Leadership

Leadership styles play a huge part in the success of a leader. Understanding what brings an employee satisfaction, what major motivations they have, and what is interesting to the subordinate lays the foundation for organizations leaders (Prentice, 2004). Understanding these factors can enable a leader to use custom applications and methods for each employee based on those characteristics. One thing I have learned over the years is to be a great leader, you must have followers. Prentice describes leadership as “the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants (Prentice 2004). Effective leaders group together multiple sources of satisfaction instead of single sources such as monetary rewards or alleviation of fears (Prentice, 2004). When employees responses to love, prestige, independence, achievement, and group participation are not met they often may rebel and sabotage the very goals they are trying to achieve (Prentice, 2004).
Prentice described two very distinct styles of leadership. One based on an authoritarian military type of leader (most often our typical image of a good leader) and the other in a more participating and delegating style of coaching leadership (Prentice, 2004). By design a military leader can function in an authoritarian or autocratic style based on the premise that their followers can be killed and replaced and there is a need for treating them uniformly and mechanically (Prentice, 2004). In a participating or delegating style, Prentice described the coaching style of leadership in a football game scenario. A football coach designs a plan, involves the team in its development, and shows them the end result with the execution steps needed to achieve success of the play. The play itself is not a leadership function, however getting the players to be motivated to execute their respective responsibilities in the overall success of the plan (Prentice, 2004). Prentice states “each must not only fully