Introduction
The way that many leaders and managers in the workplace lead their employees or staff can affect the daily running of the organisation. It is important to stress and distinguish the different roles that leaders and managers play in a structured organisation. According to Sharma and Jain (2013:309), these two roles work well together and should not be separated. The main role of a leader is to motivate and inspire while the manager is responsible for co-ordinating, planning and organising (Sharma and Jain, 2013:209). Booysens (2005:417) well defined a leader as an individual that directs a group’s behaviour in order to reach a common objective or goal. A good leader should develop some significant leadership qualities as he or she
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Sharma and Jain (2013:310) stated: “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal”. As new information is found, used and accepted; it influences the change in leadership concepts. In this assignment the four styles of leadership will be discussed in detail and how each style affects the group of people within a work environment. Autocratic, democratic, laissez fair and situational leadership are the four styles that will be explored in the review …show more content…
The term ‘Laissez faire’ is derived from the French language which means free-reign. Leaders of this nature mostly use this approach of leadership in order to seek respect and approval from their staff and colleagues. They try by all means to avoid offending their subordinates as well as conflicts (Booysens, 2005:424). The disadvantages of having this type of leadership in an organisation is that there is no vision, goal or direction set for the long term (Booysens, 2005:424). The staff are given freedom and has the full power of making decisions, which could result in poor quality of work done and chaotic organisational workflow. According to Leadership Styles (2016) laissez faire leadership should be avoided if the staff has a lot of insecurities and if the manager or leader does not understand the specific roles he or she has to play. Iqbal, Anwar and Haiden (2015:4) highlighted that laissez-faire and participative leadership style share common