Preferred Leadership Style Differences: Perceptions of Defence Industry Labour and Management

Leadership approaches, or styles, practised by managers in free societies over the last 100 years have shifted from highly directive, or authoritarian, to more non‐directive, or participative. This study surveyed labour and management of a defence industry computer software company to compare management (n=35) and technical employee (n=143) perceptions of preferred management style as measured by the Leader Behaviour Descriptive Questionnaire (LBDQ) Form XII. Subjects were asked to rate their ideal leader in response to the 100 items on the LBDQ. Causal‐comparative data analysis was used to compute descriptive statistics for each comparison group. Findings from the study suggest there is an extraordinary unity of thinking between managers and employees regarding those elements critical to effective leadership; managers agreed to a significantly greater extent than employees that the surveyed variables are critical to effective leadership; and managers and employees agreed that the favoured leadership style is “selling”, as defined by Hersey and Blanchard.