Organization Behavior and Leadership

According to the scenario, the three leaders have portrayed different leadership styles when leading their employees. Leader A uses democratic or participatory leadership style. In this leadership style, the leader offers guidance to his or her employees. At the same time, he or she listens to decisions made by the employees (Robbins & Judge, 2007). In this case, the leader listen to employees options and then makes the final decision based on these options. Many people think that leaders using this style have lost their powers. However, this is not the case. This is because leaders using this style make the final decision. The only thing that makes them achieve quality is involving their employees in decision-making. This improves motivation of the employees (Yang, 2008).

Leader A has characteristics of a democratic leader. First, leader A involves all employees in decision-making. There are instances where leader A is said to take responsibility incase his or her employees make mistakes while they are doing their work. Second, leader A does not accept credit for success in the company. This is because he or she knows that success was achieved with the help of his or her employees. For example, leader A failed to accept credit stating that the employees are behind the success. In this case, leader A praised his or her employees. These are character traits of a democratic leader or a participatory leader.

Leader B is an authoritarian or autocratic leader. This leadership style is extremely rigid. This leader does not consult with anyone when making decisions. This leader expects people to follow his or her decisions at all time without questions. In most cases, when an employee makes mistakes on his or her own, the leader does not take any responsibility (Robbins & Judge, 2007). Instead, the subordinate suffer the consequences. According to this leader, the only way to achieve success is through direct supervision. This leader believes that close supervisions is the only way to get something done.

According to the scenario, leader B has portrayed the characteristics of an autocratic leader. This is because leader B makes all the decision by clarifying goals and tasks expecting employees to follow these decisions. Additionally, he or she does not take any responsibility for mistakes committed by his or her customers. Instead, leader B punishes them severely so that the mistake may not be repeated again. Leader B believes in a clear chain of command, where leaders have to direct their subordinates. Based on these facts, leader B is an authoritarian leader.

Finally, Leader C is a delegative leader. Delegative leaders are extremely free with their employees. They let employees make decisions for themselves. However, the leader still takes responsibility for decisions employees are making. In this case, the leader recognizes that he or she cannot do everything in the company (Robbins & Judge, 2007). For this reason, he or she delegates powers to the subordinates to make decisions. As a result, the leader and the employees know what is expected of them. Therefore, employees make the decisions and perform the tasks on their own.

Based on the scenario, leader C believes that employees should be let to grow on their own for quality performance in the company. Leader C sets high standards for his or her employees for purposes of making quality decisions. Leader C is extremely free with his or her employees. To prove this, every time an employee has a birthday, he or she tries to make it memorable. In this case, Leader C tries to create a culture where employees are free to make decisions at their own free will without the need of consulting the leader. Leader C believes that employees are capable of being qualitative, if they are given the opportunity to exploit their potential.

If leader B will replace leader A, a lot would change in the organization. First, the employees will become rebellious and less motivated. This is because leader A has instilled a culture where employees are involved in decision-making with no close supervision. Second, the quality of work will decrease, but the quantity of work will increase significantly. In this case, the company is likely to stagnate from where leader A has left, but the mood of employees and the quality of work done is likely going to decrease gradually. It is worth noting that leader B follows the goals and ambitions of leader A. Therefore, he or she will only supervise employees until they are successful. As a result, the company can grow to be even more successful (Visagie, Linde & Havenga, 2011).

On the other hand, if leader C was to replace leader A, things will not change that much. What will happen is that the employees will continue to be highly motivated. Additionally, due to the freedom leader C gives to his or her employees, they will tend to improve the quality of work, which was done in the office, since they are enjoying their work. According to leader A, employees were involved in decision-making. This time under leader C, they will be making the decisions themselves. This means that the company stock prices will continue to rice, the quality of work that was done will continue to grow continuously. It is worth noting that sometimes when employees have too much freedom, they might tend to abuse it, resulting to failure. For this reason, leader C ought to be careful (Visagie, Linde & Havenga, 2011).