Leadership style, the result of the combination of a leader’s concern for people and concern for results, describe how leaders are likely to behave (Norhtouse, 2016). Concern for people is a leader’s care for their followers and is expressed through relationship building, individual concern, and building organizational commitment (Northouse, 2016). Concern for results (or production) reflects a leader’s goal-orientation and their drive to achieve organizational tasks (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5). When combined, five primary leadership styles result: authority-compliance, with a high concern for production and a low concern for people; country-club management, with a high concern for people and a low concern for production; team management, reflecting both high concern for people and production; middle-of-the-road management, which reflects neutral or average concern for both; and, finally, impoverished management, which reflects low concerns for both people and production (Northouse, 2016). Impoverished leadership is typified by the “leader”, quotes being used advisedly here, going through the motions of leadership but not actually engaging in the process (Northouse, 2016).
Jay is the Vice President of Sales for a mid-sized industrial distributor. He manages three sales teams, two directly and one through an in-territory sales team leader. Jay assumed the role about three years ago. Since taking the role, sales have been flat across the organization and his team’s sales have slowly fallen off. The company has been able to stave off shrinking traditional sales through some national accounts and large projects. Jay seems to go through the motions of production and people management, as Northouse (2016) describes. For example, at the end of each year, the sales team establishes sales goals for the next year. This has traditionally been a cooperative process between management and sales. Each salesperson would have a goal meeting with the VP of Sales and one of the owners. In years past, goals would be reality-checked and adjusted at these meetings; normally in an upward direction. Jay, this past year, collected the goal worksheets from each salesperson and tallied them up. They came up nearly a million short of the company’s revenue budget. This was a real problem. When confronted at a leadership meeting about the shortfall, he responded by saying that each person had given him a “good reason” for their goals. He had checked each and every box. In the same way that he checks the box every two weeks with a check-in call with each salesperson and through the weekly sales team meeting. The result of his box checking behavior is a sales team that has produced roughly the same results three years in a row. This reflects a low concern for production.
Jay likes working in the office, he avoids traveling. The organization has salespeople across five states. In a recent multi-day sales meeting, Jay indirectly admitted a low concern for people. Two salespeople were discussing how they had worked together to solve a customer’s issue. One salesperson, Sam, traveled to another salesperson’s, Curt, customer. They met there to solve a complex problem and deliver a solution for the customer. Sam’s territory is removed from the rest of the territories and is a few hours from anyone in the organization. The customer is even farther away. Jay, when presented with this said, “Wait, you went to Sam’s territory? I’ve never been there!” in a joking and jovial tone. Jay admitted, in front of his entire team, that he, as a sales leader, does not want to travel to our sales territories. This reflects a low concern for people.
Jay also seems to reflect several self-defeating behaviors, those that set leaders up to fail (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5). For example, when he was confronted about a failure to meet a business objective, setting sales goals that aligned with the organization’s stated desires, he justified the result by blaming the sales team. Jay was, in a sense, set up for failure. He was unprepared for this promotion (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5). Jay rose the ranks of inside sales, the customer service and purchasing group of the organization, becoming the Inside Sales Manager before taking this promotion. Jay’s roles were designed to make sure all the boxes were checked: an executable purchase order, an accurate quote, appropriate supporting documentation, etc. lead to happy customers. Sales, as Brown, et al. (2005) note, reflects a complex set of roles and behaviors that results in a satisfied customer. Relationship-based selling requires an adaptive and responsive mindset, which is poorly aligned with Jay’s box-checking style.
The organization, in whole, has failed itself by promoting Jay to this position. Jay was and remains unprepared for the demands of this position. Jay’s low concern for people and production, impoverished leadership, is distinctly unsuited for a sales leadership position. Sales, especially business to business relationship selling, requires that salespeople juggle multiple roles, work toward goals, exhibit pro-social behaviors like relationship building and relationship maintenance, and produce an adequate level of sales results (Brown, Evans, Mantrala, & Chaallagall, 2005; Drollinger & Comer, 2013; Nijssen, Guenzi, & van der Borgh, 2017). These reflect both a concern for people, relationship-oriented behaviors, and a concern for production, in goal attainment and sales results. Leaders communicate values through the things and behaviors that they pay attention to (Schein & Schein, 2017). This attention reflects their concern for people and their concern for production. If successful sellers need to have a high concern for people and production, then the leaders of sales teams should, it follows, express the same or heightened concern for both. Jay’s impoverished leadership has failed the sales team, leading to lackluster results and stagnant growth. Jay’s supervisors should work to change his behaviors, build his leadership skills and acumen, or find a better-suited person for the role.
