The Blake and Mouton's Managerial (Leadership) Grid

Abstract

Managing a project successfully is not a trivial task and it requires capable managers. In Project Management the terms "Manager" and "Leader" are often used with the same meaning. However, several theories about the differences between Management and Leadership have been developed over the years. Even defining exactly what characterizes a good leader is not an easy task and academics have been trying for decades to provide a definition. Despite these attempts, scholars could not find a universal definition and only theories are available.

One of the most relevant theories was firstly introduced by Blake and Mouton in the early 1960 and it has been revised by the authors for more than two decades. The original name of this theory was "The Managerial Grid", however, it was renamed "The Leadership Grid" to better describe its relevance in the Leadership field. It belongs to the group of theories that follow the Behavioral approach. They emphasize what is the behavior of the leader in the activity of leading an organization. Other relevant perspectives are the Trait approach, which is mainly focused on the personality of the leader, and the Skills approach, which emphasizes his/her capabilities.

The Leadership Grid is a matrix that shows how leaders can be effective in leading an organization by taking into account two parameters: Concern for results and Concern for people. The first one is represented on the x-axis and the second one on the y-axis of this 9x9 matrix. The combinations of the respective relevance of these two factors define five main approaches to leadership.

This article aims to describe the main aspects of this theory together with its applications, and its limitations. Appropriate documentation for further readings is also included.

Introduction

1. 1. Maybe I can split it and introduce something about leadership in project management

Leadership and Management are often considered interchangeable terms. Even if it is true that these two fields have some similarities, it is also relevant to analyze their differences. Over the years, many authors have tried to define clearly the characteristics of a manager and a leader and which are the respective roles in an organization. According to Fayol (1916), the managerial role can be summarized in five functions: Planning, Organizing, Command, Coordination, and Control. In other words, a manager is responsible to provide stability and order to a company. On the contrary, leadership is about guiding the organization in the process of changing and adapting to a new situation. So, Management and Leadership are not the same, however, they are both relevant to making a company successful.

Managerial power usually comes from the position of the manager in the organizational structure. The authority does not come from personal skills or abilities, it is determined by a formal structure in the company. Identifying from where the authority of a leader comes from is not as easy and different theories argue for different sources. One of the most famous questions in the Leadership field is "Are Leaders born or made?" and it has not a universal answer.

The trait approach supports the theory that Leaders are born and only a few people have these innate qualities. It was the first attempt to define why some are better than others in leading a group and these efforts led to the Big Five personalities framework. During the years, this approach led also to some failures. For these deadends, scholars started to develop theories based on the idea that good leadership comes from the way the leader behaves and that this ability can be trained. This is the fundamental idea of the Behavioral approach and the Leadership Grid belongs to this group of theories. However, neither traits nor behaviors can guarantee success. Supporters of the Contingency approach believe that the context matters as well.

Many different theories that belong to the described approaches are available. However, this article aims to describe the applications and limitations of the Leadership Grid in this context.

The Leadership Grid

The Leadership Grid aims to describe different approaches that a leader can adopt in leading an organization. The authors defined two main factors that influence managers' behavior: Concern for production and Concern for people. These two factors are used to define a 9*9 matrix where Concern for production is represented on the x-axis and Concern for people on the y-axis.

Concern for production refers to the importance of achieving organizational goals for the leader. These goals might be about products or services provided by the company at they generally include any type of objects they are trying to accomplish.

On the other hand, concern for people is entirely about the members of the organization that are involved in the process of achieving the objectives. It includes activities like building trust and commitment to the company, improving working conditions for the employees, and promoting good social relationships.

By combining the respective relevance of these two concerns, Blake and Mouton defined five different managerial approaches. To define the position of each one of them, a score is assigned to both concerns for people and production. The grading scale goes from 1, which represents the minimum concern, to 9, which represents the maximum level of concern. Different leadership styles are obtained by plotting the scores for both axes in the matrix. The authors argue that managers usually have a dominant style, that is the one mostly adopted, and a backup style. the second one becomes dominant in difficult situations, where the usual style does not provide results.

