Leadership Theories
Delegative Leadership

Another of the Leadership Theories under Bass and Colleagues is Delegative leadership. Delegative Leadership is a relatively advanced form of leadership that new leaders should not be experimenting with.

It requires a lot of trust and faith on the side of the leader to actually fully delegate tasks to his followers.

This will not take place overnight, but will only happen with the continual supervision of the leader until the leader believes that the follower is ready to be independent.

People make the mistake of using delegative leadership without empowerment. That is a mistake. Empowering your follower doesn’t just mean giving him/her the responsibility of the task. It also means that you give the follower of yours the competency to handle the staff, the resources to back the follower up, as well as the authority to execute whatever is necessary for the completion of the task.

Let’s talk about these three in detail.

1. Competency to handle the task

The first thing you have to take note when delegating a task is to ask yourself if the follower has the competency to handle it. If the follower is new to the job or is an inexperienced worker, to pass a task to that follower is only going to cause disaster to follow. Although he/she has the responsibility to complete the task, he/she will not be able to handle it.

If you’re the manager of a company, this staff will probably end up in your office getting a good scolding from you for being incompetent.

It would be better for you to reserve your comments, and consider if this staff is really ready for such a task.

2. Resources to back up

Besides ensuring that the follower has the competency, you must also ensure that he has sufficient resources to achieve the task. If you ask for results, you must also be prepared to invest resources into the task to ensure that your follower will be able to complete that task.

To do that, you have to communicate clearly the budgets allocated, the people that will be helping the follower and so on.

This will ensure that the person responsible will be clear about his or her resources, and use them with confidence as well. I’m sure you wouldn’t want a staff to return to you each time he or she needs permission for something for the task.

3. Authority to execute the task

And of course, this person must be delegated enough authority that he may execute the task smoothly. He must be given the authority to handle everything within the project in your name so that the other team will understand that following him in that project is equivalent to submitting to their leader.

That way, there will be much less room for arguments, conflicts and unhappiness as well. They will accept his leadership and submit accordingly.

Effective delegation takes a lot of effort, but is essential in a growing organization. In the end, you will not be able to do everything yourself and eventually you have to learn to delegate that you may be able to perform other more pertinent tasks for the organization.

Bass and Colleagues
Five Styles Of Leadership

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The leadership theories proposed below reflect different levels of task and people orientation.

» Directive leadership style
The directive leader tells his followers what to do, and how to do it exactly. He specifics standards required of his followers and exercise firm authority over them.

» Consultative leadership style
The consultative leader seeks the counsel of the whole team before making a decision on what the team should do. He is also task oriented, but he seeks the opinion of his followers as well.

» Participative leadership style
The participative leader puts himself as a member of the team and discusses possible decisions with the team. He seeks consensus before coming to a decision and everyone is supposed to take ownership in the final decision.

» Negotiative leadership style
The negotiative leader employs a more political approach to leadership. He has a personal interest in his decisions and he uses incentives to entice his followers to do certain things.

» Delegative leadership style
He takes back seat toward decision making, and allows his team to take their own course of action. He only sits down together with the team to discuss possible decisions that could be adopted.

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