Blake and Mouton in the 1960’s created a leadership behavior, known today as the Leadership Grid. The grid focuses on two factors: concern for production and concern for people. The concern for production refers to how a leader is worried about accomplishing organizational tasks. The other part is concern for people which looks at how the leader helps people within the organization who are trying to achieve its goals. (PSU WD, L. 5.)The leadership grid is broken up between concern for people on the y-axis and on the x-axis is the concern for results. There are 5 major leadership skills on this chart: authority-compliance management (9, 1), impoverished management (1, 1), middle-of-the road management (5, 5), country-club management (1, 9), and team management (9, 9) (Northouse, 2013).
From these 5 major leadership skills, team management, is the one that I want to discuss more in depth. Team management is described by Northouse, (2013) as being able to place a strong emphasis on both tasks and interpersonal relationships. On the leadership grid it has the highest possible score for concern for people and results.
On my internship this past summer I worked with a construction company in the Washington D.C area. I was on site for this project that was being built. As intern I was fulfilling a project engineer role, I was under the supervision of two project managers that had been with the company for a few years. I was able to tell that they both had team management skills. They were determined to make every effort to participate and make sure the project was on schedule. Both of the project managers were determined to let everyone know certain concerns that they may have had with the task that they were trying to complete. Then once those issues were discussed they were able to determine the best course of action starting with the most important to the least important. The entire summer I really enjoyed working with these guys, on this project. I was able to learn a lot from them over a three month internship. After the internship was over I was offered a full time position. With these two project engineers team management skills, as well as the other people in the company also having this team management skill. I felt that this would be the perfect fit for me after college.
In conclusion the team management skill is the one at the top, because this is what a leader should aim to be. They need to be able to establish what priority is and then be able to follow through with these tasks. As well as being enjoyable to work with while working with their followers.
Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5: Introduction to leadership. Retrieved on Feb. 9, 2013, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp13/psych485/003/content/01_lesson/01_page.html.
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6th edition). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
BENTON KARL PEARCE says
Dear Adam,
First off, congratulations on receiving a job offer after graduation. Do you plan on accepting it? I do agree that of the grid by Blake and Mouton (PSU Lesson 5), team management is the most valuable to a good leader. I think this because it shows they can build relationships with their employees while also getting the job at hand done, the perfect combination for leading. It sounds like from your personal experience that when a leader shows team management skills that it makes the workplace much more enjoyable. Did you happen to run into any workers that did not possess these skills but rather another on the grid by Blake & Mouton? Does this also mean that you agree with the Style approach more than the Situational approach to leadership?
Ben.
Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5: Introduction to leadership. Retrieved on Feb. 9, 2013, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp13/psych485/003/content/01_lesson/01_page.html.