The main Managerial style are Authority-Compliance Management, Country-Club Management, Impoverished Management, Middle-of-the-Road Management, Team Management.

Leadership Styles

Authority-Compliance Management (9,1)

This approach is mainly focused on the importance of achieving organizational goals. Indeed, it is located in the bottom-right corner of the matrix with a score of 9 for Concern for production and a score of 1 for Concern for people. It emphasizes the relevance of the tasks over the people involved. This managerial style almost considers employees only a tool to achieve the objectives of the company. This approach is entirely goal-oriented and communication is limited to providing instructions to complete tasks. The main characteristics of this type of leader are authority and control.

Country-Club Management (1,9)

This approach is completely the opposite of Authority-Compliance Management. It is located in the top-left corner of the matrix with the highest possible score for Concern for people and the lowest one for Concer for production. The main concern of the leader is the well-being of his followers over the achievement of organizational goals. The manager aims to create a good working environment with a friendly atmosphere where employees feel comfortable. The leader is usually eager to help, comforting, and uncontroversial and he tries to ensure that the social needs of the workers are always met.

Impoverished Management (1,1)

This Management style is located in the bottom-left corner of the matrix and has the lowest possible score in both Concerns for production and people. The leader laks interest in both organizational goals and interpersonal relationships among the employees. The main characteristics are indifference, apathy, and almost no contact with the followers.

Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5)

The 5,5 style is located in the middle ground between concern for production and people and it is mainly based on the ability of the leader to compromise. The leader shows an intermediate concern for the people who perform the task and the task itself. This results in a style that, at the same time, pushes the production and shows attention towards the workers' needs. Leaders who belong to this group are usually conflict-avoiding, they prefer the middle-ground, and renounce their beliefs in the interest of the organizational progress.

Team Management (9,9)

This type of management is located in the top-right corner of the matrix with the highest score in both concerns for people and production. The leader usually promoted teamwork and the goal is to create commitment in the workers in order to increase the level of their performance. This type of manager is often described as open-minded, determined, interested in their work, and good at stimulating the followers in participating in the activities. Organizations led by 9,9 leaders are characterized by an environment based on trust and respect.

Additional Management Styles

The authors have identified two additional managerial styles that come from the incorporation of multiple aspects of the Leadership grid.

The Paternalism/Maternalism approach includes both 1,9 and 9,1 without being able of integrating them. This type of leader is usually defined as a "benevolent dictator" because he acts benevolently with the employees but with the only purpose of achieving organizational goals. The company is considered similar to a family and the manager, that is in a position of authority, is responsible to make decisions and punish or reward the followers.

The last approach is called "Opportunism" because this type of manager is willing to adopt any kind of combination of the grid with the only purpose of obtaining personal advancement. The efforts of the leader are towards achieving his personal goals and he will shift and adapt his managerial style to achieve them. Some argue that these leaders are strategic and adaptable while others define them as ruthless and self-motivated.

Applications

The Leadership Grid is a theory that belongs to the Behavioural approach. Theories that are part of this approach aim to define which are the main components of a manager's behavior rather than identifying the characteristics of a good leader. In other words, the grid is a good management tool if it is used by people in charge to understand their way of leading. Different situations require a different approach and leaders should be able to combine the two approaches. For example, followers might require a manager who is task-oriented and shows exactly how to proceed, or they could prefer a leader more relationship-oriented that mainly shows support to their activities. It is important to underline that the right way of leading a specific organization depends on the response of the employees to the two different approaches and a leader should be able to adapt in order to improve his management style.

How to use the grid

As mentioned above, the Leadership Grid is a powerful tool to assess managers' performance and it could be used to answer questions like "How am I doing as a leader?". The easiest way to use it is through questionnaires. Managers are asked to answer some questions that aim to assess if they are more task or people-oriented.

Bibliography

- Robbins, S. P. and, Judge T. A. (2013), Organizational Behavior (15th Edition), Pearson Education

- Northouse, P. G. (2018), Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th Edition), SAGE Publishing