What Style of Manager Prevails - Dictatorial or Empowering?
Did you know? In the UK, the proportion of managers who say they work in empowering organizations has fallen from 37% to 25% since 2004.
According to a study by the Chartered Management Institute, Britain’s bosses are becoming more dictatorial in style causing increased absenteeism among staff and lower productivity. The Chartered Management Institute surveyed managers at every level and asked them to describe the organization in which they worked. They could select three characteristics from a list of 10, ranging from "authoritative", "risk averse" and "secretive" to "accessible", "empowering" and "trusting".
- The institute said: "The most widely experienced management styles in UK organizations are bureaucratic (40%), reactive (37%) and authoritarian (30%). Fact - all three have become more common, increasing by at least 5% since 2004."
- Over the same period, the proportion of managers saying they worked in empowering organizations fell from 37% to 25%. The results of these findings are overwhelmingly negative for companies. According to the Institute:
- Staff in organizations with a top-down dictatorial style were less likely to enjoy their work and more likely to have high rates of sickness absence.
- "The effect of management styles on performance can be marked. It has a direct bearing on the levels of health, motivation and commitment linking employers and staff.
"It is disappointing that bureaucratic, reactive and authoritarian styles prevail in the UK, when entrepreneurial, accessible and empowering styles are associated with far higher levels of motivation, health and productivity."
What type of style prevails at your company?