Fulls Post Week 3 for BDP

From: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/tips/archives/2006/03/what_leadership.html

"What Leadership Style Fits Your Company?"

Start by answering the following questions:

1. Where’s the company going in the next five to 10 years?

2. What kind of a leader can take us there?

3. What are the important skill sets of that leader?

4. Who in the next generation has those skills?

5. If we’re objective, is the best leader for the company in the family or do we      need to look outside the family?

6. What’s our road map for the succession process?

I posted the top article's questions because I think most of us fail to ask how these three types of leadership inter-connect and are used over time. When considering the class that talked about leadership styles we agreed that not one type of leadership style answers all our needs or fits every given situation.

When considering starting a start-up we have to realize that the leadership structure differs in comparison to a major cooperation. Consider, today’s common success story starts first with leadership that needs to be “Delegative” because every ones input is needed to make the company a success; moreover, these first people on board have to process skills, talents, and a shared decision to help a start-up grow. These initial people become the heads of new departments often or leave for projects as the company grows. The next step is "Participative" because now a democratize model to represent each departments input has to be made, but a CEO has to have the final say to carry out the shared vision.

The finally phase is "Authoritarian", because decisions have to be made quickly in order to carry them out in a big organization. In this sense, a start-up becomes so big that higher ups have to make these decisions fast in order to take effect over hundreds of employees and over thousands of consumers. I have heard many entrepreneurs sell out their shares and move to another start-up because they do not like this type of management structure. The major fall back, is when a company gets this big and uses this style of leadership, new ideas are a lot harder to develop and produce; not to mention, it is a lot harder to get a large percent of the profits when a company can automatically make claim to what you make (i.e. look up the founder of AMD chips and why he left Intel).