Autocratic and situational leadership

19 December 2023

Ylber Limani, Prof. Dr.

Autocratic and situational leadership are types of leadership that tend to own the organizational memory. It sounds absurd, but it is accurate. We assume that organizational memory refers to the accumulated knowledge and experience that an organization creates, develops, possesses and utilizes over time. The organizational collective (and not individual) memory is a critical aspect of organizational knowledge, culture and development.

Walsh, et al (1991) argue that institutional memory or corporate memory represents a gathered body of knowledge created during the development of an organizational life. The concept of organizational memory includes the ideas of components knowledge achievement, knowledge indulgence and knowledge usage.

We assume that organizational memory is not something that will last forever, since it may vanish through recurrent redundancies, employee destruction, adversities, and excessive resources downsizing.

According to Kendall (2006) institutions include the family, education, government, religion, and the economy. Further, the author argues that If anything adverse happens to one of these institutional components, all other components will be affected, and such system will no longer function properly.

I assume that individuals and teams are also the components of the organizational systems. Adding this assumption to Kendall’s definition of institutional comprehensiveness, and consulting systems theory, we can conclude that every individual represents a component of a system.

There is evidence showing that Stive Jobs, Elon Musk, Bil Gates, Henry Ford, and many others are characterized with the attributes of autocratic leadership. This type of leadership is efficient, but not creative, is productive but not motivational, effective but poor in decision making. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines autocratic as ‘having complete power; involving rule by somebody who has complete power’.

Are there positive attributes of autocratic leadership?

The assumption is that there are many people that are not willing to lead at all, instead they prefer to be obedient, to follow, to fit in the situation, to be just a member of the group and not a leader. E.g. When people are afraid, when they are not enough self-confident, they lean towards to focus on the leader, who makes them feel safe. In such periods people are not used to the question of authoritative leadership, since they are still in the first level of the hierarchy of Maslow. When people have a lack of knowledge, financial deficiency, no information, they are insecure, authoritative leadership is very desirable. So, in these situations autocracy it is not debatable, but automatically acceptable.

When people have a lack of knowledge, financial lack, no information, they are insecure, authoritative leadership is very desirable. So, in these situations, it is not debatable, but automatically acceptable.

The same people, the moment they overcome the zone of danger and fear, begin to ask the first questions about authoritative leadership. They begin to create imaginations through which they try to form imaginative concepts, considering leadership as something that has cut off their freedom, that has made life difficult for them, has denied them basic needs, etc.

Burton (2016) argues that followers of autocracy may become passive-aggressive. The passive feature is associated with agreeing with the authority. The aggressive feature becomes manifested in a variety of justifications, delaying strategies, confessions, ego indices, etc. This means the dominant person’s orders are delayed or not implemented at all. In other words, for the majority of mediocre people feel safer to agree in the autocrat’s presence, and resist in the absence of authority. Resistance is good for so long it does not convert to pain and suffering. It is very important that resistance must be done delicately, and never impulsively.

The cuckoo is a bird that metaphorically manifests the characteristics of people who constantly live in the shadow of others, and as soon as they are given a small chance, except that they do not accept the value of others, they treat those values in their way, in the cuckoo way. In my opinion, a cuckoo does not become a hawk under any circumstances, even though a certain environment can make the cuckoo wear the cloak of a hawk.

Are you a falcon when you are wearing a falcon's cloak?

In the next short article, I will write about my perceptions regarding the so-called democratic leadership. The discussion will be made relating to the correlation between the incidental, autocratic and democratic leadership, which is not seen at first sight to exist.