Autocratic Leadership

Review of Related Literature

In autocratic style of leadership, the leader is the sole determinant of what is done: his main contact with his subordinate occurs when he is giving them instructions. It is a very popular style among manager commanding subordinates and it is still used around the world. This style basically comes natural to many leaders and brings many benefits, thus many managers start to lead using this style and try to improve on it when pursuing their own development. The style is used when leaders inform their employees what they want done and how they want it attained, without being advised by their followers. Excessive use of authority will decrease productivity in the long-term in the academic library. People either get fed up and leave or fall into malice without creativity and innovation. This style got work done through fear and this style of leadership tells workers what to do and how to do it.

Janse posited that authoritarian leadership is a now outdated form of management that, especially in recent decades, is sure to create a lot of resistance among employees. The word authoritarian comes from the Greek language and derives from the word autocratic. 'Auto' means self and 'cratic' means rules. Autocratic leadership is a leadership style in which, without accepting participation, the authoritarian leader makes all the decisions themselves and delegates the tasks. This leader will check and punish their employees more severely and quickly. When the results are disappointing, or when the leader expects this to happen, the authoritarian leader will use his power to threaten sanctions such as dismissal so that undesirable behavior can be prevented. The authoritarian leader prefers to focus on results and tasks rather than on the employees who make the results possible. This supreme ruler assumes that employees have little ambition, prefer to avoid responsibility and only strive for individualist goals. This way of thinking ensures that the leader tolerates little feedback, does not enter into discussions and always maintains control. This leadership style is therefore often assessed as unpleasant, dominant and insensitive. The anti-social skills possessed by the authoritarian leader often lead to resistance among employees because they feel subordinate. The feedback this leader gives to their employees is often negative, not very constructive and is sometimes accompanied by overt anger.

The Effects of Autocratic Leadership Styles are as Follows

Lack of Creativity

Because the authoritarian leader decides everything themselves and executes it in their own way, they don't give the employees the chance to give their spin on the tasks to be performed. This way, the creative ability of the employee is never developed or discovered and that is a missed opportunity for both the employee and the company. After all, creativity stimulates growth and innovation within an organization and also ensures increased productivity. The need that every person has to do meaningful work is also satisfied by developing creativity on the work flow.

Demotivating

The demotivating feeling that occurs among people who work under an authoritarian leader is partly due to the lack of creative development and partly due to fear of sanctions. The fear of sanctions causes them to be extrinsically negatively motivated. The demotivating circumstances ensure that people under an authoritarian leader often walk away from it. Employees know that they have to carry out the orders they receive without contradiction, which means they will never do more than is necessary. 

Lack of a Sense of Responsibility

This effect also comes from an authoritarian leadership style. The employees feel like they're just a number, without value, because their input is cut off or not even heard. When they achieve success, they are not or barely appreciated by the authoritarian leader, while they get a thorough scolding when things go less well. This also removes the bond of trust between the leader, and the employees will never tell him anything in confidence. 

Passive Aggressiveness

The frustration and fear that arise from authoritarian leadership can take on unpleasant forms. The dominance that is strongly present among authoritarian leaders creates resistance. Because the group members constantly have to comply, they become angry and uneasy. There's no room for these sorts of feelings under an authoritarian leader, which means they often express these feeling to weaker people within the team or at home to family and friends. The same happens, for example, in education, where students express the pent-up aggression, which they build up with a strongly authoritarian teacher, to younger or milder teachers.

Autocratic leadership represents all those leaders who makes decision without the consent of team members and is usually applied when quick decision is be taken and team agreement is not important for acquisition of successful results. Little opportunities are given to staff and team members to make suggestions, even if it is in the best interest of the team or organization. An autocratic leader mostly makes selection on the basis of their own judgments and ideas that rarely include followers' advice and these leaders have absolute control over the group According to Iqbal, Anwar & Haider, autocratic leaders give orders without explaining the reasons or future intentions.

In the review of work, there were studies on autocratic leadership style, subordinates' job performance but the combined study of these concepts is lacking. This is the gap in knowledge this study will try to fill.