Brief Description of the Five Major Types of Leadership (Essay Sample)

Leadership
Name:
Institution:
Leadership
Part I: Brief Description of the Five Major Types of Leadership
Aversive Leadership
This refers to the type of leadership where the leaders uses their authority to instill fear on their employees or people they lead as a way of making them to comply with the rules or follow his or her directives. Such leaders prefer to intimidate, reprimand and punish their followers in case a job is not well done. One of work places that this kind of leadership best fits is the military, where failure to adhere to commander’s directive might lead to fatal consequences. Secondly, this type of leadership is appropriate in college or university institutions where principals of such institutions do lay out some sort of punishments for students who do not adhere to the rules of the institution (Sims et al 2009).
Transactional Leadership
This is a form of leadership where the leader of an institution rewards his or her employees for hard work or for exhibiting loyalty to him or her or even the institution at large. This type of leadership is best appropriate in a manufacturing institution where employees who put in a lot of effort are rewarded by either promotion or provision of bonus amounts in their salaries. It is also appropriate in sales or marketing department where, individuals who record high sales within a certain period are provided with a higher commission than other salespersons (Sims et al 2009).
Transformational Leadership
Transformation leadership is that type of leadership where the leader is required have the capability of motivating other employees to work hard and in harmony towards achieving the goals of an institution. One of the institution through which this type of leadership has succeeded is the Apple Company, where Steve Jobs uses his personal wisdom to encourage his colleagues in the organization to work towards achieving their vision (Sims et al 2009). This form of leadership is equally important in sports tournaments; where the captain of a team is required lead by example in transforming the minds of his or her teammate to work towards winning the game even when they are trailing.
Directive Leadership
This is a form of leadership where leaders are expected to be kind and top-down. Such leaders do express their roles by providing directions, instructions and even giving commands to their followers at times. This form of leadership is appropriate to teachers in learning institutions such as kindergarten and primary schools (Sims et al 2009). Directive leadership is equally appropriate for team managers of various teams such as a basketball team where managers are expected to remain kind and give directions, instructions and command to their players .
Empowerment Leadership
Just as the name suggest, empowerment form of leadership is that which the “Super Leader” delegates some authorities to his or her followers to express their self-leadership at places of work. Here, the empowering leader encourages initiatives of self-confidence, self-problem-solving among other issues (Sims et al 2009). All that the “Super Leader” needs to do is to provide information and knowledge to his followers and leave them to express their personal leadership in the institution. This form of leadership is appropriate in a government cabinet where the president acts as the “Super Leader” while the Cabinet Secretaries or ministers becomes the followers. Empowerment leadership is equally appropriate in an organization board of management where the Organization’s CEO is the “Super Leader” while other managers assume the responsibility of followers.
Part II
1 Description of Narcissistic and Machiavellian Leaders
Narcissistic leader is that type of leader who is only interested in his own success and at the expense of the others. Such leaders have the following characteristics; Desire for power, they have self-confidence, they embrace the culture of creating relationships and have foundations.
Machiavelli leadership on the other hand, is that which focuses in creating a working team that are focused on grandness of the task and greatness of the leader rather than having a team that is driven by money and reputation. Characteristics of a Machiavellian leader include the following; they are cunning, they embrace the culture of excelling through manipulating others and they also believe that the end justifies the means.
2 Description of The following people based on their behaviors in the Film “Pirates of Silicon”
Bill Gates
“Bill Gates” is depicted in the movie “Pirates of Silicon” as a narcissistic leader when he approaches Steve Jobs for partnership. Bill Gates narcissistic character comes out because his visit to Steve Job had no genuine intention since he just wanted to destruct Apple’s growth to create a chance for Microsoft. This example implies that he only cared about the success of his Microsoft at the expense of Steve Job’s Apple thus showing selfishness (Peter & Stiernstedt, 2010), which is one of the qualities of narcissistic leaders. Bill Gates on the other hand also exhibits some of the characteristics of Machiavelli leadership. For instance, he exhibits the cunning trait, when he refuses to accept his pregnant girlfriend because she was working for Apple.
Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak
These two characters in the film are depicted as loyal employees and partners to their leaders. Paul Allen has prove his loyalty to Bill Gates since high school while Steve Wozniak was a key partner for Apple and worked together in harmony with Steve Jobs in poor conditions in order to attain Steve Job’s vision of resurrecting Apple (Peter & Stiernstedt, 2010). These two characters therefore helps in portraying their leaders that is Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as Machiavelli leaders. This is because just as Machiavelli leadership advocates for obtaining partners who are focused on achieving the grand task rather than money and reputation, the two characters exhibited these qualities to their respective leaders/friend.
Steve Jobs
Unlike Bill Gates, Steve Jobs is a transformative type of leader who believes in empowering his mates to work towards achieving his vision. However, he expresses authoritarian type of leadership whereby he does not embrace the culture of creating good relationship. Even though he rewards good employees, he could also go as far as engaging them in verbal abuse (Peter & Stiernstedt, 2010) and never liked to be advised on what to do. These types of leadership qualities exhibited by Steve Jobs shows that he was an adverse type of leader who intimidated his employees.
3  Do you believe that these traits are positive or negative in these leaders?
The Narcissistic and Machiavelli leadership traits that Bill Gates exhibited in his organization made a positive impact in his organization as he managed to achieve his objectives. For instance, out of his selfishness, he manipulated Steve Jobs, who gave him access to the technology that was developed by Xerox, which he (Bill Gates) later modified to create Microsoft software, which came before Apple’s innovation. Bill Gates also exhibited self-confidence and the culture of creating relationship, which are both qualities of Machiavelli and Narcissistic leadership. Fortunately, for him this paid off as he managed to approach Steve Jobs who he convinced to accept that Apple needed Microsoft for diversity (Peter & Stiernstedt, 2010). However, he studied apple innovation that they had stolen from Xerox to bring Microsoft to life.
Steve Jobs on the other hand exhibited both the Machiavelli and Narcissistic leadership traits. Unfortunately, for him, it never paid off, as it was the case with Bill Gates. For instance, his self-confidence in whatever he was doing led him to engage in adverse leadership, which in return did not go well with some of his employees. For instance, his continuous manipulations and intimidation made him lose Steve Wozniak, who opted to leave Apple and engage in teaching. Losing Wozniak, who was a key figure at Apple, also reveals that Steve Jobs did not have the knowledge of creating a healthy relationship with employees. Even though his decision to partnership with Bill Gates indicates that he embraced relationship, the only different is that their relationship with Bill Gates was unhealthy on his side and beneficial to Bill Gates (Peter & Stiernstedt, 2010). This is because he did not know when and how to collaborate, a factor that made him to allow Bill Gate to access Apple’s innovation only to use it in developing his own Microsoft Software. Generally, most of the leadership qualities expressed by Steve Jobs affected him negatively.
Part III
Implicit Theory of Leadership
This refers to the cognitive ideas about the world that are conceived by individuals, who in return use them to interpret their surroundings and control their behaviors. For instance, different individuals in the world have their own distinctive perception on the qualities of good leaders (Shondrick et al 2010).
Demonstration of Implicit Leadership Theory in the Documentary “Jonestown”
This theory is expressed in various sections of the theory. One of the scenes in the documentary that Implicit Leadership Theory is when The People’s Temple that was led by Jim Jones began to attract many followers. It is clear that Jim Jones large congregation in Peoples Temple was influenced by his philanthropic behavior w...