Abstract

Laissez faire or free rein is nothing short of a double-edged sword. It gives total freedom to
work in the organization. Yet it has been widely criticized by many experts. Why is it so? Are
humans still not competent enough in such a environment so that they can manage
themselves and their organizations in an efficient manner without the need of an order? In
this report we aim to study this double-edged sword which is not liked by many experts due
to its lack of proper order and lack of continuous assessment or supervision. Our search here
is to explain the inconsistent findings of laissez-faire leadership studies, the current study
draws on stress theory and achievement goal theory to examine the boundary conditions
and mechanisms underlying the impact of laissez-faire leadership on subordinates, cognitive
appraisal and subsequent performance.
This leadership style is not a total failure but is like a weapon, when held in good hands it
can produce outstanding results but when faced with the wrong intentions it brings noting
but failure to the organization. By the end of this, we expect to find the true nature of
Laissez-Faire leadership style and to be able to narrate my view and suggestions for a
improved system.

Introduction

What is Laissez-Faire Leadership?

The term Laissez-faire is of French origin and translates to “letting people do as they
choose.” Laissez-faire leaders allow their followers to have the autonomy to make their own
decisions and manage their own desks. They give their team support, guidance,
consultation, and training when it’s needed, but trust them to handle the details and
execution of their tasks and projects. Laissez-faire leadership, also known as delegative
leadership, is a type of leadership style which leaders are hands-off and allow group
members to make the decisions.
These leaders also don’t mind if mistakes are made by their team throughout the process of
completing a task, but are still held accountable for the group’s mistakes and successes.
Freedom is a big priority for laissez-faire leaders, and they empower their team to make
their own decisions and manage their work as they see fit.
 Literature Review
Laissez-Faire leadership has undoubtedly been widely criticised as a destructive style of
leadership and although some researchers were able to pin-point the positives and places
where Laissez-faire is suitable (dark and bright sides), even then the results were found out
to be inconsistent. From our research, we found that the scope of Laissez-Faire leadership is
not just limited to management studies but a large influence of psychology and human
behaviour is at play. Motivation and incentive techniques certainly play a large role in
influencing subordinates but their role is almost negligent in Laissez-Faire since it has been
described as ‘Do what you want to do’ style of leadership. Therefore, personality traits of
person to person determine the outcome of Laissez-Faire. Although a large number of
different personality traits and types exist, we have just kept two in this research which
influence the working in Laissez-Faire the most. Some people are systematic and organised,
they require their work to be done as they planned and they struggle when they are close to
deadlines. On the contrary are those who work around the deadlines. They struggle to work
in a systematic way and tend to adopt rather flexible ways of working. Now, when these two
types of people are kept in a group setting, these will cause obvious conflicts due to
differences in style of working. This is where a sharp difference was observed. In other types
of leadership, the superior who has even some authority over subordinates will ensure that
periodic reviews are done and no matter how the style of working varies, all of them remain
accountable to their superior in the same way. In Laissez-Faire, there is a difficulty in
reaching a common consensus among the subordinates and setting up of accountability is
also difficult.
An interesting observation was pointed out in (DOI: 10.1177/1548051821997407) that
subordinates often perceive Delegation as an absence of leadership like in Laissez-Faire,
which further explains the ineffectiveness of Laissez-Faire Leadership. The employees in an
organization are obviously are not as technical as the managers and they probably might not
even know what Laissez-Faire means. In their view, they might see all the phenomena as
manager simply running away from his responsibilities. This displays the overall impression
a Laissez-Faire Leadership would usually have. If the subordinates perceive it as running
away from responsibilities by a manager, then they will simply lose faith in the manager and
would consider not following his orders.
If we consider Laissez-Faire Leadership in the modern-day scenario, it might be probably
even more ineffective than it was years ago, and it will likely become more and more
redundant. This is because of the change in behaviour of generations. Our Parents’
generation has always been classified as hard one as they used to work excruciatingly hard
to meet their ends because the time and the environment forced them to do so. Now, we
have witnessed a lot of development and certainly the hardships time is over. This has also
changed the way the new generation behaves, as majority of this generation are becoming
more and more averse to the idea of work. Also, the decreasing attention span must also be
taken into consideration as office work requires long amount of commitment in terms of
hours. With all these factors into play and we leave the subordinates on their own terms, it
might not be a wise choice. Although one could argue that Laissez-Faire will provide the
much-needed freedom in workplace this generation demands but some sort of
reinforcement is certainly needed to guide the subordinates in the right direction.

Conclusion

Laissez-Faire is a very unique style of leadership. Some organizations have found it to be the
peak of freedom and development among subordinates while other have criticised it for it
being destructive to the idea of organization. This article was an attempt to give reason to
all such inconsistent findings and to shed a light regarding the future of this leadership style.
Some crucial elements like personality traits, perception of subordinates on Laissez-Faire
were touched upon and discussed.