References
Brown, S. P., Evans, K. R., Mantrala, M. K., & Challagalla, G. (2005). Adapting Motivation, Control, and Compensation Research to a New Environment. The Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 25(2), 155–167. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/40472001
Drollinger, T., & Comer, L. B. (2013). Salesperson’s listening ability as an antecedent to relationship selling. The Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing; Santa Barbara, 28(1), 50–59. http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1108/08858621311285714
Nijssen, E. J., Guenzi, P., & van der Borgh, M. (2017). Beyond the retention—acquisition trade-off: Capabilities of ambidextrous sales organizations. Industrial Marketing Management, 64, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2017.03.008
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). Lesson 5: Style and situational approaches. PSYCH 485: Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved May 24, 2019, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/su19/2195min-5376/content/05_lesson/printlesson.html
Schein, E. H. & Schein, P. (2017). Organizational culture and leadership (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Michelle Lew says
The Managerial (Leadership) Grid can be very helpful in identifying a specific individual’s effectiveness in a given position by aligning their leadership style with the production and interpersonal goals of the organization. It is clear that the author of this blog views the VP of Sales, Jay, for this company has an impoverished management in which “leaders are not concerned with tasks for interpersonal relationships” (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5, p. 6.). It is evident that Jay is more concerned in completing his own responsibilities without commitment to his subordinates or organizational profits. While the PSU WC lesson commentary (2019) commentary notes that having high concerns for both production and people are the most beneficial leadership styles, there still exist outliers in which impoverished management or other management styles may still be suitable for certain conditions.
Jay seems to be very task-oriented in which he does his “box-checking” and completes his check-in calls among other routine responsibilities. He is sure to accomplish his own goals and the tasks outlined for is position. What seems to be lacking is accountability and concern for production quality. While the quantity of tasks is completed, quality is not as present. This task orientation is very indicative of the moderate situation favorability in Fiedler’s Contingency Model (Northouse, 2007, p. 115) particularly in connection with the VP position’s poor leader-follower relations and a high leader position power. Jay would most likely have a low Least Preferred Coworker* score that reflects his task-motivated orientation.
With the oversight of subordinates in different regions, there is a need for high person concerns in which a leader strongly “attends to the people within the organization who are trying to achieve its goals” (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5, p. 6). Similar to the Contingency Model, a favorable situation is one with good leader-follower relations. Northouse (2007) notes how “leader-member relations consist of the group atmosphere and the degree of confidence, loyalty, and attraction that followers feel for their leader” (p. 114). Jay’s managerial style does not seem to develop these strong interpersonal relationships through his reluctance to travel. It would be interesting to know how Jay communicates and interacts with the followers in his bi-monthly phone check-ins. However, even if Jay were to have a strong bond with specific members, a good leader and situation would have the same strong bond with all members. An increased level of leader-member relations can promote a more thriving business as commitment to each other and the company grows.
Self-defeating behaviors can act as a call to implement the Contingency Theory to better place leaders in appropriate situations. Jay seems to exhibit failure to meet business objectives, inability to build a team, and has inadequate preparation for promotion. He “engage[s] in finger-pointing and blame[s] others for the downtown” (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5, p. 8), does not promote any team-building activities or personal connections, and lacks necessary leadership breadths for the position despite his technical background. In connection to his likely low LPC score, he would be more effective in either a very favorable or very unfavorable situation. The current moderate environment that requires high levels of relationship-motivation is not suitable for this individual as there is “some degree of certainty but things are neither completely under their control nor out of their control” (Northouse, 2007, p. 115). The Contingency Model can help analyze leaders and the situation in order to decrease self-defeating behaviors. Going full circle, the self-defeating behaviors can call upon use of the Contingency Model to help remedy any leadership issues.
This organization is facing a financial loss due to impoverished management and helps exemplify the need for matching a situation with individuals of aligning leadership styles. Moving forward, the company should analyze team-leading characteristics in each applicant rather than only focusing on managerial and administrative duties.
*Least Preferred Coworker scale posited by Fiedler to provide individual character descriptions on a spectrum of task-motivation versus relationship-motivation (Fiedler, 1964).
Resources:
Fiedler, F. E. (1964). A contingency model of leadership effectiveness. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 149-190). New York: Academic Press.
Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5: Style and situational approaches. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/su19/2195min-5376/content/05_lesson/printlesson.html