Management styles are the approaches used by managers to lead their teams, also known as leadership styles. There are various management styles such as democratic style which involves participation of all members of a team in decision making, autocratic style which gives a team leader all powers to make decisions, bureaucratic style which involves the use rules and laws to lead a team, micromanagement style which involves high supervision where a leader oversees every detail of work and transactional style which involves the use of rewards and punishment to inspired teams toward reaching organizational goals. To learn more styles of leadership you can read 10 Management Styles For Effective Leadership (Pros, Cons, When to use them) And Factors Influencing Management Styles.
Though there are lot of management styles, the suitability of the each style depends much on the situation within an organization or a team to which that style is applied. On other hand, the same style can't work on different situations, each style is effective to a certain situation. These situations influence the choice of management approaches in an organization.
Below are the factors influencing management styles.
Factors influencing leadership style?
The factors that can influence the choice of management styles include job position, employees experience, manager's personality traits, employees personalities, the influence of a leader's mentoring, type of task and structure of an organization.
Job position:
The same management approach does not work effectively to all levels or positions of employees. Top level employees for instance managerial and professional employees are expected to be treated in a different way from operational and lower level employees. Since professional and managerial employees are experts in their field, they enjoy more autonomy in their work than operational and lower level workers.
Employees experience:
Employees level of experience is also a determinant factor of management style. The management approach to be used on experienced team is different from the one to be used on inexperienced team. The experienced employees can work under little or no supervision while inexperienced employees need high supervision and guidance to accomplish the given tasks in the required quality and standards. In this case, a manager can opt to use coaching style to employees with no experience.
Personality traits of a manager:
Personality is one of internal factors that can influence management styles. A person who is competitive is willing to become a pacesetter, trying to prove his team that great achievements are possible. A manager who thinks that paying salaries only can make the employees give their maximum efforts tends to rely much on coercive leadership. It is important to evaluate various leadership styles so as to determine when to change the leadership style. It is also important to examine yourself - as a manager - in your interactions with others in an organization in order to describe the factors that can influence the selection of management styles of behaviors in workplace situations.
Employees personalities:
Different people respond differently to different leadership styles, says OpenGrowth. A pacesetting leader may overwhelm an employee who is shy. This employee can worry that his job is in danger or think that he will never cope with the pacesetting leader. Nowadays, business leaders have started using personality test to understand how managers and employees interact. The managers can learn and understand things like how a competitive worker can be encouraged to reach his highest level of success in peer comparisons.
The influence of leader's mentoring:
How a leader was mentored can also influence a choice of leadership style. A manager can opt to apply a certain leadership style to his team simply because that leadership style raised him to leadership. For example, If a manager was cultivated in more autocratic environment where managers make decisions based on their perspectives without involving opinions from the team members, a manager might see it as an effective way to lead his people, since was the key to his raise to leadership.
Type of task:
The type of task is another factor that can influence the choice of management style. Some tasks require certain management approach. For example, some tasks may require high oversight from a manager, for instance when employees perform dangerous tasks that require adherence of process and high care, a manager must pay much attention to his team to make sure that everything is done in a right way, in this case micromanagement style can be more effective. But also, some tasks may require a manager to play a mentor role, for instance when employees perform new tasks that they are not familiar with, in this case coaching style is a good option. Another good example, is when a team performs creative tasks a manager may opt to apply democratic style to allow everyone in a team to contribute their ideas.
Organizational structure:
How an organization is structured can also influence the choice of management style. The structure of an organization is a skeleton of an organization that shows employees who they report to, who report to them, their position in a hierarchy, and activities they will be doing. The behavior, performance, job satisfaction, motivation, passion for work, and morale of the employees of an organization are related to how the organization is structured, says HRMBD. For example, in a more centralized bureaucratic structure, workers are powerless and they don't have a room to contribute ideas due to rigidness in the structure of the organization where the flow of authority is top down.
You can also read:
- Five Functions Of Management By KOONTZ And O’DONNEL
- 3 management skills for managers
- 3 management levels and their responsibilities
References:
- OpenGrowth: What Factors Influence Leadership Styles?
- Chron: Factors Influencing Leadership Styles
- HRMBD: Factors Influencing Managers’ Styles of Management
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