1. Business Management

2.  In management, leadership means providing direction and vision for a company.  Being a manager is not the same thing as being a leader.  Managing is a job. Leading is a skill.  Leaders have a vision and a plan to achieve the vision.

3. There are four basic styles of leadership:  Autocratic  Democratic  Free Rein or Hands Off  Self Managed Teams

4.  Autocratic means “self ruling”; when you like to run everything yourself and answer to no one.  Assume people don’t like to work, they avoid responsibility, and have to be watched all the time.  Control workers through fear and intimidation.  Most people don’t like to work for autocratic leaders.

5.  Democratic leadership means that managers and employees work together to make decisions.  Assumes that people want to work by showing workers that the leadership has confidence in them.

6. Free-Rein Leadership requires that leader to set goals for managers and employees and then leave them to get it completed.

7. Giving managers and employees the power to run things and make decision is called delegating. Reasons for a leader to delegate are:  Don’t have time to do everything yourself.  Can focus on more important work.  Involves employees.  Gives employees a chance to develop their own potential. When you choose to delegate power, it is a true test of you leadership skill.

8.  Many businesses put workers on self-managed teams, or work groups that supervise themselves.  Allowing teams to manage themselves, businesses are able to absolve managing jobs and replace them with team leaders.  Leader is a team player rather than a boss and doesn’t have to answer to upper management.  Team is more goal-oriented than task-oriented.

9. Organized in two ways: 1. Each team member has a special skill, or 2. The team selects one team leader.

10. Team Leader:  Makes decisions for the team.  Provides motivation and values the contributions of all members of the team. Advantages:  Goal-oriented  Faster and more efficient.  Team members have a chance to learn other jobs and obtain new skills.  Simplifies the decision-making process.  Team members learn to participate and cooperate with each other.  Learn to solve own problems.

11.  Self-Managed teams is the most difficult type of leadership style.  It should only be implemented after employees have been trained and management has evidence that the employees can work effectively and efficiently in this leadership style.