Prof.

Marco Castellani
A.Y. 2021-2022

Leadership and
Lecture2 [March, 10, 2022]
Complex Organizations 1
 Autocratic leadership
in pre-modern organizations
• The autocratic leader dominates the decision-making process and takes
decisions all alone. He/she believes his/her thoughts to be superior to those of
the subordinates and considers involving them in decision-making as a waste
of time.
• The well-being of “followers” is not taken into consideration as the leader
regards them just as mere tools for his/her goals. As part of his/her non-
consideration for worker’s welfare, he/she resorts to commands and often
abusive language to induce compliance.
• The pre-modern autocratic leader uses threats and intimidation as a means of ensuring
absolute obedience and dependence on him/her. He/she does not take opposition kindly as
he/she tends to regard those with opposing views as enemies of his/her administration. He/she
clamps down on opposition and strives for conformity of all to his/her directives.
• Followers (workers) under an autocratic leader may be seen as working under pressure and
fear most of the time and often show dissatisfaction to this form of leadership by various
means such as lateness to work, reduction of work output, sabotaging the work, seeking
transfer or voluntarily resigning from the establishment.
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 Autocratic leadership
in pre-modern organizations
• This kind of autocratic leader finds it difficult to get genuine support and cooperation
from subordinates who consider his/her administration as a “one man show’.
• According to Umeakuka (2005) an autocratic leader has little or no trust and faith in
his or her subordinates; takes decision alone; gives order and command without
considering the subordinates; determines group policy; gives step by step directions
and dictates task; believes he is always right and entertains no question from
subordinates.
• An autocratic leader often demands absolute obedience from the
group not minding whether or not the group understands his or her
principle. An autocratic leader believes he/she is the most qualified
and knows the best answer to organizational problems. He/she often
relies on threat and punishment to influence the employees.
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 Autocratic leadership
in pre-modern organizations
• Even in traditional older form of economic organizations, in autocratic style
production is emphasized at the expense of any human consideration, and where
decision are made exclusively by the leader.

• The leader believes that human beings are unwilling to work, incapable of self-
determination, and have limited reasoning. Therefore they must be directed, pushed
and forced to do work. The summary of the characteristics of an autocratic leader as
presented by Edem (1998) is as follows:

i. The dictation of all policies and procedures by the leader with little or no group
participation in decision making.
ii. The imposition of task and methods on the subordinates.
iii. An absence of communication between the leader and the group.
iv. Nagging and suspicion breeding on the part of the leader.
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 Autocratic leadership
in pre-modern organizations
• An autocratic style is effective and should be used
when new untrained employees who do not know
which tasks to perform or which procedures to follow,
effective supervision can be provided only through
detailed orders and instruction and employees do not
respond to any other leadership style.
• The Canadian Association of Student Activity Advisers
(2004) argued that autocratic leadership is effective
and should be used when time is limited, and should
not be used when developing a strong sense of team
work is the goal, there is some degree of skill or
knowledge in members, and when the group wants
an element of spontaneity in their work.

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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations

2 1

• The process opens with the recruitment of candidates who hold the necessary
skills and attitudes that the organization is looking for. Once hired, the person
takes part in various socialization and training processes that (1) better explain
the expectations on his/her role and (2) the rules of the organization.

• During the everyday experience of the organization, various tasks need to be

performed within the expected time. In vertically integrated organizations, the
control step is the ex-post process that occurs after the execution.
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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
 Control systems are part of the hierarchical process that implies
the existence of a central power.

Power: the capacity that A has to influence the

behavior of B so that B acts in accordance with A’s
wishes (the ability to exercise one’s will over others;
Weber 1922).

 Power plays a fundamental function for hierarchical

organizations, since it reflects the culture of the organization.
At the same time – and this is where the nature of power becomes ambiguous
– decision makers of the organizations tend to monopolize power. 7
 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations

 Power is a relationship, but it is also a

structural position (role), position
(“Legitimate power”).

 Much has been discussed and investigated

on the crucial characteristics of power, but
its two basic elements are:

 Transferring one's own will over the others

 The possibility to address others’ behavior
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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations

 The use of power is implicit in the concept of constraint.

 For the social and collective nature of economic activities, to

achieve the internal order, an organization aims at establishing
both what must be done and what must not.

 Hence, we can speak of legitimate power when it derives from the

formal authority that has been ascribed.

