Bureaucratic leadership style: meaning, characteristics, advantages and disadvantages

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This article is going to highlight on the meaning of bureaucratic leadership, its characteristics, advantages and disadvantages as well as its difference from autocratic leadership.


What is bureaucratic leadership?

Bureaucratic leadership a type of leadership that follows hierarchical structure whereby leaders lead by following the rules and procedures of an organization. It involves clearly defined roles, responsibility and expectations to each members of a team. While, decision are made by the leaders and passed down to lower level members through chain of command.


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Characteristics of bureaucratic leadership

The following are the characteristics of bureaucratic leadership style.

  • Rules and regulations: In bureaucratic leadership, leaders follow established rules and regulations to lead their teams.
  • Specialization and division of labour: This leadership style involves departmentalization and assignment of roles and responsibilities basing on skills and competence of the team members. 
  • Impersonality: It focuses much on performance of an organization rather than individual's contribution. 
  • Formal hierarchy structure: It has a chain of command whereas responsibilities, roles and expectations are clearly defined for each level of authority. 
  • Efficiency: It focuses on maximizing productivity and efficiency by setting clear rules, procedures and responsibilities.
  • Centralized Decision-Making: Decisions are made by leader and passed down to lower employees through chain of command.
  • Impartiality: Involves equal treatment to all members without favouritism.


Advantages of bureaucratic leadership

There are various benefits of applying bureaucratic leadership style as outlined below.

Clarity:

In bureaucratic leadership, the roles, responsibilities and expectations are clearly defined to each employee in an organization, this help to reduce ambiguity.

Efficiency:

The established standard rules and procedures as well as the division of labour and specialization can lead to increase in productivity and efficiency in an organization. 

Standardization:

The rules and procedures in bureaucratic leadership style ensure accomplishment of tasks in the required standards and quality. 

Equal and fair treatment:

Since the leaders follow rules and procedures to lead their teams, there is little or no chance for favouritism and discrimination. 

Stability:

Since rules and procedures remain unchanged, it provides stable working environment. 


Disadvantages of bureaucratic leadership

Below are the disadvantages of using bureaucratic leadership.

Discourages creativity:

The strict rules and regulations may discourage freedom of work that can also stifle creativity and hinder personal growth in a team. 

Inflexibility:

Since rules and procedures remain constant, it is very difficult for teams to adapt to changes.



Bureaucratic vs autocratic leadership

In bureaucratic leadership, leaders make decisions basing on the established rules and procedures of an organization, but also there is a chain of command and levels of authority that leaders need to follow when making decisions. While, in autocratic leadership, leaders are free to make decisions on their own without being guided or limited by organization's rules and procedures.

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