Leadership — Edexcel A-Level Business
Test yourself on Leadership with PEARSON EDEXCEL A-Level practice questions.
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Leadership explained
Managers plan, organise, budget and control so that this year's targets are met; leaders set direction, build commitment and take people somewhere the business has not been.
Read the full explanation
The contrast earns marks because it explains how a firm can be tightly run and still drift, or full of vision and still miss its cash flow forecast. In a young business the founder does both, which is why Greiner's first crisis is a crisis of leadership, arriving when the owner can no longer supervise everybody personally. Handy's culture types and Blake and Mouton's grid, which scores concern for people against concern for production, belong here. Both are blind to context, because the same person is decisive in a crisis and obstructive in a stable market, and neither prices the disruption of replacing the person at the top halfway through a project.
b) Types of leadership style: autocratic; paternalistic; democratic; laissez-faire
Four positions on how much of the decision the leader keeps. An autocratic leader decides and tells, which is fast and right during a product recall or a cash crisis but wastes the knowledge of the people doing the work. A paternalistic leader still decides alone, then explains the reasoning and acts in what he believes is the staff's interest, which is common in family firms. A democratic leader shares the decision, so it is slower but sticks, while a laissez faire leader sets the goal and leaves the method to the team, which suits research chemists or software developers and fails with new or unwilling staff. Tannenbaum and Schmidt place the same range on a continuum, and that is the better tool in an essay because it lets you argue the leader should move along it. Their blind spot is follower skill and willingness, which is what really decides whether autonomy works.
Your focus
- a) Leadership: the distinction between management and leadership
- b) Types of leadership style: autocratic; paternalistic; democratic; laissez-faire
Leadership exam tips
Marking Points
- Draw the contrast in function rather than job title, so control, monitoring and resource allocation on one side and direction, influence and change on the other.
- Apply it to the named business, for example arguing that an inspiring founder needs a finance manager beside her once headcount and complexity outgrow her span of control.
- Bring in a model and actually use its language, such as Blake and Mouton on concern for people against concern for production, or Handy on power and role cultures.
- Judge which the business needs now, tying the answer to its stage of growth, the pace of change in its market and the capability of the people below the top.
- Match the style to the situation in the case instead of ranking styles in the abstract, for instance a directive approach while the firm is losing cash and a consultative one once it stabilises.
- State the consequence for the workforce using motivation theory, so a hands off style can meet esteem and self actualisation needs while a directive one leaves staff at the security level.
- Use Tannenbaum and Schmidt to show movement along a continuum, which turns description of a style into analysis of a choice.
- Weigh the costs of the style chosen, such as slower decisions, higher supervision cost, or losing skilled staff who resent being told what to do.
Examiner Tips
- 💡This is usually a short explain question or the opening move of a longer assess on leadership style, so define both sides in a sentence each and get to application fast.
- 💡Case studies signal it with the founder stepping back, a new chief executive arriving or a business that has outgrown one person, so quote that evidence directly.
- 💡Longer questions ask whether a change of style would improve performance, so the judgement has to rest on this market, this workforce and how urgent the problem is.
- 💡Find the line in the extract that reveals the current style, such as a complaint about not being listened to or a rising resignation rate, and quote it as evidence.
- 💡One developed chain from cause to effect to business consequence scores far better than four styles listed and defined.
Common Mistakes
- Treating leadership as a personality trait and writing a character sketch of the founder instead of analysing the decision the business faces.
- Arguing that leaders are good and managers are dull, when a firm with strong vision and no control systems runs out of cash.
- Naming Handy or Blake and Mouton as a label and never applying the model, which earns knowledge credit and nothing beyond it.
- Confusing paternalistic with democratic, when a paternalistic leader consults nobody and simply explains a decision already taken.
- Treating laissez faire as an absence of leadership rather than a deliberate handing of method to skilled professionals working to an agreed goal.
- Concluding that democratic leadership is always best, which ignores time pressure, an inexperienced workforce and decisions the leader is legally answerable for.