| |
| |
With Mind Tools' "How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You", learn the 48 essential skills needed to be a highly effective and well-respected leader.
Click for more>>
|
Blake Mouton Managerial Grid
Balancing Task- and People-Oriented Leadership
When your boss puts you in charge of organizing
the company Christmas party, what do you do first? Do you develop
a time line and start assigning tasks or do you think about who
would prefer to do what and try to schedule around their needs?
When the planning starts to fall behind schedule, what is your
first reaction? Do you chase everyone to get back on track, or
do you ease off a bit recognizing that everyone is busy just doing
his/her job, let alone the extra tasks you’ve assigned?
Your answers to these types of questions can reveal a great
deal about your personal leadership style.
Some leaders are
very task-oriented; they simply want to get things done.
Others are very people-oriented; they want people to be
happy. And others are a combination of the two. If you
prefer to lead by setting and enforcing tight schedules, you
tend to be more production-oriented (or task-oriented). If
you make people your priority and try to accommodate
employee needs, then you’re more people-oriented.
Neither preference is right or wrong, just as
no one type of leadership style is best for all situations. However,
it's useful to understand what your natural leadership tendencies
are, so that you can then working on developing skills that you
may be missing.
A popular framework for thinking about a leader’s
‘task versus person’ orientation was developed by Robert Blake
and Jane Mouton in the early 1960s. Called the Managerial Grid,
or Leadership Grid, it plots the degree of task-centeredness versus
person-centeredness and identifies five combinations as distinct
leadership styles.
Understanding the Model
The Managerial Grid is based on two behavioral
dimensions:
- Concern for People – This
is the degree to which a leader considers the needs of team
members, their interests, and areas of personal development
when deciding how best to accomplish a task
- Concern for Production –
This is the degree to which a leader emphasizes concrete objectives,
organizational efficiency and high productivity when deciding
how best to accomplish a task.
Using the axis to plot leadership ‘concerns for production’ versus
‘concerns for people’, Blake and Mouton defined the following five
leadership styles:
Country Club Leadership – High People/Low Production
This style of leader is most concerned about the needs and feelings
of members of his/her team. These people operate under the assumption
that as long as team members are happy and secure then they will
work hard. What tends to result is a work environment that is
very relaxed and fun but where production suffers due to lack
of direction and control.
Produce or Perish Leadership – High Production/Low People
Also known as Authoritarian or Compliance Leaders, people in this
category believe that employees are simply a means to an end.
Employee needs are always secondary to the need for efficient
and productive workplaces. This type of leader is very autocratic,
has strict work rules, policies, and procedures, and views punishment
as the most effective means to motivate employees. (See also our
article on Theory
X/Theory Y.)
Impoverished Leadership – Low Production/ Low People
This leader is mostly ineffective. He/she has neither a high
regard for creating systems for getting the job done, nor for
creating a work environment that is satisfying and motivating. The
result is a place of disorganization, dissatisfaction and
disharmony.
Middle-of-the-Road Leadership – Medium Production/Medium People
This style seems to be a balance of the two competing concerns.
It may at first appear to be an ideal compromise. Therein lies
the problem, though: When you compromise, you necessarily give
away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people
needs are fully met. Leaders who use this style settle for average
performance and often believe that this is the most anyone can
expect.
Team Leadership – High Production/High People
According to the Blake Mouton model, this is the pinnacle of managerial
style. These leaders stress production needs and the needs of
the people equally highly. The premise here is that employees
are involved in understanding organizational purpose and determining
production needs. When employees are committed to, and have a
stake in the organization’s success, their needs and production
needs coincide. This creates a team environment based on trust
and respect, which leads to high satisfaction and motivation and,
as a result, high production. (See also our article on Theory
Y.)
Applying the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid
Being aware of the various approaches is the
first step in understanding and improving how well you perform
as a manager. It is important to understand how you currently
operate, so that you can then identify ways of becoming competent
in both realms.
Step One: Identify your leadership style.
