I found the behavioral approach to be very interesting. Pertaining to management style, several instances jump out to me that occurred over the course of my professional career. Instances where a type of leadership style impacts the amount of work accomplished or overall workplace environment. For example a worker may feel like they are unappreciated, only there to accomplish a task and easily replaceable. While this approach may obtain the overall goal, a good team environment is not there which will most likely result in high turn over. Diving into this deeper, which styles create a good workplace environment? There certainly are leadership behaviors that favor workplace production and other that promote a great team environment. “The behavior approach focuses on what leaders do and how they act” (Northouse 2016, Page 71). I will further examine the factors associated with creating a good workplace environment and the leadership behaviors associated with it.
Looking at the three behavioral studies covered in our class textbook, Ohio State, Michigan and the Blake and Moutons Leadership Grid, all three are strikingly similar. Two main points are the focus of these studies, task behaviors and relationship behaviors. First task behaviors is where the leader is focused on accomplishing goals, meaning that reaching project goals are of the highest priority. Next “Relationship behaviors is where the leader is focused on building relationships with other team members, making everyone feel comfortable with themselves, each other and with the situation”. (Angel, Lesson 5 Page 4). This is where specific examples from my career stood out to me. One winter while working on the grounds crew at a private country club, our crew started a project to build a fence along the far side of the golf course. The crew started off in good spirits, as it was a chance to do something different. Our supervisor pushed us to work on this project non-stop from the beginning, which included the crew working in some very cold weather. Once we started getting close to completion, our supervisor pushed us further. He offered to buy everyone lunch if we finished the fence by the end of the week. We all worked hard to achieve this goal and eventually accomplished it, resulting in a nice lunch. However the following day all crewmembers except management were told they would be laid off for the remainder of the winter. This unexpected move left the staff questioning their employment as they did not want to work for a manager that seemed to not care about any individuals needs, instead he was very focused on accomplishing his own task goals which made him look good to his direct supervisors. In this instance, productivity was very high although this style of management resulted in severed workplace relationships.
Building relationship behaviors between a leader and their followers is very important to obtaining a well functioning team. I have seen this first hand, where management takes time to talk with employees to get to know them on a personal level. “They take an interest in workers as human beings, value their individuality, and give special attention to their personal needs” (Northouse, 2016 Page 71). I believe this goes a long way to help motivate employees to do the best job they can and in the end obtain very good results. Having the opportunity to work on several different golf courses in my career, gave me a good perspective of different behavioral styles. At my last place of employment I was lucky enough to work under a golf course superintendent that held his relationship behaviors in a high regard. Taking the time to introduce new employees to the staff and spending time with them while they are new goes a long way. Employee appreciation is a behavior that I took away from my time there. This manager would tell the staff members they did a good job, buy lunch for everyone on a Friday, was not too hard on them and only pushed the crew when needed. The result of this behavioral style was a tight-nit group of hard working followers, which would stay late when needed and ultimately had a good overall attitude. But what is the perfect balance between task and relationship behaviors? This is a debated topic but there has to be a balance between both relationship and task behaviors for a leader to be effective.
Blake and Mouton take the correlation between relationship and task behaviors one step further with the development of their leadership grid. Blake and Mouton detail two main factors in their gird, concern for production and concern for people. These two factor closely mirror both task and relationship behaviors discussed earlier. Blake and Mouton point out five major leadership styles, (Northouse Page 74). Out of these five, I believe two are styles of an effective leader. First team management places a strong emphasis on both tasks and relationships. This style “Promotes a high degree of participation and teamwork, which satisfies a basic need in employees to be committed to their work” (Northouse, 2016 Page 76). I have worked under a manager that fits into this leadership style and overall he was very effective motivating his staff to achieve company goals and also build relationships with his employees. He was able to lead an undersized crew to achieve great accomplishments using this style. People wanted to work for him, and had several staff member’s return each spring following a winter lay off period. The next style is middle of the road management. In this case, leaders are compromisers and exhibit an intermediate approach for both task and people behaviors. “Their compromising style gives up some of the push for production and some of the attention to employee needs to arrive at an equilibrium” (Northouse, 2016 Page 76). The key with this example is balance, in order to be an effective leader a balance between task and relationship behavior is crucial. If a leader is too task oriented, their followers will feel unappreciated and not be happy. Even though work may be getting accomplished on time, the team will be in disarray. If a leader is too relationship oriented, followers will not be encouraged to work as hard and deadlines may be missed.
As you can see a leader must employ a proper balance of task and relationship behavior to effectively lead. By using these two leadership styles Blake and Mouton have outlined, Team Management and Middle of the Road Management. Leaders are able to create a good workplace environment and lead an effective work force. By creating relationships between management and workers along with staying focused at the task at hand will provide the healthiest work place environment. This type of environment will provide a setting where workers feel both comfortable and driven to accomplish team goals.
References:
Northouse, Peter G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and Practice, 7th Edition. Chapter 4.
Pennsylvania State University (2016) Psych 485: Leadership in work settings. Lesson 5 Part 1.
https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp16/psych485/001/content/05_lesson/03_topic/02_page.html