Effective Leadership and Individual and Organisational Outcomes

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any obstacles. Though the theory was not easy to test nor fully supported it predicts that whether a leader should be directive or supportive, depends on the analysis of the situation. For example, when employees are performing structured tasks, being a supportive or encouraging leader will result in high performance and job satisfaction. Also, if the tasks are ambiguous and stressful, being a directive or guiding leader will yield greater job satisfaction from employees because you are providing them with information that can make the task easier to achieve the goal. However, in terms of structured tasks where workers are highly capable and have considerable experience, being a directive leader is unnecessary because employees will become dissatisfied or demotivated with their job as a result of constant stress from the leader. This can lead to high absenteeism or turn over or decreases in productivity because employees may rebel by working slow.

Finally, the leader-participation model is a leadership theory that provides a set of rules to determine the form and amount of participative decision making in different situations (Robbins & Judge, 2013). Hence, the way the leader makes decisions is as important as what he or she decides. Therefore, it shows a relationship between the leadership behaviour and participation in decision making. The leader’s behaviour must change depending on the task structure. The original creators of this theory, Victor Vroom and Phillip Yetton, provided a sequential set of rules that should be followed in determining the form and the amount of participation in decision making, as determined by different situations. It was then revised by Vroom and Arthur Jago who kept the five alternative leadership styles which reflects whether the decisions are made completely by the leader or if he includes the employees in the decision making. Overall, the model was too complicated for a typical manager to use on a regularly basis. It did however; outlined supported contingency variables that should be considered when selecting your leadership style. For example, if there is a time constraint on the leader, that may limit employee’s involvement. However, research has shown that involving employees in the decision making process leads to behaviours such as high organisation commitment, job satisfaction, organisational citizenship behaviour with a decrease in deviant workplace behaviour, turn over and absenteeism. These positive behaviour responses will then increase work performance and productivity.

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