Leadership Theories: Behavioral Theories

2.6.3 Behavioral Theories

Behavioral theories of leadership do not seek inborn traits or capabilities.

Rather, they look at what leaders actually do.

If success can be defined in terms of describable actions, then it should be relatively easy for other people to act in the same way.

This is easier to teach and learn then to adopt the more ephemeral 'traits' or 'capabilities'.

• Leaders can be made, rather than are born.
• Successful leadership is based in definable, learnable behavior.

Discussion

Behavioral is a big leap from Trait Theory, in that it assumes that leadership capability can be learned, rather than being inherent. This opens the floodgates to leadership development, as opposed to simple psychometric assessment that sorts those with leadership potential from those who will never have the chance.

A behavioral theory is relatively easy to develop, as you simply assess both leadership success and the actions of leaders. With a large enough study, you can then correlate statistically significant behaviors with success. You can also identify behaviors, which contribute to failure, thus adding a second layer of understanding.

OHIO State studies

The research study conducted by OHIO State narrowed down the role behavior of leaders in two dimensions Initiating structure and Consideration.
Initiating structure refers to the extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her role and those of the employees in the search for goal attainment. It relates to behavior that attempts to organize work, work relationships and goals.

Consideration is described as the extent to which a leader is likely to have a job relationship characterized by mutual trust, respect for sub-ordinates' ideas and regard for their feelings.

University of Michigan Studies

The Michigan group also came up with two dimensions of leader behavior employee oriented and production oriented. Employee oriented leaders were seen to have higher productivity and higher job satisfaction.

The Managerial Grid

Leaders may be concerned for their people and they also must also have some concern for the work to be done. The question is, how much attention to they pay to one or the other? This is a model defined by Blake and Mouton in the early 1960s.

Impoverished management
Minimum effort to get the work done. A basically lazy approach that avoids as much work as possible.

Authority-compliance
Strong focus on task, but with little concern for people. Focus on efficiency, including the elimination of people wherever possible.

Country Club management
Care and concern for the people, with a comfortable and friendly environment and collegial style. But a low focus on task may give questionable results.

Middle of the road management
A weak balance of focus on both people and the work. Doing enough to get things done, but not pushing the boundaries of what may be possible.

Team management
Firing on all cylinders: people are committed to task and leader is committed to people (as well as task).

Discussion
This is a well-known grid that uses the Task vs. Person preference that appears in many other studies, such as the Michigan Leadership Studies and the Ohio State Leadership Studies. Many other task-people models and variants have appeared since then. They are both clearly important dimensions, but as other models point out, they are not all there is to leadership and management. The Managerial Grid was the original name. It later changed to the Leadership Grid.

Scandinavian Studies

The Scandinavian study included a third dimension of development orientation to meet the challenges of the changing external environment. All the behavioral theories emphasize on the role behavior of the leader. However they are completely missing out on the situational factors that influence the behavior.