Participative and Situational Leadership Styles

Participative and Situational Leadership Styles

Introduction

Effective leadership leads the team, organization or country to great success and a ineffective leadership can undermine the potential of the follower. Leadership provides vision, strategic direction and most of all; inspire their followers to work at their best capabilities. Colin Powell had been a great leader for the people of United States of America and has served a great deal of his life for keeping the superiority of law, justice and peace. In an interview he shared his opinion about the leadership challenges he faced and the leadership strategies he followed to overcome them. In light of his comments, we will compare the two leadership styles, participative and situational leadership to see which one is most suited for use in criminal justice organizations and the reasons which makes it an ideal for use in this department. The participative leadership theories describe the ideal leader as the one who involves other in the decision making process and takes their input into account (Sainato, 2009). While retaining the right to allow the participation of group members and stakeholders, the participatory leader enables a sense of involvement in the team and reduces the point of conflict. It also helps in mentally preparing others in the team for any decision which is to come in future. The situational leader on the other hand doesn't follow a concrete type of leadership behavior. He selects the type of leadership style according to the situation at hand. A situation leader may select participatory styles while making technical decision which he doesn't have much knowledge, while he may adopt an authoritarian style if he is knowledgeable and experienced. We believe that due to the dynamic nature of the criminal justice organizations, a situational leadership style is most appropriate for use in them.

Discussion

Thesis Statement

The situational leadership style is most appropriate for criminal justice organizations.

Comparison of Participatory and Situational Leadership Styles

We will categorize the lessons we learn about the requirement of leadership in the criminal justice system from Mr. Collin Powel's statements in participatory and situational leadership styles.

Participatory Leader Ship Style

Situational Leader Ship Style

The second lesson is a form of participatory leadership but with a balance. It advocates the accessibility of the leader to the follower which is promoted in participatory leadership styles but a leader should also exhibit the ability to solve the problems of his followers as the lack ...