Different Leadership Styles across Hierarchical Levels: A Case Study on Indian Automobile Industry

Abstract

Contemporary leaders are very much concerned with the organizational as well as individual vision. They would strive for the realization of the objectives and to make it possible to make every endeavour to bring the desired vision into reality with shared values that gain commitment and also help formulate strategy for getting there. There has been quest to identify the best leadership style suitable for different hierarchical levels and in all kinds of the organizations. The paper aims at exploring the effective and suitable leadership style for the growing organizations. It has been observed that generally, a significant difference is found between the senior and first-level managers' leadership styles, but not in senior and middle-level managers or middle and first-level managers. This paper further examines the major leadership styles at different hierarchical levels in Indian automobile organizations. Analysis in the paper suggests that an organizational leader must have strong professional will and humility in order to become effective and efficient. Primary data were collected from a randomly selected sample size of 360 managers from three levels from automobile industry in and around Delhi and NCR. The data were subjected to multiple regression analysis. The results and their significance as well as implications are discussed in the paper.