Eken et al. (2014) suggests laissez-faire leaders provide greater employee autonomy in making decisions, determining goals, and solving problems on their own. Zareen et al. (2014) noted the laissez-faire leadership style is more effective when employees are proficient, autonomous, and have high intrinsic motivation. In a less complex environment where decision making is easier, routine, and regulated, this leadership style is beneficial for independent employees who can set their own deadlines and problem solve, considering these employees have the necessary tools and resources to accomplish tasks (Arslan & Uslu, 2014; Zareen et al., 2014). Although providing greater freedom, research suggests the laissez-faire leader’s behavior is detached from employee performance, and this may be perceived as hesitant, ineffective, uninterested, or uninvolved (Cunningham et al., 2015; Eken et al., 2014; Giltinane, 2013). Cunningham et al. (2015) indicates this leadership style can produce less than ideal employee and team performance due to an absence clear guidance and direction. Additionally, Giltinane (2013) reports laissez-faire leadership generates minimal coordination and cooperation from followers and this leadership style can generate …show more content…
Distinctive from all leadership styles, servant leadership focuses on serving others by influencing stakeholder satisfaction, engagement, creativity, confidence, productivity, innovation, and performance. Connecting to democratic leadership, servant leaders place the interest of the follower before any self-interest. Servant leaders engage employees to stimulate the follower’s well-being and growth and encourage positive OCBs through collaboration and creativity behaviors. Researchers Neubert et al. (2016) conducted a study and sampled 1,485 nurses and 105 managers to examine the relationship between job satisfaction and servant leadership and the empirical data confirm positive associations of servant leadership with positive attitudes, creative behaviors, and job satisfaction of followers. Contreras (2016) led a study to analyze servant and spiritual leadership and concluded both styles share a similar orientation towards transcendence of employee values, but servant leadership has a greater relationship towards moral leadership