B1 Autocratic Leadership
Autocratic leadership is a style where the leader makes all of the decisions for the team. They take on little or no input of ideas or opinions from the team before making a decision. Tasks for individuals are decided by the leader and distributed amongst the team.
Characteristics of Autocratic Leadership Include;
Absolute control of the leader.
Low Autonomy of staff.
Clear Expectations.
Centralised Control.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Autocratic Leadership
Benefits of Autocratic Leadership
Fast Decision Making: With fewer people involved in the decision making process, decisions can be made more quickly. This allows businesses to respond quickly to market changes, bring products to market quickly and deal with crisis situations efficiently.
Clear Expectations: As employee roles and responsibilities are decided by the leader without input from the employees, the expectations of duties related to the role are clear. This can reduce confusion and enhance accountability.
Quality control: With clear expectations on how tasks are to be performed, there should be consistency in the output produced across all employees. This allows managers to implement training and quality checking processes against expectations.
Safety: With a single leader in charge, clear and specific protocols can be established that minimise risks when followed by all staff. In crisis situations, the fast decision making of this style of leadership can result in a fast response to minimise further harm
Drawbacks of Autocratic Leadership
Low Morale: Employees may feel undervalued when their input into decision making is overlooked. This can lead to feelings of frustration and resentment resulting in decreased enthusiasm for their work.
High turnover: Employees seeking autonomy in their work and/or involvement decision-making may leave for workplaces that value their input. High turnover results in a loss of skills and incurs costly, time-consuming recruitment processes for businesses.
Limited input of ideas: When decisions are made by a small number of managers without input from the wider workforce, valuable insights can be missed. This can limit creativity in innovative areas such as product development and create difficulties in problem solving.
Dependency on the leader: When employees become accustomed to following specific instructions from their leader, they may struggle to make decisions without guidance. This can become problematic if the leader is unavailable or leaves the organisation.
When Autocratic Leadership May be Appropriate
Crisis Situations. An example might be if a product launched and sold by an organisation has been found faulty or dangerous. Leadership must act quickly and decisively to rectify the issue to avoid further risks to consumers and damage to the brand.
Time is Limited. An example might be in the kitchen of a restaurant, a chef may be more autocratic because it is necessary to make decisions quickly to get food out to customers in a timely manner.
High-risk Environments. Construction, manufacturing and mining are examples of industries where employees are at high risk of physical injury in the course of their work. Autocratic leadership may reduce the chance of accidents or injuries through ensuring safety protocols are met.
Consistency is Important. Brands who wish to deliver a consistent product or service to their customers each time they interact with the organisation may have clear employee procedures. For example, at McDonalds, a customer would expect the same product whether they bought it from London or Glasgow.
The Consequences of Error are High. An example might be in a pharmaceutical company where any changes to the ingredients or ways in which drugs are produced could be dangerous. Alternatively in cybersecurity or financial services, if company procedures are not followed, they could be liable for hacking or fraud.
When Autocratic Leadership May be Inappropriate
Creative industries such as advertising, design and fashion. The development of new creations often involves the exploration, rejection, development and refinements of many ideas. Autocratic leadership rejects the contribution of the team leading to fewer contributions thereby limiting the potential for new ideas.
Team-orientated work. Discussion and contribution of ideas is an important aspect of teamwork. Autocratic leadership can lower morale as employees feel their opinions are not valued. This can lead to limited cooperation and collaboration.
Highly-skilled workforce. When employees are highly skilled and knowledgeable in their area, they can be underutilised by an autocratic leader. Employees may be well equipped to make important contributions to the decision-making process which is not valued. In this situation, employees may become frustrated which can have a negative impact on morale, productivity and staff retention.
Changing environments. When the environment a business operates in changes, the business needs staff to be adaptable to changing practices to ensure success. Rigid work environments created by autocratic leaders where employees are expected to follow orders can reduce the flexibility of the workforce. Workers may also have much more contact with customers than managers do which may be an important perspective missed when staff are not listened to.
Autocratic Leadership at DingDong Ltd
June 2022 Exam Paper for Unit 6: Principles of Management
The leadership style being used at DingDong Ltd appears to be autocratic. Autocratic leadership is where the leader makes all of the decisions for the team with little input from staff. This is exhibited by leaders Sami and Mansoor when they dictate the routes drivers must take to make their deliveries.
A benefit of autocratic leadership is quality control. The expectation of delivery times for parcels is often expected to be within one hour. One of their biggest customers has threatened to cancel their contract due to late arrivals. To establish consistency in achieving the target of on time deliveries across all drivers, Sami and Mansoor took an autocratic approach by dictating the routes drivers must take to deliver and holding drivers accountable should they deviate. This approach aims to eliminate variations caused by different route decisions made by different drivers, creating consistency in the quality of their service.
A drawback of autocratic leadership is high turnover as employees seek work environments that provide them with autonomy in their work and/or value their input. Sami and Mansoor’s approach does not take into account driver’s input on routes which can be affected by a variety of factors such as traffic conditions. Their announcement that drivers who do not make 95% of deliveries on time losing their contracts does not appear to take into account discussions of the reasons for lateness or appropriateness of the targets. This announcement led to several drivers resigning immediately and staff turnover rates reaching 29% by the end of 2021.
