Leadership Styles and Subordinate Work Engagement

Question: Discuss about the Leadership Styles and Subordinate Work Engagement. Answer: Introduction In the current competitive market, organizational leaders do their best to assist their organization in achieving their goals and objectives (Sameer, 2012). This involves using different leadership styles and strategies. Various leaders with different characteristics and natures can exercise an entirely different management theory in an organization. The features of a leader determine the developing model of an organization and also drive success or failure. The objective of this paper is to compare two business leaders. One of the leaders of interest, in this case, will be Carly Fiorina of HP Company and the second one will be Michael T Duke of Wal-Mart Company. Although they have a common goal of assisting their organizations to achieve their aims, they use different leadership approaches to trigger success in their organizations First leader: Carly Fiorina of HP Company Carly Fiorina was born in 1954 and schooled in Stanford University. In 1999, she was appointed as the CEO of HP company and ended the role of CEO in 2005 (Gaye, 2015). During her role as a CEO, she was characterized as a hardworking and competent leader. Before being presented appointed as the chief executive officer of HP, the company was experiencing years of depressing. Fiorina began her career in HP as a receptionist, but with few years of hard work, she joined the leadership and management positions. While working as the company CEO, she developed various skills including planning, decision-making, delegating, communicating, and coordinating among others (Michael, 2012). During his tenure with HP, Fiorina did much to the company including turning the company from HP Ways to Fiorina way. Regarding leadership style, she can be classified as authoritarian in both controlling and in regulating policy, and procedures (Arsalan, 2016). Apart from being authoritarian, she also exercised democratic type of leadership style. Her personalities mostly influenced her leadership. She is known to be very diligent, calm, and hardworking During her management, she always struggled to achieve what she thought was good for the company. Fiorina believes everybody is capable of far than he or she realizes (Jennifer, 2011). While with HP Company, Fiorina gave her team workers an opportunity to recognize who they were, their abilities, and the far they could go in future. Although she brought success to this company, she was not welcomed by everyone. Although she felt her management style was good for the companys development, some of the board members were worried about the future of HP under Fiorinas leadership (Erna, 2016). Additionally, because Fiorina is a female leader, some of the males did not accept the fact that they were being managed and controlled by a woman. Second leader, Michael T. Duke of Wal-Mart Company Mike joined Wal-Mart company in 1995 and worked in various positions before reaching the CEO position (Arsalan, 2016). Among these departments include logistics, administration and distribution divisions.In his role as a CEO, he organized strong management team with the aim of fulfilling the mission of this company. Mike is characterized as a low-key person (Victor, 2012). As a senior person in Wal-Mart, he was always clear on when is to begin a fight for his companys business growth. Although Mike was strict and decisive, he gave his counterparts an impression of friendly-ness, kindness and easy going. On the contrary, Mike has a talent for putting together his staff and also had specified directions on how to improve the company. For this company, Mikes presence was highly appreciated. Under his leadership, the company found it easy to establish a skilled team that always coordinated to share ideas and skills (Erna, 2016). However, everything that has advantages also has some disadvantages. Although the company may have the ability to grasp an excellent development opportunity under the leadership of Mike, there are various challenges posed to its progress. Critical comparison of the two leaders In a comparison to the two leaders, Fiorina seems to be more influential than Mike. Although Mike assisted Walmart to establish a qualified team, he seems not to be as prominent as Fiorina (Laura, 2010). Starting from junior positions to the CEO positions indicates that both leaders were focused and hardworking. Fiorina began her career as a receptionist while Mike worked in different departments including, logistics and administration before reaching the CEO position. The character difference between Fiorina and Mike is evident. Fiorinas attitude towards work was very positive (Whetten, 2011). Her enthusiasm towards work is the key to her career progression. However, sometimes the aspect of being strict and persistent and high desire to succeed often led made some of the employees to resist her. Fiorina is an authoritarian leader. This type of leadership style made her dictate policies and decides on what goals to attain, and by which means (Erna, 2016). She also controlled most of the activities with minimal participation from her subordinates. Mike is characterized as moderate and communicative; he can be classified to belong to the emotional leadership intelligence leadership type. He is an easy going and person who listens to other peoples opinions. He is a kind of a leader who influences staff through emotions. Both leaders are result oriented. Before Fiorina become the HP Company CEO, the company was not performing well. She emphasized on adjusting strategy and simplifying structures. She organized the company into four groups which managed to improve work efficiency (Erna, 2016). She led the company in pursuit and struggled to differentiate the company from its competitors. On the other hand, Mike also struggled to make his company stand out in the market. Apart from continuing to establish various business strategies, he also established different marketing strategies which assisted the company to survive in the global financial crises. The ability to manage teamwork seems to vary from one leader to the other. During his management, Mike was very famous and respected by his staff (Whetten, 2011). He had positive relationships with his workers and was also capable of organizing effective teams. Because of being harsh and strict at times, it was challenging for Fiorina to establish loyal groups. Gender was another issue which impacted her from managing effective teams. Most people especially the male felt uncomfortable to be administered by a female manager. Another comparison which can be made from these leaders is their leadership styles. Fiorina exercised authoritarian type of leadership style (Erna, 2016). In this kind of leadership, a leader dictates policies and makes all decisions concerning which goals are to be attained and how they should be attained. He or she also controls and directs all activities without with little involvement of his or her subordinates. On the other hand, Mike used emotional intelligence kind of leadership. In this type of leadership, the leader influences his or her employees through emotions. Conclusion Organizations cannot survive without real leadership. From the comparison, it is clear that there are differences and similarities between the two leaders. Although some of the characteristics may appear to be similar, each one of them has his or her leadership style. Mikes leadership style seems to favor his relationship with the employees while that of Fiorina appears to impact her from developing active groups. Although the two leaders use different leadership styles, they have a common aim of assisting their organizations to succeed. This means irrespective of which kind of leadership a leader uses, he or she should be focused on establishing better performance in their organization (Ivan, 2014). The aspect of struggling to make their Companies perform after some years of hard times means leadership style, as well as the natures and characteristics of a leader, determines the performance of an organization. References Michael, D. M. 2013. 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