Employee Decision Making in a Business

I work for a company with many different supervisors, myself included, and one manager. With each supervisor and my manager we each have different decision making styles when it comes to our job and different aspects of our job.

Our manager demonstrates an authoritarian decision making style. I understand that she is the manager and it is her responsibility to keep order and to keep things running smooth. However with this type of decision making style I feel as though it is easy for someone to become to absorbed in it. By absorbed I mean that at times I feel that she doesn't make the best decisions for her employees or for the owners, she just does what suits her and is best for her. One example of this is that on a Saturday she wanted to go home early because she had come in during another day during the week to cover a shift for someone who was let go. She wanted to go home early because she had family in town, no other employee would be allowed to go home early, she wasn't either. But instead of working like a manager should, during a busy rush she left to go to Hallmark because she didn't want to go when she got off at 4pm because she had to leave right away. Possibly understandable if she hadn't already had a 30 minute break 2 hours before that when she could have done that then. Then after she got back from Hallmark she stayed in the back room for at least 20 more minutes signing the card and eating more, while we still had a line of customers. Times like this is when this decision making style is not ideal. I feel if we had more of a democratic decision making we would have had more authority to tell her that this is unacceptable however since she is the manager no one felt as though it was their place, not even the supervisors to say anything.

However when it comes to closing responsibilities on the contrary to my manager I have more of a democratic and laissez-faire decision making style. I leave it up to my employees to decide what each one of them will be doing for the evening (dishes, cleaning the floors, or cleaning the front of the store). I only intervene if I feel that a certain employee can't accomplish what they have picked to do or if the employees can't decide amicably by themselves, which rarely ever happens. I feel then that the employees have more pride in what they do because they decided. I also make sure if it okay with all of them and that they all feel comfortable before leave the floor to have my break or handle something else. I feel as though this is more effective and keeps the employees and myself happier because I am not flaunting my power in their face.

Which decision making style would you prefer if you were the subordinate? Do you think that my manager is right with her decisions or wrong?

Posted By: Amy Beagles