STYLE APPROACH

Question 2

Leadership Style Approach
2 Types

Answer 2

• Task behaviours
  Facilitate goal accomplishment: Help group members achieve objectives
  • Relationship behaviours
    Help subordinates feel comfortable with themselves, each other, and the situation
• Emphasizes the behaviour of the leader and focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act

Question 3

University of Michigan Studies: Results

Answer 3

Results – Two types of leadership behaviours 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 behaviours as two independent leadership orientations – possible orientation to both at the same time

Question 4

Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Grid (1964)
Interpersonal skills and conscientiousness (goal driven)

( Two factors )

Answer 4

• Concern for production/tasks
  * How a leader is concerned with achieving organizational tasks
• Concern for people/relationships
  • How a leader attends to the members of the organization who are trying to achieve its goals

Question 5

• Authority-Compliance (9,1)

Answer 5

Focused on task
Not so much focused on people

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

Question 6

• Country Club (1,9)

Answer 6

Focus mainly on the relationship
* Thoughtful attention to the needs of people leads to a comfortable, friendly organizational atmosphere and work tempo

• Role focus
  
  • Low concern for task accomplishment coupled with high concern for interpersonal relationships
• De-emphasizes 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

Question 7

• Impoverished (1,1)

Answer 7

Older people…Do not want to lean into the task or relationship side. Going through the motion
* Minimal effort exerted to get work done is appropriate to sustain organizational membership

• Role focus
  
  • 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

Question 8

• Middle-of-the-road (5,5)

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Team (9,9) …Leadership that we want

Answer 9

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

Question 10

• Paternalism / Maternalism (1,9 ; 9,1)

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Opportunism

Answer 11

• People adapt and shift to any grid style needed to gain maximum advantage
  • *Note: Leaders usually have a dominant grid style used in most situations and a backup style that is reverted to when under pressure
  • Role focus
    
    • 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

Question 12

How does the style approach work

Answer 12

• Focus: Primarily a framework for assessing leadership as behaviour with a task and relationship dimension
• Overall scope: Offers a general means of assessing the behaviours of leaders

Question 13

Strengths for Style Approach

Answer 13

• Style Approach marked a major shift in leadership research from exclusively trait focused to include behaviours 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 behaviours: task and relationship
• The style approach is heuristic – leaders can learn a lot about themselves and how they come across to others by trying to see their behaviours in light of the task and relationship dimensions

Question 14

Criticisms of Style Approach

Answer 14

• 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 HighHigh style (i.e., high task/high relationship); research finding support is limited

Question 15

Application for Style Approach

Answer 15

• 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 behaviours to become more effective
  • The style approach applies to nearly everything a leader does