Proper ‘Leadership Style’ is essential in not only any work organization but also in sports like Cricket to get the best of one’s staff resources or for that matter from the team players.
A good leader derives disciplined behaviour from his team mates and also strives to create perfect working conditions to boost the energy of all of them by motivating them to achieve the targeted results.
So what is meant by Leadership Style?
Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing the positive direction, preparing plans and implementing them to get the desired results whether it is to win a match or successfully complete a project.
One of the blogs on helping to create successful leaders in any field of life says that research and investigation on various management Leadership Styles have so far been fragmented and inconsistent.
Effective leadership can be achieved by having good knowledge about the subject on hand or the sport.
We can classify various leadership styles into three types :
- Autocratic leadership
- Democratic leadership
- Bureaucratic leadership
We now discuss the benefits, advantages and disadvantages of the above three types of leadership styles.
Autocratic Leadership:
Autocratic leadership is an old fashioned, classical leadership of having complete command over the workers. The characteristics of the autocratic leadership are mentioned below:
- Managers/Captains taking maximum possible decisions
- Managers/Captains having authority and control in decision making
- Staff or Team members do not get or have only minimal opportunity to express their views and suggestions.
Benefits and Advantages of the Autocratic Leadership Styles:
- Reduction in stress due to increased control as the Skipper/Manager will look basically into all the matters to run the show.
- More productivity by the team players or workers and there will be increased working speed, quality work or performance which will be always under the eyes of the Captain or the Manager.
- Decision making will be faster as only Skipper or the Manager takes the ultimate decision.
Disadvantages of Autocratic Leadership Styles:
- There will be an increased work load for the Skipper/Manager
- All the team players or the staff members may not like the orders that are imposed on them by their Captain or Manager as they may think that he has no faith on them.
- Teams become dependant on their leader and they cannot perform the tasks on their own in the absence of him.
Democratic Leadership:
Democratic leadership involves the sharing of the responsibility, the exercise of the delegation and continual consultation between the Leader and his Team members.
Benefits of the Democratic Leadership:
- There will be a positive work environment by allowing the juniors to have their own responsibility and face challenges and learn the things on their own.
- Creative thinking will be developed and there will be successful outcomes.
Disadvantages of the Democratic Leadership:
- The decision taking time will be long and boring as it involves consultation for all the trivial decisions and may also lead to missing of the opportunities.
Bureaucratic Leadership:
This leadership ensures the team members to follow all rules and regulations consistently and accurately. It is an appropriate style for work that involves serious safety risks involving toxic substances and work at heavy machinery and heights. This type of leadership may not be suitable for Sports like Cricket but may be can be used for the junior levels.
Benefits of Bureaucratic Leadership:
- There will be safety in the work areas as strict rules will be followed.
- Bureaucratic Leadership also ensures the production of quality performance by the team members.
Disadvantages of Bureaucratic Leadership:
- There will be lack of creativity from the team members.
- There won’t be self-fulfillment for the individual players
- There will be poor communication left between the players and the leader.