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College of Professional Studies �� Master of Science in Leadership

LDR 6100 Developing Your Leadership Capabilities

6 Week Term Module Dr. Richard L. O’Bryant

[email protected]

•  Behavioral Approach Perspective

•  Ohio State Studies

•  University of Michigan Studies

•  Blake & Mouton’s Leadership Grid

•  How Does the Style Approach Work?

Overview

Behavioral Approach Description

•  Emphasizes the behavior of the leader

•  Focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act

•  Composed of two general kinds of Behaviors •  Task behaviors

•  Facilitate goal accomplishment: Help group members achieve objectives

•  Relationship behaviors •  Help subordinates feel

comfortable with themselves, each other, and the situation

Perspective Definition

Ohio State Studies •  Leadership Behavior Description

Questionnaire (LBDQ)

–  Identify number of times leaders engaged in specific behaviors

•  150 questions –  Participant settings (military, industrial, educational) –  Results

•  Particular clusters of behaviors were typical of leaders

Ohio State Studies, cont’d. •  LBDQ-XII (Stogdill, 1963)

–  Shortened version of the LBDQ

–  Most widely used leadership assessment instrument

–  Results - Two general types of leader behaviors:

•  Initiating structure – Leaders provide structure for subordinates

–  Task behaviors - organizing work, giving structure to the work context, defining role responsibility, scheduling work activities

•  Consideration - Leaders nurture subordinates –  Relationship behaviors – building camaraderie, respect,

trust, & liking between leaders & followers

University of Michigan Studies •  Exploring leadership behavior

–  Specific emphasis on impact of leadership behavior on performance of small groups

•  Results - Two types of leadership behaviors conceptualized as opposite ends of a single continuum

–  Employee orientation •  Strong human relations emphasis

–  Production orientation •  Stresses the technical aspects of a job

–  Later studies reconceptualized behaviors as two independent leadership orientations - possible orientation to both at the same time

Blake & Mouton’s Grid

•  Historical Perspective •  Leadership Grid Components

•  Authority-Compliance (9,1) •  Country Club Management (1,9) •  Impoverished Management (1,1) •  Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5) •  Team Management (9,9) •  Paternalism/Maternalism (1,9; 9,1) •  Opportunism

Historical Perspective Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Leadership Grid

•  Developed in early 1960s

•  Used extensively in organizational training & development

•  Designed to explain how leaders help organizations to reach their purposes –  Two factors

•  Concern for production –  How a leader is concerned with

achieving organizational tasks •  Concern for people

–  How a leader attends to the members of the organization who are trying to achieve its goals

Development Purpose

Authority-Compliance (9,1)

•  Efficiency in operations results from arranging conditions of work such that human interference is minimal

•  Heavy emphasis on task and job requirements and less emphasis on people

•  Communicating with subordinates mainly for task instructions

•  Results driven – people regarded as tools to that end

•  9,1 leaders – seen as controlling, demanding, hard-driving, & overpowering

Role Focus Definition

Country Club (1,9)

•  Thoughtful attention to the needs of people leads to a comfortable, friendly organizational atmosphere and work tempo

•  Low concern for task accomplishment coupled with high concern for interpersonal relationships

•  Deemphasizes production; leaders stress the attitudes and feelings of people

•  1,9 leaders – try to create a positive climate by being agreeable, eager to help, comforting, noncontroversial

Definition Role Focus

Impoverished (1,1)

•  Minimal effort exerted to get work done is appropriate to sustain organizational membership

•  Leader unconcerned with both task and interpersonal relationships

•  Going through the motions, but uninvolved and withdrawn

•  1,1 leaders – have little contact with followers and are described as indifferent, noncommittal, resigned, and apathetic

Role Focus Definition

Middle-of-the-Road (5,5)

•  Adequate organizational performance possible through balancing the necessity of getting work done while maintaining satisfactory morale

•  Leaders who are compromisers; have intermediate concern for task and people who do task

•  To achieve equilibrium, leader avoids conflict while emphasizing moderate levels of production and interpersonal relationships

•  5,5 leader – described as expedient; prefers the middle ground; soft- pedals disagreement; swallows convictions in the interest of “progress”

Definition Role Focus

Team (9,9)

•  Work accomplished through committed people; interdependence via a “common stake” in the organization’s purpose, which leads to relationships of trust and respect

•  Strong emphasis on both tasks and interpersonal relationships

•  Promotes high degree of participation & teamwork, satisfies basic need of employee to be involved & committed to their work

•  9,9 leader – stimulates participation, acts determined, makes priorities clear, follows through, behaves open-mindedly and enjoys working

Definition Role Focus

Paternalism / Maternalism

• Reward and approval are bestowed on people in return for loyalty and obedience; failure to comply leads to punishment

•  Leaders who use both 1,9 and 9,1 without integrating the two

•  The “benevolent dictator”; acts gracious for purpose of goal accomplishment

•  Treats people as though they were disassociated from the task

•  Regards the organization as a family •  Makes most of the key decisions •  Rewards loyalty and punishes non-

compliance

Definition Role Focus

Opportunism

•  People adapt and shift to any grid style needed to gain maximum advantage

•  Performance occurs according to a system of selfish gain

•  Leader uses any combination of the basic five styles for the purpose of personal advancement

•  May be seen as ruthless and cunning

•  May also be seen as adaptable and strategic

Definition Role Focus

Leaders usually have a dominant grid style used in most situa3ons and a backup style that is reverted to when under pressure

How Does the Behavioral Approach Work?

•  Focus of Behavioral Approach

•  Strengths

•  Criticisms

•  Application

Behavioral Approach

•  Primarily a framework for assessing leadership as behavior with a task and relationship dimension

•  Offers a general means of assessing the behaviors of leaders

Focus Overall Scope

Strengths •  Behavioral approach marked a major shift in leadership

research from exclusively trait focused to include behaviors and actions of leaders

•  Broad range of studies on leadership style validates and gives credibility to the basic tenets of the approach

•  At conceptual level, a leader’s style is composed of two major types of behaviors: task and relationship

•  The behavioral approach is heuristic—leaders can learn a lot about themselves and how they come across to others by trying to see their behaviors in light of the task and relationship dimensions

Criticisms •  Research has not adequately demonstrated how

leaders’ styles are associated with performance outcomes

•  No universal style of leadership that could be effective in almost every situation

•  Implies that the most effective leadership style is High-High style (i.e., high task/high relationship); research finding support is limited

Application •  Many leadership training and development programs

are designed along the lines of the style approach.

•  By assessing their own style, managers can determine how they are perceived by others and how they could change their behaviors to become more effective.

•  The style approach applies to nearly everything a leader does.

LDR 6100 Developing Your Leadership Capabilities

6 Week Term Module Dr. Richard L. O’Bryant

[email protected]