Page 389 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

2 thE BEhaVIORS What Behaviors Do Leaders Exhibit?

• Would behavioral theories of leadership provide more definitive

answers about the nature of leadership?

• If behavioral theories could identify critical behavioral determinants of leader-

ship, people could be trained to be leaders—the premise behind management
development programs.

UNIVERSItY OF IOWa 4 OhIO StatE 5 UNIVERSItY OF MIChIGaN 6 MaNaGERIaL GRID 7
Behavioral Dimension Behavioral Dimension Behavioral Dimension Behavioral Dimension
Democratic style: involving sub- Consideration: being considerate of Employee oriented: emphasized Concern for people: measured
ordinates, delegating authority, and followers’ ideas and feelings interpersonal relationships and taking leader’s concern for subordinates on a
encouraging participation care of employees’ needs scale of 1 to 9 (low to high)
Initiating structure: structuring work
autocratic style: dictating work and work relationships to meet job Production oriented: emphasized Concern for production: measured
methods, centralizing decision making, goals technical or task aspects of job leader’s concern for getting job done
and limiting participation on a scale 1 to 9 (low to high)
CONCLUSION CONCLUSION
Laissez-faire style: giving group CONCLUSION
freedom to make decisions and High–high leader (high in consider- Employee-oriented leaders were
complete work ation and high in initiating structure) associated with high group productivity Leaders performed best with a 9,9
achieved high subordinate perfor- and higher job satisfaction. style (high concern for production and
CONCLUSION mance and satisfaction, but not in all high concern for people).
situations
Democratic style of leadership was
most effective, although later studies
showed mixed results.

What Now?

• Dual nature of leader behaviors—

that is, focusing on the work to
be done and focusing on the
employees—is an important char-

acteristic of each of these studies.

• Leadership researchers were

discovering that predicting leader-
ship success involved something Coloures-pic/Fotolia

more complex than isolating a few leader traits or preferable behaviors.

• They began looking at situational influences. Specifically, which leadership

styles might be suitable in different situations and what were these
different situations?

behavioral theories of leadership managerial grid
Theories that isolate behaviors that differentiate effective A two-dimensional grid for appraising leadership styles
leaders from ineffective leaders

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