Bureaucratic leadership: what it is, characteristics, and advantages and disadvantages

Leadership, broadly speaking, is what refers to the set of skills possessed by a person who is in charge of a project, a company or organization, among others, that serve to exert their influence on the way of acting and working of the people who are around them. post; There are different types of leadership.

Bureaucratic leadership is one of the leadership styles, and is characterized by being the most formal and perhaps strict way of leading., since a bureaucratic leader is in charge of directing his employees or the people who are at his position towards the achievement of a series of tasks and objectives based on specific rules and strict.

In this article we will talk in greater detail about what bureaucratic leadership consists of and how it influences different organizations or the educational system.

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What is bureaucratic leadership?

Leadership is the ability possessed by some people who are in charge of a work team, organization or institution of various kinds to be able to

motivate, organize, influence and initiate a series of actions in order to achieve objectives that must involve several people or groups under their charge.

As we have already mentioned, there are several styles of leadership: participatory, charismatic, authoritarian, laissez-faire, strategic, goal-oriented leadership. task-oriented, people-oriented, natural, transactional, transformational and, finally, bureaucratic leadership, which is what we are going to talk about next. continuation.

Bureaucratic leadership is the most formal way of leading a group of people, since in this case the leader in charge of directing its employees towards the achievement of a series of tasks and objectives, previously marked, strictly adhering to specific rules aligned with the policies of the company or institution of which they are a part.

In this sense, bureaucratic leadership seeks to develop a rigid work environment between managers or leaders and employees or team members. work they are responsible for, so that the latter must abide by the rules and strictly follow the instructions established by the former.

was the sociologist Max Weber who spoke of bureaucratic leadership as a way of leading that consists of govern a company in a hierarchical manner and leave each position under the supervision and control of a supervisor, so that each of the workers must be responsible to their superior for their own decisions and actions, as well as those of the people who are in charge of them. In this case, everything must be governed by a system of rules that are consistent.

It should be noted that in the bureaucratic leadership model also The possibility of promotion is usually taken into account based on seniority, the capacity of the worker and/or the knowledge that he or she possesses.

Given the great rigidity of the bureaucratic leadership style, it has not been without criticism; among which are some of the disadvantages that will be explained in the following subsection.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of the Bureaucratic Leadership Style

Next, we will briefly explain what are the main advantages and disadvantages of the bureaucratic leadership style.

Advantages

Although in many cases bureaucratic leadership may be inadvisable, it is there are some cases in which maintaining this way of leading could be a good option.

Carrying out a bureaucratic leadership style is quite appropriate in those workplaces where there are very serious security risks, such as in those contexts in which you have to work with heavy machinery, toxic substances, etc., so that it would be highly recommended that all employees strictly follow the established rules in order to avoid risks.

Other cases in which this style of leadership would be recommended are those workplaces in which large amounts of money, work with machinery or material whose cost is high and/or when high-priced products are sold. prices.

In some cases it has also been found that bureaucratic leadership encourages positive results at work, and also efficiently.

In a certain sense, another advantage could be the clear and structured establishment of promotions and rewards for workers.

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Disadvantages

As we said, given the existing rigidity of the bureaucratic leadership, it has come to generate quite a bit of controversy, for what we consider convenient to mention the main disadvantages when applying this style of leadership.

The first of the disadvantages that should be highlighted is the exaggerated adherence to the rules and regulations stipulated by the leaders of the company, which can become quite stressful for your employees.

The second one is the loss of social sense between leaders and subordinates, since seeks to adhere to the rules in a rigid way, so the social part goes to a plane secondary. In these cases there is usually no fluid communication between the leaders and the people who are in charge of them. As well there is usually a depersonalization of workers, each of them being one more number in the work chain.

This rigidity in the rules, leaving aside the social plane, can trigger a tense work environment within the institution or company, which can be little It is flattering in the long term so that the employees are satisfied with their work or the camaraderie is fostered, which could become a plus for them to be motivated and yield more. In this sense, the rigidity because they abide by the rules and do their work strictly could produce the opposite effect.

Another disadvantage of this high rigidity at work is that leads to high resistance to change, so it is more difficult for there to be an adaptation to unforeseen events and the evolution of the sector over time.

Among its disadvantages we can also find the fact that there is a high level of control of all factors related to job tasks, as well as to employees, which can favor the development of cases of "burnout" or burned workers.

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Bureaucratic leadership in companies and organizations

Companies and organizations where there is primarily a bureaucratic leadership style tend to have a tendency towards depersonalization of the workers and the maintenance of power within the leadership of that organization by the leaders or managers.

In these types of companies and organizations, privileges are not usually granted to any of the workers, or friendly treatment, individual favors or privileges, so that strict equality is usually required in the treatment of each and every one of the workers. At least that's how it would be in theory according to this style of leadership.

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Bureaucratic leadership in the educational system

In a study carried out by Moral, Amores and Ritacco in 2016 where leadership models were investigated in 24 Secondary Education Institutes in the province of Granada (Spain) it was concluded that there was a marked tendency on the part of its directors towards a bureaucratic leadership oriented to that the educational center works and external accountability, so that the possibility of developing a collaborative environment in which decision-making could be shared was not offered.

Although there is no doubt that this type of leadership can help in the tasks of management and administration of education centers in order to carry out efficient work, It is also necessary for the directors of the centers to take into account other fundamental aspects so that an environment conducive to an improvement in student learning is developed. student body.

However, it should be noted that this sample is not large enough to generalize that there is a prevalence of this model of leadership in institutes at the national level, although it should be kept in mind for future research.