In today's workforce, there a many different people in
leadership positions as well as many different leadership styles. In this blog
post, we will explore some of the different leadership styles and social media strategies
that leaders can use to boost employee engagement.
According to Robert Blake and Jane Mouton’s 1964 leadership
grid, there are five types of leaders (as cited in Contingent
Approaches to Leadership, n.d.)
This grid features five types of leadership: impoverished leaders,
country club leaders, task leaders, middle-of-the-road leaders, and team
leaders.
According to Blake and Mouton (1964), impoverished
leaders have “low concern for both people and production and thus exerts
minimum effort to get the work done” (as cited Contingent Approaches to
Leadership, n.d.). From personal experience, I can tell you this is not a
leader you want to have.
Almost twenty years ago, I worked on a sales and
marketing team and had the unpleasant experience of working under an
impoverished leader. This individual was more concerned about things going on
in the outside world than his employees and production. He consonantly gossiped about the drama in his
life, was always was in a bad mood, and he couldn’t be bothered with answering
work related questions, would not expect feedback, and he did very little at
work. My team members and myself had to solely rely on each other to figure out
what was expected for each project and we were even left to train new employees
on our team (shocker, shocker high turn-over rate). Needless to say, I only
stayed at that job a little over a year before I quit. Not only was that type
of leadership and work environment mentally and emotionally draining, I took
the negativity home to my family.
The country club leadership style is more concerned
about pleasing people than production (Blake &
Mouton as cited in Contingent
Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). This type of leader is more worried
about being people’s friend and avoids confrontation, taking corrective action,
and giving constructive criticism (Duggan, 2019) . This often interferes with
productivity.
The task leader is more interested in production than
their employees (Blake & Mouton as cited in Contingent Approaches to
Leadership, n.d.). This type of leader is
authoritative and demands quick results and views their employees as commodities
to get the job done (Duggan, 2019) . This type of
leadership is common in factories. Jim Beam’s Sour Bathroom Break case study as
discussed in an earlier blog https://organizationalcommunicationtalk.blogspot.com/2019/09/to-pee-or-not-to-pee-infamous-case-of.html,
is a great example of task-oriented leaders. Jim Bean’s production leadership
at their Clermont, Kentucky plant was more concerned about production than they
were about their employee’s bathroom needs. If leaders only focus on the task
at hand, employees’ basic needs are not being met and their morale decreases (Duggan, 2019) .
The middle- of-the-road leader balances concern for employees
and productivity to get the job done (Blake
& Mouton as cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). This type
of leader shows leniency and allows employees freedom to increase efficiency and
performance (Quain, 2018) . However, this type of leadership often
tolerates mediocre employee performance, which results in mediocre productivity
(Quain, 2018) .
Lastly, according to Blake and Mouton (1964), a team leader “has a high regard concern for people
and production and promotes commitment to the organization and to each other” (as
cited in Contingent Approaches to Leadership, n.d.). People that are team leaders hold their employees
to high performance and productivity standards and have no issue with taking
corrective action when necessary (Quain, 2018) . However, they also promote learning and
development (Duggan, 2019; Quain, 2018), encourage
performance, reward good performance, encourage employees, (Quain, 2018)
and inspire commitment (Duggan, 2019) . This is what great
leadership is about.
Great leaders are also effective communicators. Part
of being an effective communicator is encouraging open two-way communication. Many
organizational leaders are using internal social media to do just this. By
using an internal social media platform, organizational members at all levels are
able to share information and opinions as well as form connections with colleagues
(Madsen, 2018) . This form of
participatory communication can “democratize organizations and empower employees,
which is the key to engaging employees” (Madsen, 2018) .
Organizations are utilizing internal social media
platforms that have similar features to popular social media platforms such as Instagram,
Twitter, etc. (Baer, 2018) . In particular, leaders
are using gamification, socialization, and rewards platforms to encourage
employee engagement. These social media strategies not only increase employee
engagement, but also boosts employee morale, performance and productivity (Baer, 2018) .
Key points to take away from this blog is that some of
leadership styles are counterproductive and are not true leadership. A true
leader is motivational and inspirational and leads by example. They are also
someone employees can respect, trust, and follow. Moreover, great leadership requires
high standards, balancing employees and production, as well as innovative ways
to engage employees. When employees are happy and feel valued in their
organization, performance and productivity increase.
References
Baer, S. (2018). Social media proves to boost
wemployee engagement . Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/02/13/social-media-proves-to-boost-employee-engagement/#724c72ed4db5
Contingent Approaches to Leadership. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://moodle.drury.edu/pluginfile.php/937721/mod_resource/content/1/Leadership%20behaviors.pdf
Duggan, T. (2019). Examples of leadership grid
styles . Retrieved from Chron:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-leadership-grid-styles-11873.html
Jain, D. (2017). Leadership styles . [Image].
Retrieved from https://listovative.com/15-different-types-of-leadership-styles/
Madsen, V. (2018). Participatory communication on
internal social media – A dream or reality? Retrieved from Instittute for
Public Relations :
https://instituteforpr.org/participatory-communication-on-internal-social-media-a-dream-or-reality/
Quain, S. (2018). Examples of leadership grid
styles. Retrieved from azcenteral:
https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/examples-leadership-grid-styles-15803.html
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