- Think of some recent situations where you
were the leader.
- For each of these situations, place yourself
in the grid according to where you believe you fit.
Step Two: Identify areas of improvement and develop your
leadership skills
-
Look at your current leadership method and critically analyze
its effectiveness.
- Look at ways you can improve. Are you settling for ‘middle of
the road’ because it is easier than reaching for more?
- Identify ways to get the skills you need
to reach the Team Leadership position. These may include involving
others in problem
solving or improving how you communicate
with them, if you feel you are too task-oriented. Or it may
mean becoming clearer about scheduling
or monitoring
project progress if you tend to focus too much on people.
- Continually monitor your performance and
watch for situations when you slip back into bad old habits.
Step Three: Put the Grid in Context
It is important to recognize that the Team Leadership style isn’t
always the most effective approach in every situation. While the
benefits of democratic and participative management are universally
accepted, there are times that call for more attention in one
area than another. If your company is in the midst of a merger
or some other significant change, it is often acceptable to place
a higher emphasis on people than on production. Likewise, when
faced with an economic hardship or physical risk, people concerns
may be placed on the back burner, for the short-term at least,
to achieve high productivity and efficiency.
Note:
Theories of leadership have moved on a certain amount since
the Blake Mouton Grid was originally proposed. In particular,
the context in which leadership occurs is now seen as an
important driver of the leadership style used.
And in many situations, the "Team
Leader" as an ideal has moved to the ideal of the "Transformational
Leader": Someone who, according to leadership researcher
Bernard Bass:
- Is a model
of integrity and fairness;
- Sets clear
goals;
- Has high expectations;
- Encourages;
- Provides support
and recognition;
- Stirs people's
emotions;
- Gets people
to look beyond their self-interest; and
- Inspires people
to reach for the improbable.
So use Blake Mouton as a helpful model,
but don't treat it as an "eternal truth".
|
Key Points
The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid is a practical
and useful framework that helps you think about your leadership
style. By plotting ‘concern for production’ against ‘concern for
people’, the grid highlights how placing too much emphasis in
one area at the expense of the other leads to low overall productivity.
The model proposes that when both people and
production concerns are high, employee engagement and productivity
increases accordingly. This is often true, and it follows the
ideas of Theories X and Y, and other participative management
theories.
While the grid does not entirely address the complexity of “Which
leadership style is best?”, it certainly provides an excellent
starting place to critically analyze your own performance and
improve your general leadership skills.
MindTools.com - Join Our Community!
Spread the Word:
New Articles (Not included in the Mind Tools E-book.)
* Shows articles available in full only to Career Excellence Club Premium members
A Bit of Perfume - Giving praise, by Bruna Martinuzzi
Working in Virtual Teams - Team working that overcomes time and space*
Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions - Understanding values around the World
The Uncertainty Factor - by Bruna Martinuzzi
Optimism - The hidden asset, by Bruna Martinuzzi
A Leader's Mood - The dimmer switch of performance, by Bruna Martinuzzi
Humility - The most beautiful word in the English language, by Bruna Martinuzzi
"I Swear by Apollo" - Being accountable to yourself in leadership
What's Empathy Got to Do With It? by Bruna Martinuzzi
Cross Cultural Leadership*
Leading Equals - Motivating people effectively, without authority*
Crisis Planning - Preparing your response to the unexpected*
A full list of Mind Tools articles is available here.
return to top
Learn to manage the stress in your life with our sister site, stress.mindtools.com.
Mind Tools Store: Mind Tools Ebook, Make Time for Success
Stress Management Masterclass, How to Lead, Design Your Life
Relaxation MP3s
© Mind Tools Ltd, 1995-2008, All Rights Reserved
For requests to reprint or reproduce material from this site, please contact our Permissions Center.
Store · Search · Newsletter · Downloads · Advertisers · Affiliates
MindTools.com is one of the Internet's most-visited career skills resources.
Click here to see analysis.
Time
Management
