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Abstract
Throughout the research of autocratic leadership style, there were a great deal of different
perspectives about this type of leadership style. This leadership style cab lay the foundation for
how your company will operate and work together. Which lead to findings in the success of
autocratic leadership, the downfall of autocratic leadership, and autocratic leadership outside of
businesses. Success was shown to come win the correct situation and that strict demands.
Downfalls were shown to be impacting employee’s behavior, lack of creativity, and seeing
employees as obstacles. Autocracy outside of businesses were shown to be in a variety of places
like sports and governments. Below, the literature review will assist you in understanding the
way of autocratic leadership and why it is and isn’t utilized.
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Introduction
Autocratic leadership is one of the three widely discussed versions of leadership. This
type of leadership is where the leader makes all the decisions and then informs his or her
subordinates of what will be taking place (Satterlee, 2018, p. 4). It’s important to know
everything about it before you can take a stance whether to agree or disagree with it. People must
know the base, or inside, of autocratic leadership instead of just the outside of it before making
their decision on whether to like or dislike it.
Throughout this research, numerous articles discussed strengths and weaknesses using
autocratic leadership in businesses, and the use of autocratic leadership outside of businesses.
This literature review will explore all those topics and recommendations will be given for the
overall work of these articles.
Body
Autocratic leadership can be successful for various companies and is utilized by many
companies around the world. It can be successful in the correct situations and the strict demand
of the leader produces better results. When autocratic leadership is implemented in the right
environment, it can make your organization successful. Zarinah et al (2018) talks about how
autocratic leadership can be effective in a mass production environment. This is because the
mass production environment workers are reluctant to make changes without enforcement.
“Therefore, in this case, autocratic leadership a style is needed to make a fast response and to
make sure all employees could follow what organization has planned.” (Zarinah et al., 2018, p.
1039). The quick decision-making in crunch time is one of the best skills of this type of
leadership because it gets things done in the time allowed. Some may not like being forced to
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follow what the organization has planned, but it beats the alternative of being stuck in old ways
that are possibly slower.
These strict demands by the authoritarian leader are for better results, for the company,
and not to demean the employees. Although, people may not like the way that autocratic leaders
go about their business, this style can produce better results. Autocratic leaders demand for their
subordinates to achieve the goals and it pushes them to the max to achieve them. These types of
leaders set strict rules and provide punishment, which in turn motivates the employees to do
better (Wang & Guan, 2018). Employees also gain a better knowledge of what they should and
should not do as part of the team., when they’re punished for going outside of the rules. Wang &
Guan (2018) go on to discuss that autocratic leaders are uniquely effective in this regard because
they only give the one identity for their team and it encourages the employee to dedicate
themselves to that identity and enhances their performance. This unilateral decision-making has
made the job easier for both parties.
With the unilateral decision-making, it allows quick decision-making for the department,
instead of asking everyone what they believe should be done. Group decision-making isn’t an
unproductive process, but when decisions need to be made quickly, it’s better to have an
autocratic leader (rather than a democratic leader). Sometimes these decisions are made quickly
because of urgency and sometimes the leader will make the quick decision because he or she
believes that’s the best decision for the group. Autocratic leaders prefer to act quickly, as stated
prior, and Cole et al. (2021) state that autocratic leaders also impose deadlines on themselves,
just like their subordinates. This shows that everyone is held to a higher standard and that
everyone needs to perform at a high level. With, this type of quick decision-making assures the
subordinates that there’s no uncertainty, when it comes to what’s next. With no uncertainty, the
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employees can work freely and focus more on their jobs, instead of what’s next in the process.
With that being said, this autocratic leadership style has plenty of success and positives, but there
are downfalls of having an authoritarian leader at the helm of your department or company.
Autocratic leadership, when implemented, can rub employees the wrong way, change the
dynamic of your organization, and even cause many quarrels in the organization. There are
numerous employees and managers who do not agree with this style of leadership because of the
way the leader leads. It has some positives, but many believe that the negatives outweigh the
positives. Autocratic leadership can have a negative impact on employees, which can lead to a
bad layout for the foundation of how the company will operate. The employees’ behaviors under
all leadership styles are important to consider because they could backfire if they do not gel.
Employees tend to have bad organizational citizenship behavior (commitment to a company)
whenever autocratic leadership arrives. This increases when their leader makes decisions without
asking them or thinking about their well-being, and the employees tend to disconnect from the
leader. They’ll cooperate with the decisions but will not fully agree with their leader (Abdullahi
et al., 2020). Not fully agreeing can lead to many inefficiencies and not being able to say your
thoughts will lead to lack of creativity.
A lack of creativity can be a downfall of a company in certain situations. With the ideas
only coming from the top, this can fail to bring new ideas to the company (Gu et al., 2020). The
lack of allowing new ideas would ultimately cause employees to become disinterested or
complain about the situation they’re in. Staying stagnant with ideas ultimately allows the
competitors to pass them in profits. The ideas have a high possibly of staying stagnant because
the authoritarian leaders suppress creativity and centralizes all the information through
themselves (Gu et al., 2020). This type of action encourages employees to conform to the rules
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and not get out of line. When the employees choose not to conform to those rules the leader will
see the employees as an obstacle.
