Chapter 3: Behavioral approach

💡 Reading: P.71 - 90 (Leadership theory and practice)

Introduction to behavioral approach

Trait approach
emphasizes the personalistic characteristics of the leader (while style approach emphasizes the behavior of the
leader)

Skills approach
emphasizes the leader’s capabilities

Behavioral approach
focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act

⇒ Leadership is composed of 2 general kinds of behaviors:

1. Task behavior

focus on task achievement (focus on tasks rather than people)

2. Relationship behaviors

be stressed out if sth wrong with their relationship

help group members feel comfortable with themselves, with each others, and with the situation

⇒ Central purpose: explain how leaders combine these 2 kinds of behaviors to influence followers in their efforts
to reach a goal

Leader behavior perspective

University of Iowa 3 leadership styles
Autocratic leadership: Persons Democratic leadership: Laissez-faire leadership: Person
showing high concern for the Persons showing high showing low concern for both
task and low concern for people concern for both people and people and task. (use when
tasks people have expertise, self
Leader: ultimate position → rule control ,.. not for freshly
the procedures, less room for leader collect people’s ideas recruited)
creation and from that make decision of
his own leader: leave the task

Chapter 3: Behavioral approach 1

 The Ohio State Studies
An analysis was conducted by having followers complete questionnaires about their leaders, called the Leader
Behavior Description Questionnaire
(LBDQ ; Hemphill & Coons, 1957).

Two general types of leader behaviors: initiating structure and consideration (Stogdill, 1974)

Initiating structure behaviors are essentially task behaviors, including such acts as organizing work, giving
structure to the work context, defining role responsibilities, and scheduling work activities.

Consideration behaviors are essentially relationship behaviors and include building camaraderie, respect, trust,
and liking between leaders and followers.

The two types of behaviors identified by the LBDQ-XII (new form) represent the core of the behavioral

💡
approach and are central to what leaders do: Leaders provide structure for followers, and they nurture them.
The Ohio State studies viewed these two behaviors as distinct and independent. The degree to which a
leader exhibits one behavior is not related to the degree to which she or he exhibits the other behavior.

Eg: a leader can be high in initiating structure + high/low in task behavior

University of Michigan studies

1. Employee-oriented behaviors 2. Production-oriented behaviors

Showing mutual trust and respect Assign specific tasks

Concern for employee needs Ensure employees follow rules

Desire to look out for employee welfare Set “stretch goals” to achieve performance
capacity
Strong human relation emphasis
Workers are viewed as a means for getting work
accomplished

Chapter 3: Behavioral approach 2

 The Michigan researchers, in their initial studies, conceptualized employee and production orientations
as opposite ends of a single continuum. (while Ohio: 2 component đấy không có connection gì cả)

💡
This suggested that leaders who were oriented toward production were less oriented toward employees,
and those who were employee oriented were less production oriented. As more studies were completed.
>< The researchers
reconceptualized the two constructs, as in the Ohio State studies, as two independent leadership
orientations (Kahn, 1956). This means leaders are seen as being able to be oriented toward both
production and employees at the same time

Blake and Mouton’s Managerial (Leadership) Grid

The managerial grid has been renamed the Leadership grid

applies notion that leaders should be high on both by training people to have high task-oriented and high people-oriented styles.

The Grid is designed to explain how leaders help org to reach their purposes through 2 factors: concern for
production + concern for people

concern for production: how leader is concerned with achieving org task: attention to policy decision,

💡 new product development, process issues, workloads, sales volume

concern for people: how leaders attends to the people in the org who are trying to achieve its goal:
building org commitment, promoting the personal worth of followers, providing good work conditions,
maintaining a fair salary structure,…

1. 9.1 (authority obedience)

places heavily on task and job requirements >< less emphasis on people ⇒ people are tools for getting job
done

communicating is not emphasized except for the purpose of giving instructions about the task

result driven

Chapter 3: Behavioral approach 3

 ⇒ Leaders often seen as controlling, demanding, hard driving, overpowering

2. 1.9 (country club)

low concern for task accomplishment >< high concern for interpersonal relationships

stress attitudes and feelings people → making sure personal and social needs of followers are met

⇒ Positive climate: agreeable, eager to help. comforting, uncontroversial

3. 5.5 (Middle of the road management) → not rcm to use

compromisers: intermediate concern for both task + people

find balance btw taking people into account + emphasizing the work requirements

⇒ expedient, prefers the middle ground, soft-pedals disagreement

4. 9.9 (team management) → the most argumentative

strong emphasis on both tasks and interpersonal relationships

promotes a high degree of participation and teamwork in the organization and satisfies a basic need in
employees to be involved and committed to their work.

⇒ Leaders described as: stimulates participation, acts determined, gets issues into the open, makes priorities
clear, follows through, behaves open-mindedly, and enjoys working.

5. 1.1 (impoverished management)

unconcerned for both task + interpersonal relationships

leaders has little contact with followers

⇒ Describes as: indifferent, noncommittal, resigned, and apathetic

Chua BTVN
* 1st scenario: 9.1 (prioritize task)
* 2nd scenario: relationship btw 2 top employees is worsening
- 1.9 (pretty good)
- 9.9
* 3rd scenario: face budget cut → lay off inevitable
* 4th scenario: 9.9
* 5th scenario: 9.9 (not about relationship, that person is capable but lack discipline → needs boost, shouldn’t use
9.1)

SUMMARY:

behavioral approach provides a framework for assessing leadership with a task + relationship dimension

💡 works by describing the major components of leader’s behaviors

reminds leaders that their actions toward others occur on a task level and a relationship level. In some
situations, leaders need to be more task oriented, whereas in others they need to be more relationship
oriented. Similarly, some followers need leaders who provide a lot of direction, whereas others need
leaders who can show them a great deal of nurturance and support.

Behavioral approach assessment

1. Strengths

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 shifts from personal characteristics to what they did and how they acted (researchers previously treated
leadership exclusively as a trait)

supported from empirical studies (ohio, michigan, blake and mouton)

proposed the major types of behaviors: task and relationship → the key to being an effective leader often rests on
how the leader balances these two behaviors.

2. Criticism

no proven link btw styles and performance outcomes (such as morale, job satisfaction, and productivity)

failed to find an effective universal style of leadership in almost every situation

the suggestion that high-high style is most effective may not be the case in all situations

Chapter 3: Behavioral approach 5