Psychology of management

 
1.6
 
Authoritative strategy 
 
HOW EMOTIONAL IMPACT IS BUILT UP: the leader disperses fears clearly showing 
the movement direction in unpredicted circumstances. 
IMPACT ON ORGANIZATION’S CLIMATE: utterly negative, especially when abused. 
APPROPRIATE FOR USING: in a crisis situation when a total reorganization of 
business is necessary, or when dealing with difficult employees. 
THE SOURCES OF AUTHORITATIVE STYLE 
So, how does the authoritative style, often called voluntaristic, looks in practice? Being 
guided by the motto “Do, because I said so,” such leaders demand immediate obedience from 
employees, but don’t give themselves the trouble of explaining the sense of their orders. If 

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employees don’t follow these orders unreservedly, the leaders resort to threats. Instead of 
delegating authority they strive for control and carefully track every step of their employees. 
Accordingly, in evaluating their employees’ work, if they evaluate it at all, they invariably focus 
attention on what was done incorrectly and not on what turned out excellently. Briefly speaking, 
this is a classical recipe of bringing disharmony into organization’s climate. 
No wonder that, according to our data, of all leadership styles the authoritarian is in most 
situations the least effective. Let’s see how the use of this style affects the general atmosphere of 
an organization. As the virus of emotional state is easier transmitted along the hierarchy from top 
to bottom, it is clear that a senseless, instilling fear leader poisons the mood of the whole 
collective, and organization’s climate worsens sharply. Take a willful hospital director: he didn’t 
see the connection between his leadership style and decrease in patients’ satisfaction. But such 
connection exists. His conflicts with nurses and doctors spoilt their mood. That is why it was 
difficult for medical staff to display friendliness to patients which is an important factor of 
positive perception of medical service quality. 
By seldom encouraging employees, but not forgetting to criticize them, an authoritative 
leader risks breaking people’s spirits. He deprived them of dignity and satisfaction of their work 
– and these are the feelings that stimulate high productivity. By his actions he can lose the most 
important instrument necessary for any leader: the ability to convince people that their work is 
part of the common mission. People lose enthusiasm, they feel alienated from their work, and 
ask themselves in perplexity, whether their efforts have any sense. 
Despite the multitude of negative consequences of such management, voluntaristic 
leaders thrive all over the world – there are probably even too much of them. We inherited this 
style from the old hierarchic system of command management typical of the XX century 
business. In those times organizations adopted the army management model (management from 
top to bottom by principle “I order you”) which was needed rather on a battlefield than in 
peaceful life. By the way, nowadays in progressive military organizations, authoritarian 
approach is compensated by other styles which are used in order to strengthen commitment to 
profession, readiness to defend the honor of the regiment and maintain the spirit of comradeship. 
In most of modern organizations the executives acting by the rule “do it because I say so” 
are gone to oblivion. As one technology company’s general director said, “Of course, it is 
possible to trample people in dirt and make money on them, but will such a company hold on for 
long 

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