Compare and Contrast Two Leadership Styles

Leadership can be defined as the ability to lead a group of people successfully in an organization. Hall, et al (2008) have mentioned that an effective leader has to be visionary, motivating and responsible in order to successfully run a business organization. In business the two key leadership styles, which are widely used in today’s corporate world are autocratic leadership and democratic leadership (Johnson, n.d.). Autocratic leadership may be explained as “a leadership style where the manager sets objectives, allocates tasks and insists on obedience” (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 401). Conversely, democratic leadership encourages “participation in decision making” (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 402). Whilst many people would consider autocratic leadership as a safer option when managing a business, others might disagree and argue that employees need to have a say in decision making thus democratic leadership should be utilized. Though each leadership style has its own drawbacks and advantages, the postulation of this essay is that democratic leadership is more suitable in the current business society.

In every business organization it would be fair to say that communication is considered to be the main vehicle to becoming a successful leader. Autocratic and democratic leadership are comparable in communication as both types of leaders communicate somehow with the workforce to run the business. However, both these leadership styles are very distinct in the methods of communication. According to Nayab, (2011, n.p.) an “autocratic leader adopts one-way communication”. This signifies that autocratic leaders communicate with their subordinates by strictly instructing the tasks that have to be done without taking any opinions into consideration. This can be useful to a business as close supervision of workers can lead to faster rate of production with less slack (Nayab, 2011). In spite of this, close monitoring can increase boredom in the work place as employees cannot work

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