Renseth Slykert's Leadership Management Styles, you can find this on page 25 in your magazine. So the Slykert's management system was developed in the 60s by Renseth Slykert and his colleagues at the University of Michigan, United States. Over the span of three decades and over 200 organizations were studied.
Now, Slykert believed that the roles and relationships the management and employees had had everything to do with how successful a company would be. So we are talking about the communication processes and styles, level of influences that leaders and employees had, the style of making decisions, who had the control, while Rensis believed that all these things influenced the effectiveness and success of an organization. Okay, so let's go through the four different leadership styles in this model. So let's start with the first one. Exploitative, authoritative.
Now the characteristics of this leadership style, there's one way communication, so very top-down. Okay, the relationship here is obviously based on threat and fear. So the leader threatens or uses fear to motivate the subordinates or the team to do things or to do their job. Now this leader has low concern for people. And the decision is made at the top.
It is centralized. And this type of leader does not trust their employees. And it's more about the job getting done than about the people.
Okay, now you've got to understand there are advantages and disadvantages for each style. So what is the advantage for the exploitative authoritative, you might ask? Well, in the short term, you will see really good employee performance. Because everyone's afraid, everyone's scared, right? Like you, you know, for example, you might threaten them that they will lose their job if they don't do their job well.
And so what are you going to see naturally as a result of that? People going to work hard, okay? But the question you've got to ask yourself is how long is that performance going to last?
Not very long, because over a long-term period, employees become unmotivated, right? Disengaged. Okay, or even rebellious against the leader.
So those are things that you have to think about. Or you might have a situation where you do have an employee who is really rebellious, who maybe is causing a lot of disruption within a team. The teammates are annoyed. They are saying they're going to leave their job because of this one employee in particular. and you might see obvious signs or dysfunctional or counterproductive behaviors that is damaging team morale or even the organization.
So in a situation like that and even after three or four warnings you might say to this employee you know I can't guarantee that you'll have a job tomorrow if you keep doing what you were doing and that might be the wake-up call that that person might need in that time. that they are in but again you know there are advantages and disadvantages for each style and that's what you need to understand now let's look at benevolent authoritative now the communication here is top down again it's one way from leader to subordinates there is no communication going upwards from the team um you know but instead of using threats or fear to motivate people to do things This type of leader uses rewards instead to motivate employees to do their job. The decision is still made by the leader.
It's still centralized. And it's more like a master-servant relationship. Okay, I still expect you to obey.
And if you obey, I will give you a reward. If you don't, no reward. Okay, so what is the advantage and disadvantage for this type of leadership style? well The benevolent authoritative style employees might respond better in regards to being more motivated because there is some sort of incentive or reward in place, as opposed to the exploitative authoritative who uses fear or threat to motivate people. Not as attractive as rewards, right?
Well, the disadvantage for this benevolent authoritative style is that employees can become very competitive to the point where it causes conflict. Now, that will depend on the structure in which the incentives are rewarded or how they are rewarded to employees. What is it based on and how do they achieve those incentives?
Now, if the reward is... only given to, for example, the top performing employee, and there's like 10 employees within that team or organization, but only one of them gets a reward at the end of the month, then you can kind of see how they can be really competitive and also cause conflict as well within the team. The other disadvantage for benevolent authoritative is that Because you are using rewards or incentives to motivate employees to do things, they can become conditioned or accustomed to only doing work that is rewarded, or they will only go over and beyond if there is some sort of reward or incentive in place.
So you've got to keep that in mind. Now, the next leadership style is consultative. Now, there is more flow up and down.
in this communication chain but upward communication or from the team to the leader is still limited okay but there is some sort of flow upwards but not as much now this type of leader sees the employees as consultants or they are worth asking for their contribution ideas or inputs on specific things so the leader might ask them for their input on, you know, what do you think the reward should be or the incentives should be for you guys? And then so the employees might give their suggestions and why they think that is the best idea. But at the end of the day, the leader still makes the final decision.
Okay. And even though they do involve them in the process of making the decision. They do not have any part or the team plays no part in making the final decision.
Okay, so the leader might come back and say, all right, so we've had our discussion, but I believe that this should be the incentive or reward for the team. And this is my reason why. So that's consultative.
So the advantage for this style is that obviously employees feel a little bit more freedom to communicate. because they're allowed to, they're being asked to, okay? And because employees are being involved in the process of making the decision, they are more likely committed to accept the change or the final decision.
Now, the final leadership style is participative. Now, there is absolutely open flow. in the communication channel between the top and the team.
The leader leverages group participation to lead the team and the decision making is decentralized meaning that the team or the group makes the decision. So the leader is open-minded, has a lot of trust to be able to do this with his or her team and they absolutely value the relationship that they have with their team. So the advantage for this is obviously creativity because you allow for people to communicate their ideas and their thoughts.
You will also see a high level of team commitment and acceptance of goals, especially if everyone is a part of making that decision. You also see higher productivity from employees. as Rensis has identified, because everyone is participating or working together.
Then also what this means is that team members hold each other accountable. Because they made that decision together, they feel a sense of responsibility to make sure that as a team and as individuals, they will work hard to achieve that decision that they collectively made together. Now, one of the disadvantages of participative style, just like consultative, is that it can take longer to arrive at a decision. Because as a leader, you are asking the team for the input, which can take longer. And also depending on what sort of framework or style that you use to narrow all those ideas down to the one final decision.
So there you have it. Those are the four leadership styles for Rensis Leikert's management styles.