Leadership styles and corresponding typical marker utterances for communicative interaction

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the growing need of higher education institutions for effective management mechanisms capable of ensuring coordinated interaction among all participants in educational activity. Under present-day conditions, the implementation and combination of different leadership styles, with due regard to the effectiveness of communication, acquire particular significance, as they contribute to the optimisation of functioning of higher education institutions, the coordination of structural units, and the strengthening of visionary management. Understanding the specific features of applying different leadership styles expands a manager's administrative capacity and enhances the effectiveness of their professional activity. The study emphasises that the concept of «leadership styles» is interpreted as a set of ways of influencing an individual / a group / a collective, as well as approaches aimed at increasing the motivation and engagement of participants of the educational process in joint activity. Classifications of leadership styles that may be applied by participants in educational activity are examined. The factors that determine the adaptation and transformation of leadership styles in management practice are identified. Particular attention is given to typical marker utterances characteristic of different leadership styles, namely: 1) instructive, regulatory/directive, evaluative/controlling, and imperative (autocratic style); 2) instructive/procedural, regulatory, organisational, formalised, and documentation-related (bureaucratic style); 3) motivational/inspirational, empathetic/value-oriented, cooperative, and personalised (charismatic style); 4) cooperative, motivational, organisational, and communicatively open (democratic style); 5) delegating, regulatory, organisational, and consultative (liberal style); 6) instructive, evaluative/motivational, and regulatory (transactional style); 7) oriented towards a common goal, team interaction, appeal to values, support for the development and self-realisation of participants of the educational process, with a focus on a long-term perspective, (transformational style); 8) reflecting a strategic vision of development, managerial effectiveness, adaptation to conditions of uncertainty, ensuring the competitiveness of an educational institution, and the implementation of the leader's resource-based role (strategic style); 9) actualising shared values, responsibility, mutual trust and inspiration, and orienting participants towards unity of goals and collective interaction (ideological style); 10) support, trust, orientation towards the development of individual potential, specification of goals, stimulation of reflection, and ensuring conscious professional growth (mentoring style); 11) involving participants in joint discussion and decision-making, openness to different positions, orientation towards compromise, delegation of authority, and summarising/recording outcomes (democratic style); 12) emphasising urgency, clarity of requirements, responsibility, the need for change, decisiveness of action, control, verification, and team activation (radical style); 13) focusing on joint activity, coordination of actions, achievement of results, mutual support, and ongoing monitoring of task performance (team-based style). The study concludes that the dynamism of a leadership style depends on communication.