Impact of Leadership/Management Styles on People, Performance, and Productivity of Oman Electric Transmission Company

            Globally, three distinctive leadership/management styles are followed which include the autocratic, democratic, and the participative style that depict the extent of the decision-making and authority control exercised by the leaders and the employees. The autocratic style, commonly known as the authoritative leadership clearly segregates the leaders and the employees in terms of decision-making power (Hollyer, Rosendorff, and Vreeland, 2018). Employees have little or no involvement in the final decision whereas the top management is confident and comfortable with the entire decision-making responsibility. Impact of autocratic leadership style distorts the performance and productivity of the people with high levels of job dissatisfaction (Iqbal, Anwar, and Haider, 2015). Also, autocratic leadership restricts the innovation and creativity of employees making them de-values and demotivated in a short span of time. Nevertheless, this style is preferred in situations when new employees are unfamiliar to the present organisational performance with restrict knowledge. Furthermore, autocratic leadership helps in the following organisational rules and regulations to promote organisational effectiveness and compliance with the legal procedures.

            Democratic leadership style involves the sharing of the decision-making responsibility within the teams where each member offers equal input. Each team is held responsible to make the decisions on their own. This style is beneficial for organisations as it promotes communication and cooperation between different teams within an organisation. Also, management plays a crucial role in offering guidance to the employees that helps in sharing the responsibilities equally (Kane and Patapan, 2014; Nanjundeswaraswamy, and Swamy, 2014). Nonetheless, increased autonomy and accountability at the individual-level restricts the problem-solving and creativity by adding the accountability pressure thereby affecting their performance and progress. Also, this style restricts the autonomy of the top management which affects the organisational performance in the long run. Lastly, a democratic or consultative leadership approach makes it difficult for the management to timely manage and monitor the organisational changes with limited power in-hand.

            Participative leadership style necessitates the involvement of all the people to help the organisation in the identification and accomplishment of the goals through adopting and developing procedures and innovative strategies. Participative leadership style differs from the democratic and autocratic management style based on the fact that the leader functions as the facilitator instead of delegating the tasks (Amanchukwu, Stanley, and Ololube, 2015). This leadership style fosters in the identification and creation of potential future leaders that exhibit active participation to improve the overall performance of the organisation. In this regard, a participative management style positively influences people to improve their performance through the inclusion of innovation and creativity (Gupta and Van Wart, 2015). Moreover, participative leadership style improves the productivity of the people with the acceptance of feeling of empowerment, commitment, and dedication to the work. Participative leadership style motivates employees by guiding them at all levels to improve their level of job satisfaction and motivation.

            Given the fact, OETC has evolved in the electricity sector of Oman with the focus on the participative leadership style. Despite the high uncertainty and risk, OETC relied on the innovativeness and creativity of the employees while improving their skill set and abilities with the provision of intense training and development opportunities. The company offers on-the-job training and experiences to all of the employees while has led to 70% improvements in the learning and development of the junior employees (Oman Grid, 2019b). In addition, regular meetings and interviews with the managers and top leaders have improved the performance of the employees by expanding their role and development process. A firm developmental relation is exhibited between the employees and the management that has differentiated the performance of OETC as compared to the local competitors. For instance, 20% of the learning and development of the employees is offered through the developmental relationships between the upper and lower organisational hierarchy (Oman Grid, 2019b). This has led to encouragement of the opportunities through consistent mentoring, coaching, and feedback from the supervisors and peers to evaluate and assess the performance. Furthermore, OETC also offers additional formal training to the employees through e-learning coursework and classroom style learning to improve the practical knowledge and skill set of its employees.

            The participative style of leadership has offered a competitive advantage of OETC with an added advantage to aspire and motivate the employees to work at their best while delivering exceptional results to help the business grow. The efforts and training have also promoted the organisation to adhere to the principles of Omanisation to limit the dependence on the external foreign expatriates while promoting local talent and positively contributing to the economic growth and development. Through a participative leadership style, OETC has complied with the legal recruitment requirements offering positive points of differentiation to improve its national position and standing through empowering the local workforce.