engleski

Leadership Styles' Specifics in Large Croatian Companies

Leadership could be observed through different leadership styles which influence on work efficiency and business success (Skansi, 2000, p. 54). Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. There are a number of different approaches, or 'styles' to leadership and management that are based on different assumptions and theories. The style that individuals use will be based on a combination of their beliefs, values and preferences, as well as the organizational culture and norms which will encourage some styles and discourage others. So it could be stated that there are as many leadership styles as there are leaders. Many authors deal with this issue, so there are many different leadership styles classifications. For the empirical research in this paper, the Likert classification is used. Considering the decisions and the degree to which subordinates are involved in the decision making process, Likert define one of the most used leadership style classification. According to it the leadership style could be job based or employee based. Job based leadership styles are Exploitive-authoritative type or Benevolent-authoritative leadership style. Employee based leadership styles are Consultative leadership style or Participative group style. The purpose of this paper is to identify the dominant leadership style in large Croatian companies as well as to find out some specifics of large Croatian companies concerning the different leadership styles applied by managers in those companies, and to identify the correlation between manager’ s personal characteristics and organizational characteristics and leadership styles. The research hypotheses are as follows: H1: In the large Croatian companies the dominant leadership style is consultative one. H2: There are differences in leadership styles between men and women. H3: In the large Croatian companies, managers' attitudes toward politics influence their leadership style. H4: There are differences in leadership styles according to the organizational' characteristics such as the year of the company's establishment, an activity and the headquarter. The empirical research is conducted on 186 managers who are employed on different organizational levels.

leadership styles; large companies; leader

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