. It has also been argued by some scholars that participation in decision making process is as good as its implementation and those who are involved in the process are highly committed in getting the decision being implemented. Commitment towards the organization is heightened when the subordinates believe that they are truly accepted as important stakeholders in the organization. The subordinates should therefore participate in the decision making process and feel that their ideas have been implemented and that they have contributed to the success of the organization. The commitment of the subordinates is evident only when the leaders clarifies the goals and values of the organization and encourages participation. As such, enabling the subordinates to participate in the decision making process is an efficient tool in gaining mutual trust and develops relationships, provides them with the energy and confidence and the power to the employees to make decisions at their discretion. These leadership behaviours are important to form productive and satisfied employees who imbibe in themselves great organizational commitment. (Magzan, 2011)

Leaders should also allow the subordinates to participate actively in goal formulation and strategies and the satisfaction obtained from such objectives leads to a greater sense of organizational commitment. The subordinates who perceive their leaders as adopting participative leadership have a greater sense of commitment to their organization, are more attached to their jobs, have higher performance, dedication and lesser turnover rate. It has also been found that participative leadership portrays what is expected of the subordinates in work related context and it also reduces confusion amongst employees as they know what is expected of them. It also instills confidence in the subordinates as they feel a sense of wholesome inclusion in the organizational objectives. This type of leadership has also lead to increased quality of service, clarity of goals and has a positive effect especially in the service organizations. Hence, leadership behaviour influences the job performance of subordinates creating high levels of trust in workplace. (Somech, 2006)

Critique:

There has been significant disarray and assorted qualities of perspective among management educators and social scholars over exactly what is implied by such an ambiguous idea as participative leadership. To a few, it implies cooperative choice making; to others, it is shared objective setting; to in any case others, it infers listening increasingly and talking less. Some scholars are of the belief that managerial style are distinctive and determined more by an executive’s personality and early background experiences rather than his ability to act as a mediator in participative leadership. It has also been observed that very little is known about how participative messages are received at the managerial level.

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