Leadership can be defined as the ability to lead a group of people successfully in an organization. Hall, et al (2008) have mentioned that an effective leader has to be visionary, motivating and responsible in order to successfully run a business organization. In business the two key leadership styles, which are widely used in today’s corporate world are autocratic leadership and democratic leadership (Johnson, n.d.). Autocratic leadership may be explained as “a leadership style where the manager sets objectives, allocates tasks and insists on obedience” (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 401). Conversely, democratic leadership encourages “participation in decision making” (Hall, et al 2008 p.g 402). Whilst many people would consider autocratic …show more content…

This is because managers encourage the workers to share their ideas about decisions and this helps workers feel responsible and capable. An example of this would be Google. Page and Brin; owners of Google Inc believe that creating a co-operative and supportive work place leads to successful business ideas (Morrow, 2009). But then again Riley, (2012) argues that democratic leadership can be considered as inefficient as decisions are not made quickly due to taking into account all the ideas.
Research conducted by Eagly and Johnson, (1990) scrutinized the relationship between leadership style and gender. Eagly and Johnson, (1990) stated that leadership depends on what sex the leader is. According to the research, women prefer to adopt a democratic leadership style due to biological differences (Eagly and Johnson, 1990). In fact, most women like to work in an environment where pressure is minimal and interaction is considerable. If we look at some businesses which thrive on creativity and high communication, we can see that most of the top managers are women such as Virginia Rometty, CEO of IBM and Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard (Howard, 2012.). On the other hand, men like to work in a work place where control is high and pressure to perform is huge thus they prefer to adopt an autocratic leadership style. Examples include the military where pressure is immense and the top officers are males such as Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Chief