Understanding management styles

Management styles differ in the degree of dominance used in managerial decision making. There are managers, who are good listeners and facilitate the communication between management and employees being always ready to approve an alternative suggestion. On the other hand, there are managers, who slap their doors and disapprove in advance any idea, suggestion or inquiry from subordinates, especially if they feel it contradicts their own theories.

In economics, dominance is defined as "the degree of inequality in market share distribution". In the social hierarchy of an organization, a dominant manager retains full control of the organization, as a result of individual charisma, his position within the system, and his influential personality. So, in a sense, a dominant manager denies any share of organizational success to his subordinates feeling that he should be the only one responsible for the strategic decision making.

To understand management styles, it is useful to investigate the continuum of managerial behavior. Unfolding an evolutionary scale of decreasing dominance, broke down in seven stages, the continuum of managerial behavior relates each action to a certain degree of authority provided by the manager to subordinates. From stage one to stage seven, the manager gradually allows the participation of subordinates to the strategic decision making by presenting ideas or tentative solutions and inviting questions and suggestions.

In particular:

1/ The Autocrat Manager

An autocrat manager defines the problem, considers possible solutions, chooses the most appropriate one and announces it to subordinates. Acting as a ruler having unlimited power, the autocrat manager denies any participation of the organizational members in the strategic decision making, while demanding all tasks and objectives to be performed exactly as requested. The communication pattern involved in this management style is mainly downward, from the manager to the subordinate, often resulting in employee demoralization and high dependence on managerial supervision. On the other hand, by causing fear and discipline to subordinates with his despotic style, the autocrat manager retains full control of the business processes ensuring that organizational goals are met.

2/ The Authoritarian Manager

Similarly to the autocrat manager, the authoritarian manager defines the problem, considers possible solutions, and chooses the most appropriate one. Yet, instead of announcing it to subordinates, the manager tries to persuade them to accept the decision while eliminating them from strategic decision making. The manager, diplomatically, yet authoritatively, tries to "sell" the decision to the organization. In any case though, authoritarian management diminishes the substance of people operating under the assumption that people have to be pushed and always told what to do to get the best possible results from them.

3/ The Bureaucratic manager

The Bureaucratic manager presents ideas and invites questions before decisions are made. Through the establishment of strong lines of authority and control, the bureaucratic manager   develops clearly defined and specialized functions and detailed standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all routine tasks. Using the minimum absolute power, he serves the firm and tries hard to meet organizational objectives through the use of legal authority and written rules and procedures. Employee performance on bureaucratic management is measured based on the rate of consistency to the survival and growth of the organization, while promotions are based on competence leading to clearly defined career paths.

4/ The Laissez Faire Manager

The Laissez Faire managerial style is placed at the midpoint of the dominance scale representing a zero balance between managerial domination and employee domination styles. Laissez Faire managers have been heavily criticized for avoiding too much interference in employee behavior.

All employees need guidance, and in addition, employees normally achieve a superior level of performance if they understand what the organization expects of them and why.

5/ The Democratic Manager

The Democratic manager gains his power from what determines to be the majority opinion. Democratic management seeks consensus with subordinates considering this to be the best way to portray the broadest range of resources and get the best results. Democratic managers believe that by addressing employee responsibility and showing confidence in their subordinates, they assist in employee and human development, which in the long run, might also mean less managing on the part of the manager. The democratic managerial style is the basic model of presenting problems and openly asks for suggestions, while a majority vote establishes the future of the firm.

6/ The Participative Manager

The Participative manager sets organizational limits, but he relies profoundly on groups and individuals within the firm for definitive decisions. Providing employees responsibility, accountability, and authority over their work, participative management improves employee performance and boosts organizational performance. To a degree, the Participative manager appears similar to the Democratic manager, but the two managerial styles are different. Participative management is based on incentive compensation system where employees have a stake in the business outcome. In addition, in participative management the group members are progressively gaining power over the requests of the group as an entity.

7/ The Humanist Manager

The Humanist manager sets individual happiness as the ultimate goal. In search of this goal, the organizational objectives are transferred to a subordinate position. In this stage, the manager both allows and requires organizational members to make decisions within prescribed limits, evoking a team scheme where the authority of the manager and the participation in the decision making is equal to the authority of the organizational members.

Regardless of fundamental or smaller differences between these seven managerial styles, managers are human beings, who cope with organizational complexity aiming to sustain a competitive advantage for the organization and to promote stability. In this context, their human nature certainly overpowers their managerial skills and aptitudes and sometimes even their MBA degrees. Reality is much more different than theory. Therefore, in the context of organizational reality and day-to-day routine tasks, apart from the theoretical parameters that define a managerial style, the cognitive aspects of each individual are those that finally define a manager as democratic, authoritarian or humanist. And for these aspects only Organizational Psychology is suitable to provide explanations and answers.