Title: Effects of Authoritative and

participative leadership styles on customer

relations of subordinates
Introduction:
Importance:
The evolving idea of marketing is that in order to stay competitive in the market for a long term,

businesses should not rely on selling products but on fulfilling needs of the customers. For instance, an

airline should not focus on selling flights, but travel experience to people. People are now interested in

buying the experience more than they are interested in buying the core product itself.

Thus, in this struggle to be competitive, customer relationship becomes one of the key components of

any company’s marketing strategy. If its employees have good customer relations, they will be better

able to assess their market’s needs and find ways to improve the customers’ experience. Through using

effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM), companies can affectively segment the customers

according to their needs, customize their communications as per the segmentation and ultimately build

a better customer equity.

At the very core of this process are people who are at the front lines for the customers. These

individuals can gain insights from the customers, analyze how to make the company’s service better for

the customer and give them a unique experience. Their knack of customer relations begin the

company’s journey to success among its competition.

Research Gap and Research question

There is a huge amount of literature on the components of both leadership and their effect on

subordinates, particularly on their productivity and learning. However, there is scarcity of research on

concepts that are sometimes innate to the people or sometimes based on their interactions with other.
To clarify further; a customer relations officer who has been working in the industry for 10 years would

be considered significantly better in handling customers than the time when he had just joined the

company. However, in order to find out if his could have more in other circumstances or not, it remains

a question.

Scholars have become very interested in the concepts of team development and organizational learning

when the fast pace of market started requiring the companies to change rapidly according to the shifting

needs of the customers. Effectively, it’s the leadership that influences what learning path the employees

choose to take and what skills they develop and which ones they inhibit.

This paper focuses on determining the effect of two leadership styles on the employees’ customer

relations to assess how much can a leadership style can impact a person’s innate ability to deal with

people and contribute to the success of the company.

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