 In case of resistances and contrasts, such a power needs to use

various kinds of penalties.
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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
Power as expression of positional mastership/dominion

• In such a viewpoint, the concept of power can be related to the

organizational setting, because it concerns the members of a formally
organized economic activities.

• The technical division of work leads to the differentiation of positions,

which necessarily involves a discrepancy in the availability of
resources, of prestige, of power.

• Hence, in this condition, leadership is merely viewed as a

“supplementary” attribute of the command and expected
compliance mechanism (even dangerous if it does not add anything to
the power of giving order thanks to material/status resources).

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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
• Many definitions claim that power is integrated into a social relationship in which one party
(an individual or a group) has (or is perceived to have) the ability to enact a will thanks to
the resources at his/her disposal.

• We have power if we are able to make others do what we want, and the measure of our
power is given by our trustworthiness (others’ belief, i.e. perceived probability that we can
do it) => negotiation as a mechanism that takes place when the focus gradually move
towards more horizontal setup.

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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
• The sources of power may be:
• rewards, coercion, competence, legitimacy, information, etc,

• An example of power grounded on different sources:

• We take the case of a manager who wants his/her subordinates to
participate in a corporate open day (which takes place on Saturday, but for
which the employees are not paid). His/her ability to guarantee their
participation can be attributed to various factors.

• First case: employees can participate because they believe that the manager
can reward them for their commitment (leaving them free time or proposing
them for a promotion; reward power).
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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
• Second case: participation can be obtained for opposite reasons, if the
employees know that otherwise they will be punished in some way (not taken
into account for a promotion or loaded with more burdensome tasks in the
future, coercive power).

• Third case: less instrumentally, the staff can participate because it recognizes the
competence of the manager and his/her ability to do both their interests and
the interests of the department (power of competence) or because the
manager knows how to present them the reasons to participate in a logical and
persuasive way (informative power).

• Fourth case: finally, of course, they can participate because they recognize the
manager's right to tell them when to work and what to do (legitimate power) or
because they appreciate the way the manager previously behaved in similar
situations, hence they follow him/her (power of example).
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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
 If this list includes the main means by which people can gain power in organizations, the
next question is obviously "Which of these are actually chosen?". Bacharach and Lawler
argue that the answer lies in the interaction between structural elements and individual
differences.

 Specifically, they hypothesize that the use of various forms of power depends:
 (a) on the person's position in the organizational structure,
 (b) on his/her personal characteristics (especially charisma),
 (c) on his competence
 (d) on the opportunity.

 Therefore, in order for the staff to participate in the open day, our manager can decide to
rely on legitimate rather than coercive power, if his/her position does not give her the
authority to punish and if he/she is personally opposed to this tactic, but if, at the same
time, he/she has a relevant status (for example, the responsibility of organizing public
relations activities), this is an opportunity to exploit. 14
 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
 For example, Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and Rosenthal conducted a research
on a group of managers to understand their perceived ability to use different
forms of power. The result was that the form of power used by managers
depended on the status of the collaborators whose behavior they tried to
control.

 Despite the leader could use the legitimate power over any collaborator,
regardless of his/her status, he/she might think that other forms of power
could be usefully used.

 Other studies also suggest that the ability to use different types of power
depends, among other things, on organization norms, personal style and the
training of those who aspire to exercise them.

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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
 The topic of power as a multifaceted phenomenon becomes important
when we gradually move towards new forms of organizations..

 However, this approach has various drawbacks. First, it is clear that a

simple classification of the various bases of power does not give an
integrated theoretical understanding of the psychological processes
underlying the exercise of power.

 Why do managers use one form of power rather than another and
what makes it attractive or appropriate in a given context? These are
fundamental questions, but they can not find an answer simply by
formulating better classifications.

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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations

 According to this approach, a large body of research supports the idea

that there are many factors that determine how and when people
use power in organizations. In relation to this problem, a second
limitation of the taxonomies of power is that they normally confuse
power with other concepts of organizational literature.
 In particular, most of the benevolent forms of power, classified in
taxonomies such as that of French and Raven, can be considered more
correctly as manifestations of social influence.
 This is important, because the definitions of power usually imply that
those who exercise it impose their will against the others, while, in the
processes of influence, the contrary occurs.

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 Autocratic leadership in modern
vertically integrated organizations
• Power: refers to the capacity that A has to influence the behavior of B
so that B could act according to A’s wishes

•
•

Often the terms "power" and "authority" have been considered as similar,
but the two terms stand for different sides of the same coin.
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