Dominant Leadership Styles: A Multi-Flex leadership styles blend towards the Educational Effectiveness

Abstract

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the dominant leadership styles among the four traditional leadership styles: 1) Autocratic, 2) Bureaucratic, 3) Democratic and 4) Laissez –Faire/Free rein/Abdicratic.Within these four traditional leadership styles, this study attempts to explore the dominant leadership styles using the theory of multi-flexleadership styles blends. A conceptual theoretical construction amongst theleadership styles was correlated to categories associated with multi-flex leadership styles. This approach allowed for the four traditional leadership styles to be investigated more thoroughly. These findings that resulted from this exploration highlight how the six multi-flex leadership styles blend with traditional leadership styles. Moreover, blending three or moreleadership styles produces lesser multi-flex leadership styles that can be associated with more dominant approaches to leadership styles. Dominant leadership styles were predetermined by the context, followership domain and the leader. Any two leadership styles can generate multi-flexleadership styles (higher applicability of one styles and lesser to another or vice versa). Thus, the leadership applicability of these styles generatetwelve sets of multi-flex leadership styles. Not all of these leadership multiflex blends can produce reliable information about contextual settings or the followership domain. Therefore, the appropriateness of leadership blend is a pivotal area that a leader must be aware of in order to understand both the demand from the context, the followership needs and the capability to integrate one dominant style with another. Multi-flex style blend can even be more essential during a crisis. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which instigated the need for change, there was aneed for a change in leadership styles. The higher applicability of any one leadership style with one that is less applicable can be considered a dominant leadership style. Thus, a higher applicability of any one leadership style using the multi-flex blend approach may be considered a dominant leadership style.