Essay on Participative Leadership and Empowerment

Questions:
1)Comment on the methodological problems in establishing the effectiveness of participative decision procedures which mix, which associated interventions and the Hawthorne effect. (p.139)
It is known that participative research is done with the main purpose ”“ to examine the perspective of the leader in the organization to share his power with the subordinates. Of course, any participative research has its limitations which are concluded in the following moments:
Ӣ it is not easy to determine the direction of casualty during the survey field studies which usually check only the general hypothesis but not individual cases in decision procedures.

”¢ The combination of participation with different interventions which are connected with both the leader’s behavior and the subordinate’s one prevents the understanding of the major consequences of participation.

Ӣ It is very difficult to compare the results of the studies as most of the experiments usually compare only two decision procedures.
Ӣ Most of the studies has no opportunity to measure the most relevant outcomes as all the subordinates are usually satisfied with participation consequences.
Ӣ It is very difficult to measure motivation which will help to realize the influence of participation on decisions. (Yukl, 2010, p.139)

2) What is the purpose of the Vroom and Yetton model? What is its value? What limitations do we need to consider when drawing conclusions from its application?
The Vroom and Yetton model is a special model which helps leaders to make decisions. It pays attention to the significance of the role of subordinates in the process of making decisions. The main purpose is to make the decision-making process effective. This model was created by Victor Vroom and Phillip Yetton in 1973. According to their ideas, there are five types of decision-making:
Ӣ the leader makes decision himself having some information at his disposal.
Ӣ The leader gets some information from his subordinates and then solves the problem himself.
Ӣ The leader gives necessary information to the subordinates who have certain relation to the problem, listens to their ideas and proposals and then makes decision.
Ӣ The leader represents the problem to the group of the subordinates who listen to the ideas and proposals and then the leader makes decision.

Ӣ The leader represents the problem to the group of subordinates, together with them he tries to find the variant which will be the most acceptable.
Using the decision tree, it will be very easy to choose the appropriate style of decision-making and to examine the situation in a proper way. It is a valuable method because it helps the leader to find the right way in the process of making decisions. The following limitations ODF this model should be taken into account:
Ӣ There is no distinguishing features between leadership and management in the Vroom-Yetton model.
”¢ Decision process is a so called “single episode” which takes place only once. Sometimes it is not enough to examine the situation and to find the right decision.
Ӣ The leaders should have necessary skills in order to use the procedures of the model. (Vroom, 2002, p.34)

3) Comment on “It is not natural to ask questions of employees when he already knew the answer, to listen patiently when they said something that wasn’t right , or to ask them for ideas when he was eager to express ideas of his own”. (O’Toole 1995)(p.153)
I think that it really is very difficult for the manager to ask questions of the subordinates if the answer is known or to listen to their wrong ideas or to ask them for the ideas concerning this or that problem if he himself has a lot of wonderful ideas, but all the above mentioned ways of communication should be implemented by the leader. Everybody in the group should remember that both the managers and the subordinates have one an the same goal which should be achieved by joint efforts. Delegation is one of the most effective methods of management and any manager should use it for the development of the managerial talent although it is not easy.

References
Yukl, G. (2010) Leadership in Organizations. Global Edition (7-th Edition). Upper Saddle River. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall Inc.
Vroom, V.H. (2002) The New Leadership: Managerial Participation in Organizations. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice Hall.