Donald Trump: Theory X and Autocratic Decision-Style Methods Essay

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is one of the world’s most successful leaders in the business world. Trump is known to follow the autocratic or dictatorial styles of headship because of his blunt attitude toward his employees and his keen attention to small details (Nayab & Scheid, 2011). In addition, he is very demanding as he is portrayed by the television series The Apprentice. Donald Trump is very adept at this leadership style.

Trump has practiced the management style since he started the Trump Organization. In the Trump Organization, Donald makes almost all the decisions with few consultations from a group of trusted executives. He has managed to maintain success using this style of headship in the real estate business in America and across the world. His business is worth billions of dollars.

Theory X has enabled Trump gained respect from his employees, business leader’s peers, and the management fraternity in general. The autocratic headship style gives leaders total powers to do as they desire regardless of other views. It also gives the head of an organization the right to decision making without consultation with other managers, and the followers obey the instruction without questions (Dubrin, 2011).

Personal Experience

I would encourage the autocratic leadership style under several situations, such as when employees or followers have low motivation to work, when working in teams and when the nature of the task is achievement oriented. The autocratic style ensures an equal allocation of duties. The other situation I would recommend theory X is when project teams comprise of inexperienced group members. In this situation, an autocratic style of leadership minimizes trial and error and ensures no time is wasted while undertaking the task.

In my experience, the person who I have witnessed apply leadership style is my current supervisor at work. The nature of work in our organization demands we work in teams. However, in a team set up, I have witnessed a number of team members in the teams I have been a member do nothing, but in the end, take credit for the team effort. My current supervisor at work noticed this trend, and he decided to apply the autocratic style of leadership.

Some of the actions he undertook that seemed to inspire the workforce were; he defined each group member’s duties, and at the end of the task, every group member was assessed on his or her effort on the task. This approach motivated some of the workers who used to take credit for other people’s efforts. In addition, it allowed the employees to grow their talent since every team member was allocated duties according to his or her talent. It also facilitated quick decision-making (Murugan, 2007). Theory X seemed to motivate the workforce when tasks involved complex technicalities when the organization was undergoing changes in the external environment.

The downside of the autocratic style of leadership was that, in some instances, some employees did not feel motivated enough to perform their duties, as they felt powerless. The other downside of this style is that some employees had a feeling of resentment when the decisions made by the leader did not prove favorable to them and when they were not consulted on the way forward (Chelladurai, 2006). This aspect of the leadership style made the leader lose his credibility in the discernment of the workforce.

References

Chelladurai, P. (2006). Human resource management in sport and recreation. Leeds: Human Kinetics.

Dubrin, A. J. (2011). Essentials of Management. New York: Cengage Learning.

Murugan, M. (2007). Management Principles and Practices. New Delhi: New Age International.

Nayab, N., & Scheid, J. (2011). Examples of When to Use Autocratic Leadership. Web.