Laissez Faire Leadership Correlated with Unsuccessful Conflict Management Skills

     In our management seminar we discussed the difference between transformational and laissez faire leaders. A transformational leader inspires a shared vision with constituents and frequently communicates with team members delegating responsibilities. A laissez faire leader will allow his/her colleagues to get work done independently without supervision.  Interestingly, in this article it was shown that retail managers who were identified as laissez faire leaders based on an MLQ questionnare were likely to score lower on the CMS Questionnare or Conflict Management Resolution Solutions Scale.   Sound leadership with appropriate conflict management skills are necessary in the retail world because conflict can arise at any moment from personnel, customers, and/or competition. Unfortunately, results of this study also showed many of the participants tended to have a laissez faire leadership style. When these leaders are refusing to avoid conflict this creates an environment resistant to change without a dream for the future. Laissez faire leadership can be a successful style when overseeing skilled, self motivated employees but if internal conflict continually arises in a work environment, training programs might be needed to instill transformational styles in retail supervisors.

E. Kintner

 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=laissez+faire+leadership&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C36&as_ylo=2011

Gray, E. C., & Williams, J. A. (2012). Retail Managers: Laissez-Faire Leadership Is Synonymous With Unsuccessful Conflict Management Styles. Open Journal of Leadership, 1(3), 13-16.