Autocratic leaders are mostly using all their tactics for what they believe is the greater
good. So, if an employee isn’t complying or is doing an underwhelming job, the leader could
possibly fire them. Autocratic leaders can have such a focus on their goals that they may
accidentally (or intentionally) believe that their employees are holding them back from their
goals (Caillier, 2020). Autocratic leaders see the employees as contributors or obstacles, so even
if you’re fairly new and doing a poor job, you would be seen as an obstacle and potentially fired
or treated differently. This is a major downfall the autocratic leadership style because it doesn’t
take the employees’ feelings into consideration and only sees the employees as parts of a
machine, and not friends or family. This scenario happens more often than you think outside of
the business world and can influence many lives.
Autocratic leadership exists outside of the regular companies or businesses, and the
places this style of leadership exists in are sports and in governments. You would never notice
this if you weren’t paying attention and it sometimes goes unnoticed by the common person. Just
like in businesses, sports players can have two different reactions to autocratic leadership.
Jiménez et al. (2019) says that this style can lead to the weakening in athlete-coach relationship
and could harm the young athlete’s career. Jiménez et al. (2019) also performed test on
swimmers with autocratic and democratic leaders. Those tests revealed that the swimmers, with
autocratic leaders, had higher stress levels than the ones with democratic leaders. Coaches with
autocratic behaviors have aggressive mindsets and can press on players daily, which could
possibly weigh down the athletes’ performances. Some players are willing and able to go through
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the constant pressure and perform well, like employees in businesses, but are not always happy
with the situation.
Another area people aren’t happy with autocratic leadership is in governments. Autocratic
leadership in government can have many different effects on the people living within the
governing rules. These laws made can benefit the wealthy and be detrimental to the low-income
citizens, or vice versa. Authoritarian government make the rules differently than democratic
governments. These leaders introduce laws, not because of what the people want, but because he
or she believes it’s the best for his or her country. None of the decisions are based on cultural
stances (population-level processes) either (Chan & Conway, 2018). Unlike authoritarian
governments, the democratic governments listen to cultural stances and will attempt to
incorporate laws that satisfy them. Chan and Conway (2019) discuss how autocracies introduce
laws that are determined by the processes unique to the person in power. So, just like in
businesses, the subordinates would have to adjust to the leader’s preferences because these are
the laws, and everyone must abide by them.
The soldiers in the military also must abide by the rules of their higher ups. The
subordinates prefer this leadership style in the military (Chukwusa, 2018). The leaders in the
military ultimately make these rules for the benefit of the soldiers and so the people in their
country will be safe. Most military practices and commands are very brutal with its leadership
style, but Korea and China are one of the worst (Talmadge, 2016). The soldiers go through
grueling training in the rain, cold, or heat, at all times of the day or night. Some must go through
rough interrogations to get prepared for the worst possible scenarios. Incompetence and
cowardice, in training or at war, are quick routes to early, (forced) retirement (Talmadge, 2016).
This is similar to business because if the leader doesn’t think you fit the mold or are a slow
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learner, the employee could be fired. Being forced into an early retirement is a harsh punishment,
but it’s for the country and the leader is looking out for the particular soldier’s safety.
Conclusion
The literature provided made major contributions with understanding the research. The
articles included numbers and nonbiased opinions to further the readers’ knowledge on the
subject. This literature gave the base information of autocratic leadership as well as the deep
knowledge of it. It was able to give enough information to readers to be able to make their
decision, whether to like autocratic leadership or not, based on all the information provided, and
not what little knowledge they had.
The overall strengths are its success in certain situations, better results, and quick
decision-making. These may not be traditional anymore, but these strengths are still valid. These
strengths cannot be ignored because people do not agree with the way the leader goes about
reaching the goal. Subordinates under democratic leadership don’t always agree with the
decisions either, so it’s important to understand that the grass isn’t always greener. Subordinates
should be happy with not having to make every decision and just worrying about the task at
hand,
The weaknesses are employee disconnection, lack of creativity, and leaders sees the
employees as obstacles. These weaknesses are the reasons why many companies do not use this
style of leadership. Even though autocratic leadership can be effective, it can have time
constraints on it. This is because employees will start to not care or disconnect from their leader,
not think any new ideas to help propel the company or they may quit or be fired. A major
weakness is, not thinking of how others would feel about the decisions you make and doing
whatever it takes to reach your goal.
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These articles were exceptional in explaining topics about autocratic leadership.
However, I believe these articles are not expressing why autocratic leadership isn’t traditional
anymore. They say what other styles are used, but never say why exactly. I believe we are in a
new era of management, to where it’s a combination of democratic and laissez-faire leadership.
Employers are noticing that the employees have more voices than they ever have before and
know that they need their employees to survive. You’re also seeing this in sports, where the
upper management must at least listen to players because without them, they’d lose money. I
believe it’s a combination of both because leaders are asking subordinates if they have any ideas,
and they’re also allowing employees to be free and do what they believe is right. That would be
my only critique about all the articles. Excluding that one critique, these articles were beautifully
written and conveyed many areas of autocratic leadership that people may not have known.
Hopefully, the readers now have a better understanding of autocratic leadership and don’t judge
it just because of what little information they have of it, but by the facts.
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References
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https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd-01-2020-0012
Caillier, J. (2020). Testing the Influence of Autocratic Leadership, Democratic Leadership, and
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