1. Running Head: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
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Leadership and Management in Organizational Change
Seng Vang Lee
Rasmussen College
Author Note
This research is being submitted on February 23, 2013 for Michael Laverty’s ESPR13-
6WS2-B473-01 Leading Change class.

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Leadership and Management in Organizational Change
Within an organization, it is important to have some kind of structure on leadership
because it can help enable employees to work effectively to fulfill the organization’s goals,
mission, and vision. According to Google (n.d.), the definition of leadership, it is the action of
leading a group of people or an organization and it is the state or position of being a leader.
There are many types of leadership strategies that many businesses can use to utilized to
help make the company effective, efficiency, productive, gain profit, develop a better employee
relation, or manage the company’s goals. Some of the most common leadership types are:
• Autocratic Leadership
• Bureaucratic Leadership
• Charismatic Leadership
• Democratic Leadership or Participative Leadership
• Laissez-faire Leadership
• Transformational Leadership
Among these common leadership types, I’m more familiar with the Laissez-faire
Leadership and the Autocratic Leadership. Autocratic Leadership is also known as authoritarian
leadership. It is a leadership style characterized by individual control over all decisions and little
input from group members (Cherry, 2013). For this type of a leader, they typically make choices
based on their own ideas and judgments and rarely accept advice from followers. According to
VectorStudy (2013), an autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership,
where a leader exerts high levels of power over his or her employees or team members. Majority
of the people tend to resent being treated like this because the autocratic leader usually leads to
high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. On top of that, the team’s output does not benefit

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from the creativity and experience of all team members, so many of the benefits of teamwork are
lost. For some routine and unskilled jobs, however, this style can remain effective where the
advantages of control outweigh the disadvantages (VectorStudy, 2013). According to Cherry
(2013), some of the primary characteristics of autocratic leadership include: little or no input
from group members, leaders make the decisions, group leaders dictate all the work methods and
processes, and group members are rarely trusted with decisions or important tasks.
Autocratic leadership can also be beneficial, such as when decisions need to be made
quickly without consulting with a large group of people. This leadership strategy can be used in a
present day to get things done. For example, sometimes there are projects that requires a strong
leadership in order to get things accomplished quickly and efficiently, such as during military
conflicts (Cherry, 2013).
Then there is the laissez-faire leadership when means in French “let them do” strategy.
This strategy is used to describe a leader who leaves his or her colleagues to get on with their
work (VectorStudy, 2013). The laissez-faire leadership style is also known as the “hands-off”
style where the manager provides little or no direction and gives employees as much freedom as
possible (“Styles of leadership,” 2011).
The laissez-faire is an effective style to use when employees are highly skilled,
experienced, and education. It is also when employees have pride in their work and the drive to
do it successfully on their own without needing to have some kind of leader or supervision over
them. According to VectorStudy (2013), it can be effective if the leader monitors what is being
achieved and communicates this back to his or her team regularly. Majority of the time, a laissez-
faire leader works for teams in which the individuals are very experienced and skilled self-
starters (VectorStudy, 2013).

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As a manager or leader, laissez-faire may be the style of choice when the workforce is
considerably more technically knowledge than the leader is. According to Rtwinski (2012),
laissez-faire leadership can best be utilized:
• A group project requiring subject matter expertise
• Upper level executives trusted to run major divisions or operational sections of a
business
• Routine or mundane tasks can be handled in a Laissez-Faire manner
• Laissez-Faire leadership can be used when the ultimate decision maker is
comfortable that he or she is surrounded by a talented and capable team of
executives.
Although there may be some advantages of the laissez-faire leadership style, there are
also the disadvantages of the leadership style, such as the hands-off learning and operating may
lead to an overall lack of control over team members or executives or even employees (Rtwinski
(2012). I think the best way for a laissez-faire team to work is if everybody can work together
and will carry out the laissez-faire routine.
These two types of leadership styles can work in many types of organizations. It is
important for an organization to figure out what types of a leadership style would work for them.
Each organization has their own unique ways of running the business and with that in mind, the
leaders within the company needs to develop a learning leadership style that will help the
employees and help the company by not having so much or any employee turnovers for having a
fail or not well trained leader. There are many types of leadership styles to gather up information
to find what is best for the employees, but sometimes these leadership styles may not even work
for the leader and they have to find another way of leading. If that is the case, then research

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needs to be involved and development needs to be taken action to figure out what is the best way
for the leader to conduct and to perform for their followers.
When companies like Southwest Airlines run into situations like this case study, they
need to find what style of leadership can work best for the company. The company needs to act
on to the process of finding the style as soon as possible to start right away to avoid more causes
of unsuccessful. Otherwise, if the company can’t seem to find the solution, it is best to also
contact or hire a consulting company, such as the Hitachi Consulting Corporation to help solve
the solution.