Why dictatorial leadership style may work in the modern office

Mr Karanja runs the business alone and with an iron fist – he manages the place with complete authority and no one else can question his decisions.

He controls the team, making decisions and running operations without seeking or considering input from his direct reports.

According to Mr Karanja, his employees are just a replaceable resource and not the core of the organisation.

He preaches and believes in top-down communication, wherein orders are given by the higher hierarchical level to the lower ones.

He feels most qualified and experienced, considers his views to be most valid, lacks confidence in others abilities, is very critical of differing opinions, rarely gives recognition, is easily offended, uses others for his benefit, is action oriented, and highly competitive.

Autocratic style

The concept of “employee satisfaction” does not hold importance for Mr Karanja.

This kind of management is called the autocratic or authoritarian management style— it is also known as totalitarianism or dictatorship. It does forge an atmosphere of discipline in the organisation.

However, it will inevitably cause dissatisfaction and a lack of “creative space” for the employees.

Because of this management style – workers do not stay more than six months. Absenteeism and the rate of turnover, is too high.

Sadly, because the rate of unemployment is so high in Kenya— Mr Karanja will always find new employees.

Hardworking, humble Kenyans who need to feed their children and put food on their tables. The domino-effect is that the business might never reach its optimum output in terms of gross profit and growth.

The amount spent hiring new inexperienced workers, training them and then losing them in a split second, does take a toll on the business.

This poor management style easily undermines the business and fails to recognise its own mistakes. The biggest strength of this style is to produce action when it is needed.

Meet Ms Mueni— an entrepreneur and a business woman who runs a bakery. Ms Mueni and Mr Karanja are in the food industry.

The authority of running the bakery is in Ms Mueni’s hand only, however, she cares more about the employees than outcomes and profits.

She is more like a parent than a boss to her employees. Her employees are the heart of the organisation. She believes in top-down as well as bottom-up communication.

Ms Mueni’s management style is called paternalistic. This style encourages input and feedback from her direct reports and bases her decisions at least in part on their views.

Her workers feel valued because their opinions matter. The entire team takes ownership of a project because of each team member’s individual contributions.

Paternalistic management is also very dictatorial, but includes the best interests of the employees as well as the business itself.

In a very basic sense, the leader is often in a better situation to make overall organisational decisions due to experience.

Decision-making process

Managers practicing this style care about the social needs of their employees (for example, being happy), but it also slows down and clouds the decision-making process.

Ms Mueni’s business is growing, slowly, but surely and steadily.

Both Mr Karanja and Ms Mueni are running their businesses the way they know how— they might be unaware of the style they are practicing which could be closely linked to their individual personality and leadership qualities or based on the principles they each follow.

While paternalistic management is the proven and preferred style in business, autocratic management can still function effectively.

The workforce may dispute this fact, as they tend to be generally uninterested in their jobs and may be mistrustful of management.

Yet, if you are part of an autocratic management group, you can still use teams profitably and improve the morale of your staff if you do it wisely.

The payoff is always in the results.