LEADERSHIP TASK 1
A1. LEADERSHIP STYLE

LEADERSHIP - SAT TASK 1
A1. LEADERSHIP STYLE
Leadership is the ability to organize a group of people in order to achieve a common goal. My leadership style is participative leadership and it is to share decision making with each member of my group. A Participative style of leadership encompasses consultative, consensus, and democratic. As a participative leader who is consultative, it is very important that I confer with members of the group before making final decisions on issues concerning the group. In addition, as a consensus leader, it is important to build consensus among the group in order to encourage group discussions concerning an issue and finally make decisions that fully reflect the agreement and support from the members of the group. Consensus leader ensures that all members of the group are involved to support a decision before it is considered final. Also, a participant leader is a democratic leader who ensures that final authority in decision making lies on the group. In this case, the group deliberate on issues and collect group opinion, and then cast votes in order to determine the final decision to make. DuBrin, A. (2010). Leadership.
The advantages of the Participative style of leadership are that it operates on bases of management openness, which allow leaders to accept suggestions from group members to manage the operations. The participative style also allow welcoming ideas from workers since the workers are closer to the market and know how the products are doing or used and are able to determine the immediate problems to be solved. Also, this leadership style enhances team work approach which helps to develop marketing strategy and retaining employees. The participant style of leadership is also well comfortable to people who want to get involved in decision making and to bring their findings back to management.
The disadvantages of the participative style of leadership are that too much time is spent in team meetings and committee works to get issues agreed upon which is extensive and time consuming. In addition, when it comes to issues of consensus and democratic leaders, they are accused of being macro managers or giving too little direction on the jobs. This style of leadership makes managers also to feel that when they share decisions with their members it reduces their power as a leader.
A2. COMPARISON OF LEADERSHIP STYLES
Comparing my participative style of leadership with autocratic leadership style and delegative (laissez faire) leadership style, there are several differences to evaluate. The autocratic leadership style is in contrast to my participative style of leadership even though they both ensure that tasks are accomplished. Autocratic leaders always want to hold power and be recognized by their members that they are in control by retaining most of the authority. They confidently make decisions, and are not concerned or worried with group members’ reaction towards decisions. The autocratic style of leadership is task oriented because the leader ensures that heavy emphases are placed on accomplishing task on time. The autocratic leaders tell the members what to do, controlling, bossy, they are assertive or self-assured, and want to remain as role model for members of the group. They can also cause members to feel bullied, unlike my participative leadership style which relies largely on members towards decision making through consultation, consensus, and democracy to accomplish tasks. The participant leaders ensure that members of the group are all involved to agree and support issues before final decisions are made in order to get tasks accomplished. Also, the delegative or laissez faire leadership style is when the leader allows the employees to make the decisions for managing the affairs of the organization. Even though the employees are allowed to work on their own, the decisions made by the employees are still the leader’s