In my time in leadership roles I have noticed that the style in which people lead is of great importance for the respect the follower has for the leader. This was never more apparent to me than when I was a section leader in band. With about twenty other section leaders to help the conductor oversee and motivate the large band, I saw many different styles of leadership and how different followers responded to all of them. I witnessed leaders that just wanted to have fun and be everyone’s friend, others that wanted to be a dictator over their section, and a few that realized it takes a little bit of both to truly be effective.
As shown in the lesson commentary (PSU WD, L. 5, P. 6), and its overviews of several studies on leadership styles, what I saw from leader to leader was a different blend of task and relationship behaviors. Defined in the commentary task behaviors are ones that are “focused on accomplishing of goals.” While relationship tasks “help followers feel comfortable with themselves, each other, and the situation.” Like the study done by Blake and Mouton, I noticed that it was a blend of those two components that made everyone’s, including my own, leadership style. Even though there were many different leaders, I too noticed that most fell into one of the five major categories set forth by Blake and Mouton. The categories were, authority-complainant, country club management, impoverished management, middle-of-the-road management, and Team management.
In my experience the best leaders have had a style that emphasized both goal completion while also taking account the needs and feelings of the followers. According to the lesson commentary (PSU WD, L. 5, P. 6), this is the team management style, and they define this as when both the task and relationship behaviors are highly concerned by the leader.
In my time as a leader and follower, I saw people who had an attitude that only cared about getting jobs done and didn’t care if the other students were tired or even angry with the intensity at which they were working. So even though the leader was able to get their section to do the job, it made the kids hate being there and resulted in a lot of skipping of practices. Worse yet, some would quit or goof off in spite of their leader.
To the other end of the spectrum, I would see the social butterflies that really just wanted to have fun and make everyone like them. As one can imagine, this resulted in a disorganized and unprepared section that had no idea what they were doing and they fell far behind. While they had high attendance, they had no progress to show for all the hours they were there. Often this ended up in a new leader being chosen or the conductor keeping them for extra practice to catch them up with the other sections. When forced with the leadership change, many students would experience a culture shock of having a leader that actually made them work.
Then there were the rare few that managed to get the job done while also making sure the students in their sections were having a good time being there. They would push the students to become better and focus them for things like a break or the promise of praise later when joined with the other sections. It was easy to see that while not everyone loved it when the leader would push them to complete something, they would respect them and would listen to the direction they were given since they knew the leader also had their own best interest at heart. In my experience it was the best of both worlds. Maybe the section wouldn’t have as much done as the sections with leaders that only cared about completing goals, nor did they have as much fun as the leaders that just wanted to make their followers happy, but they were successful and content. Also, when it came time to work with all the sections the praise they would receive on top of the positive feelings they had with working under someone who cared about them resulted in a more confident, harder working individuals.
As with most things in life, effective leadership style isn’t a black and white type of thing. It is a complex shade of grey that incorporates both sides of the spectrum and combines them to bring the best of both extremes.
References:
Penn State World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5: Style and Situation Approach Retrieved on May 24, 2013, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su13/psych485/001/content/05_lesson/06_page.html