3.2.1 Management, leadership and decision making

• What is leadership?

  A relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people
• A manager is responsible for resources, plans, organisation and implementing the rules
• A leader makes the rules, influences others and does the right thing
• An authoritarian (autocratic) is where the leader makes a decision without consultation eg. army
• Paternalistic means the leader acts in a fatherly way towards the workforce, making decisions based on the needs of the workforce as well as the business
• Democratic leadership is where the leader consults their team but makes the final decision eg. skilled workforce
• Laissez-faire leadership is where the leader allows their team to make decisions and take responsibility for their own actions
• The Tannenbaum Schmitt continuum is a model of leadership styles that describes the range of leadership styles from autocratic to laisez-faire
• The Tannenbaum Schmidt continuum looks at management styles on a scale from very autocratic with large use of the managers authority, to managers which allow their staff freedom and autonomy, 1 is the most autocratic approach to 7 the most democratic approach allowing the most freedom
• The manager will vary their strategies because of

  Beliefs- personality, experience, attitude

  Subordinates- personality, experience, attitude

  Situation- nature of the problem, resources, time scale