Leadership Styles and Corresponding Organizational Development Stages

Leaders should switch their leadership styles once the development stage of their organizations change. In other words, leadership styles need to be in accordance with the development stage of leaders’ organizations.

Leadership Style of Partnering for the Development Stage of mc

At the stage of me, the mutual understanding and trust between leaders and employees are in urgent need of improvement. Leaders need to use more interpersonal behaviors so as to build harmonious relationships with organizational members and eliminate their misunderstanding as well as collisions with leaders. At this organizational development stage, an organization’s capability of accomplishing given goals is inadequate and the willingness of organizational members to obey leaders’ instructions and orders is also low. Leaders must enhance supportive behaviors, trying best to provide various support and help to organizational members for their successful accomplishment of given goals. The supportive behavior of leaders is aimed at increasing organizational maturity.

In addition, there must emerge varieties of mistakes, errors, emergencies or risks from an employee’s implementation of missions at the stage of me which is featured by low level of maturity and low level of conformity. Therefore, leaders should also employ more controlling behaviors. In conclusion, leaders should choose to show the leadership style of partnering, which is featured by more interpersonal behaviors, more supportive behaviors and more controlling behaviors at the organizational development stage of me.

Leadership Style of Coaching for the Development Stage of mC

At the stage of mC, organizational members recognize, accept, follow and obey the instructions and commands from leaders. It is not necessary for leaders to employ lots of interpersonal behaviors since the relationships between members and leaders are already good enough. What’s more, excessive interpersonal behaviors of leaders may lead to employees’ confusion about the difference between working relationships and private relationships.

At this development stage, the overall ability to accomplish goals and complete missions of the organization is inadequate and the competences of most organizational members need to be improved. Leaders should use more supportive behaviors to promote the level of maturity of the whole organization. Furthermore, leaders should also enhance their controlling behavior at the development stage of mC. Employees in immature organizations will be likely to encounter problems and make mistakes in the process of execution due to their lack of necessary experience, abilities and resources. Additionally, there will be little resistance to the controlling behavior of leaders from employees because of the high level of organizational conformity.

In summary, leaders should choose to show the leadership style of coaching which is featured by less interpersonal behavior, more supportive behavior and more controlling behavior at the organizational development stage of mC.

Leadership Style of Decentralizing for the Development Stage of MC

For organizations at the development stage of MC, members have rich experiences, adequate skills and enough abilities to achieve goals and complete missions without the involvement of their leaders. Besides, members highly recognize and accept the instructions from leaders and are willing to execute tasks assigned by their leaders.

Leaders should reduce supportive behavior since organizational members have sufficient abilities and resources to accomplish missions independently. Leaders’ supportive behaviors may be considered unnecessary and even useless. Excessive supportive behavior will probably result in a waste of leaders’ time, energy and resources. Meanwhile, leaders should also reduce controlling behavior as organizations with both high levels of maturity and a high level of conformity can successfully accomplish expected goals without leaders’ supervision or intervention. Excessive controlling behavior of leaders is not only unnecessary but is also easy to trigger resistance and distrust from employees.

Therefore, leaders should reduce both supportive behavior and controlling behavior at this development stage. Interpersonal behavior is what leaders should use most for organizations at the development stage of MC. It is suggested that leaders focus on maintaining good interpersonal relationships with employees and minimize their involvement in the daily operation and management of their organizations. In one word, leaders should choose to show the leadership style of decentralizing which is featured by fewer supportive behaviors, fewer controlling behaviors and more interpersonal behaviors at the organizational development stage of MC.

Leadership Style of Parenting for the Development Stage of Mc

Organizations at the development stage of Me have a high level of maturity and low level of conformity. As organizational members have enough abilities and resources to complete missions independently, leaders can reduce their supportive behaviors of leadership.

Meanwhile, interpersonal behaviors should be frequently used by leaders to improve the mutual trust between leaders and employees and the level of organizational conformity. As members in organizations with a low level of conformity always refuse to accept commands from their leaders and often do what is prohibited by leaders, controlling behaviors should also be enhanced. In short, leaders should choose to show the leadership style of parenting which is featured by more controlling behaviors, more interpersonal behaviors and fewer supportive behaviors at the organizational development stage of Me (see Table 12.4).

Jennifer, CEO of NOBE, used to believe that it was not necessary for her to involve deeply in the daily management and operation of her company as everything was on the right track. She praised the management philosophy of governing by non-interference. But gradually Jennifer found that the real situation was far from what she had expected. First of all, she was troubled by some veteran staff who were arrogant and defied the company’s rules and regulations. These veterans always refused to obey the

TABLE 12.4

Leadership Styles for Four Stages of Organizational Development

instructions from their superiors and set very bad examples to young staff and newcomers. There were increasing conflicts between employees and their managers. Interpersonal harmony which used to be the corporate spirit of NOBE disappeared.

Second, Jennifer found that only a few of her team members were willing to assume responsibility and take accountability for consequences. Without her personal involvement, many problems couldn’t be resolved and some important projects were unable to proceed as expected. Meanwhile, the previous working experience on which her staff relied heavily was no longer adequate enough to deal with new challenges.

Jennifer had to face the fact that the overall capability and competitiveness of her company had declined dramatically. It is obvious that Jennifer misjudged the development stage of her company. She took it for granted that NOBE had developed into the stage of MC (high level of maturity and high level of conformity). Therefore, she wished to employ the leadership style of decentralizing accordingly.

Actually, the organizational development of NOBE had not entered into the stage of MC but gradually slipped into the stage of me (low level of maturity and low level of conformity). Therefore, Jennifers leadership style of decentralizing did not fit with NOBEs development stage of me, which inevitably led to conflicts, chaos and decrease in productivity. Jennifer

FIGURE 12.4

Leadership styles and organizational development stages.

should have switched her leadership style from decentralizing to partnering once she recognized correctly the real development stage of NOBE. More controlling behaviors, more supportive behaviors and more interpersonal behaviors should have been used by Jennifer in the short run to improve both maturity and conformity of her organization (Figure 12.4).