1. Participative leadership: efforts by a leader to encourage and facilitate participation by others in making important decisions.
2.Varieties of Participation:
1) Autocratic decision: the manager makes a decision alone without asking for the opinions or suggestions of other people, and these people have no direct influence on the decision. (no participation)
2) Consultation: The manager asks others for their opinions and ideas, then makes the decision alone after seriously considering their suggestions and concerns.
3) Joint decision: The manager meets with others to discuss the decision problem and make a decision together. The manager has no more influence over the final decision than any other participant.
4) Delegation: The manager gives authority and responsibility to an individual or group for making a decision. The manager usually specifies limits within which the final choice must fall and prior approval may or many not be required before the decision can be implemented.
3. Delegation: a power-sharing process that occurs when a manager gives subordinates the responsibility and authority for making some types of decisions formerly made by the manager
4. ADVANTAGES OF Delegation:
Improvement of decision quality
Greater subordinate commitment
Makes subordinate’s job more interesting, challenging, and meaningful
Can help a manager with their own time management
Can lead to developing managers from subordinates (leadership training)
5. How to delegate
Specify responsibilities clearly
Provide adequate authority and specify limits of discretion
Specify reporting requirements
Ensure subordinate acceptance of responsibilities
Inform others who need to know
Arrange for the subordinate to receive necessary information
Provide support and assistance, but avoid reverse delegation
Make mistakes a learning experience.
6. Empowerment: The perception of having the opportunity to determine work roles, accomplish meaningful work, and influence important events.
7. Benefits of empowerment:
Stronger task commitment
Greater initiative in carrying out role responsibilities
Greater persistence in the face of obstacles and temporary setbacks
More innovation and learning, stronger optimism about the eventual success of work
Higher job satisfaction,
More organizational commitment
Less turnover
8. Costs of empowerment:
Higher costs for selection and training
Higher labor costs for skilled employees
Inconsistent service quality
Expensive giveaways and bad decisions by some employees
Customer feelings of inequity about unequal treatment
Opposition by middle managers who feel threatened
Conflicts from raising employee expectations beyond what top management is willing to concede