Bureaucratic Leadership In The Tale Of Two Captains
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Leadership is defined as the process of directing, controlling, motivating and inspiring staff towards the realisation of stated organisational goals (Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis 2011). The role and nature of leadership is a concept that divides opinions to whether it is something that is a natural trait, or whether it can be learnt and taught. Across organisations, leaders implement different styles of leadership in order to achieve maximum success in a business. Bureaucratic styles of leadership are generally aimed at task performance, where as post-bureaucratic leadership focuses on more engagement and participation of the followers. In the post-bureaucratic era, the way in which leadership is approached, and the type of leadership undertaken…show more content… The Captain of Santa Fe, Capt. David, observed that under his current autocratic leadership style, people were only doing what they had been instructed, initiative was non-existent and fear of making mistakes paralyzed most decision makers into inaction (Kim & Marquet 2013). Leadership only had the focus to exploit the people in order to further the mission of the organisation. It became Capt. David’s mission to change the attitude of his crew from “tell me what to do” towards “I intend to”. He did this through training his crew in various positions on the ship and providing procedures for different tasks onboard. These aspects combined to change the idea of issuing instructions into providing information, allowing staff personnel to make their own…show more content… Research has shown that the bureaucratic hierarchical model where decisions are made at the top and executed at the bottom is no longer the most effective form of leadership (Jordan 2013). Monique Jordan (2013) further expresses that “employees need to be inspired by a compelling vision, certain of the goals that need to be met and empowered to achieve them”. She introduces us to a new idea called the ‘Gore-Tex’ leadership model. This model has become a popular leadership structure in the post bureaucratic era, as it encompasses four key dimensions leading to a holistic form of employee