Chapter 4 - Style Approach

Perspective

• Emphasizes the behavior of the leader

• Focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act

-> style = what leaders do, their behaviour (decision-making, inspiring, delegating,…)

Defintion

Comprised of 2 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

Task-oriented: e.g. explain the task/goal to employees

People-oriented: e.g. motivate, inspire employees

Why do we study all three?

In addition to skills and traits, so what we are and can do it can defer from what we are actually doing  this is why we have to study behaviour / style

Example:

• you can be an extrovert and have low communicatio skills, but still communicate a lot (because you are extroverted)

• you can be an introverts and have good communication skills and communicate more

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

 LBDQ-XII (Stogdill, 1963)

• 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

In the Ohio study they call the two groups initiating structure (give goals and means) and consideration (emotional support)

-> in addition to the Ohio study, the Michigan study take group size into account – they found the same

• 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

People and Taks are seen as opposite sides of the same continuum

-> it is a bit simpliefied to look at it that way – it is mutually exclusive

We should look at it as two separate dimensions (one for task and one for people where you can score from 1-9 on both scales, and do not have a combined score)

• Authority-Compliance (9,1)

• Country Club Management (1,9)

• Impoverished Management (1,1)

• Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5)

• Team Management (9,9)

-> numbers in brackets: first refers to task-orientation and second to people-orientation

Development

• Developed in early 1960s

• Used extensively in organizational training & development

Purpose

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

Definition

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

Definition

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

-> get nothing done

Definition

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

Definition

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”

Definition

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

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

Overall Scope: Offers a general means of assessing the behaviors of leaders

• Style 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 style 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

• 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.

• 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