The learning of various management styles from this class has greatly helped me to reflect on the style used by my nursing director whom I have worked under since I started practicing in my career. Although I had little knowledge on management and leadership acquired from working at LPN for more than 15 years, I did not know how to identify a particular management style. Manager J.T. is one of the distinguishable leaders with an administrative style that is rarely witnessed in most organizations. According to my acquired knowledge, I would say that J.T. was a formal authoritarian leader. The authoritative management style is characterized by a leader who has absolute decision-making authority and control over the followers. The manager makes decisions with little or no contribution from followers. Moreover, he engages in direct supervision of members, a phenomenon called micromanagement. In this regard, J.T. could be termed as a dictator, with limited to no clinical expertise. He was rude, unapproachable, and, in many cases, insensitive to matters related to employees’ feelings. Reflecting on just one incident with a morbidly obese, horrible body scent, and bed bound patient who wished to speak to the manager, J.T. rudely turned down the request. Proudly, he affirmed that he did not have time for someone with such body odors and required the already weak and bed bound patient to have his concerns written down and sent to him. This was a horrible scenario that could be least expected from a top manager to his clients.
After becoming a D.O.N. at the LTC facility, he made several changes on his first day, which disturbed everyone among the staff. Surprisingly, the changes were not for the betterment of the facility. Additionally, he ignored the possible contribution of experienced personnel who had been working there for several years. The first changes included moving the staff shift to 12 hours from 8 hours with less than a month notice. As a single mother, my attempt to explain some issues that could not allow me switch to the 12 hours shift was in vain as the decision had already been made. He only reminded me that I had two weeks to plan my schedule and cope with the changes. Moreover, my attempt of showing him the need for staff involvement for better decision-making appeared to be a waste of time. Instead, he held that the decision made was the best for team building.
A different thought would inform anyone that J.T. had good ideas, however, the manner in which he communicated them to staff annoyed everyone and nobody embraced his decisions. His style ensured speed and efficiency, especially when it came to urgent matter (Purwanto et al., 2019). Moreover, his autocratic nature helped in preventing the possible chances of getting projects skewed in undesirable direction due to the lack of solid and strict measures.
In spite of the above observation, I still hold that his leadership style was totally ineffective. This is mainly based on the fact that he failed to involve some of workers who had more than ten years of working experience in the facility and, more importantly, vast knowledge on how the policies need to be implemented. Any employee’s attempt to approach him about an issue would be rejected. However, a slight change was evidenced after several complaints were made to corporate on how ineffective the facility management was, he started to some of staff input in his policies.
The difference was not only with the staff, but with other managers and administrators in various departments within the facility. The manager was never seen in the facility, he only used to delegate his chances where his help was needed while dictating how the actions were to be done. This caused extreme burnout and overwork, hence leading to higher turnover rate (Al Khajeh, 2018). Being at the position of power, he relied on the influence in running the facility and this made him to conflict with most of the staff. In many instances, a meeting would be called just to communicate a decision that had already been made without any member contribution. This lack of involvement demoralizes the efforts of most of the office workers as they felt their ideas and opinions were not appreciated.
In conclusion, although authoritarian style of leadership is highly desirable in situations that are highly demanding for quick decision-making, it is critical to realize that the style is detrimental especially for leaders who lack creative decision-making technics. The leader’s strengths include ability to make quick decisions, especially in a crisis, and to command respect from the followers. The leader’s weaknesses include failure to incorporate the views of others in the decision-making process, and tendency to make rushed decisions.
References
Al Khajeh, E. H. (2018). Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research, 1-10.
Fiaz, M., Su, Q., & Saqib, A. (2017). Leadership styles and employees’ motivation: Perspective from an emerging economy. The Journal of Developing Areas, 51(4), 143-156.
Purwanto, A., Wijayanti, L. M., Hyun, C. C., & Asbari, M. (2019). The effect of transformational, transactional, authentic, and authoritarian leadership style toward lecturer performance of Private University in Tangerang. Dinasti International Journal of Digital Business Management, 1(1), 29-42.