Criminology

As the warden of a medium-sized correctional facility, I would take my responsibility as one of rehabilitating my chargees and helping them adjust to normal life. As my relationship with my juniors will affect their relationships with the inmates, I would aspire to establish a healthy and democratic relationship with all employees working at the facility. I would therefore employ participative leadership. As much as the responsibility of making final decisions on issues pertaining to the facility would rest on me, I would encourage my juniors to participate actively in decision-making.

Research has established that there exists a strong relationship between employee performance and the leadership (Hayward, 2005). Leaders who motivate, give the space and encourage their employees to take part in decision-making report better performance or increased productivity among their juniors. Participative leadership produces psychological empowerment which motivates workers to work harder and smarter (Huang et al., 2009). One of my aims of adopting the leadership style would therefore be to empower my juniors psychologically, thereby motivating them to treat and relate well with the inmates.

I would appreciate that as a warden, some of the decisions I make may not be the best for my juniors. Taking the entire responsibility of making decisions without taking contributions from the employees would increase my chances of making decisions which impact negatively on my juniors and their performance. By seeking the honest contributions of my juniors in decision-making, I would expect that my decisions would be sensitive to the needs of my juniors. In return, I would expect the employees to own the decisions and therefore feel motivated to implement them.