I am going to examine leadership through the behavioral approach. According to Northouse (2018), the behavioral approach focuses on what leaders do and how they act. The behavioral approach is distinguishably different from the trait approach, which emphasizes a leader’s personality characteristics, and the skills approach, which emphasizes a leader’s capabilities (Northouse, 2018). Unlike the trait approach and the skills approach, the behavioral approach focuses exclusively on a leader’s behaviors. In this post I am going to discuss the two main types of leader behavior and the five types of leaders seen in the Leadership Grid. I will also discuss how the behavioral approach can apply in a real-world setting, and the strengths and limitations of this approach.

According to the PSU WC lesson commentary (2022), the style approach, also known as the behavioral approach, is made up of two kinds of behaviors: task behaviors and relationship behaviors. This approach explains how leaders can use these two behaviors to influence subordinates to reach a goal (PSU WC, 2022, L.5). The task behaviors “Are those that are focused on the accomplishment of goals” (PSU WC, 2022, L.5, p.3). Relationship behaviors, “Help followers feel comfortable with themselves, each other, and with the situation” (PSU WC, 2022, L.5, p.3). Some examples of task behaviors include organizing work, giving structure to the work context, defining role responsibilities, and scheduling work activities (PSU WC, 2022, L.5). For my internship my boss exemplifies task behavior by initiating structure. She asks me to revise specific biographies and cut them down to 80-95 words. Furthermore, she asks me to reach out to people and write 80-95-word biographies on them. She always gives me a deadline to have my work completed by. Lastly, she sometimes asks me to organize files into alphabetical order. These tasks facilitate our organizations’ goals and accomplishments. By the end of next week, all the biographies that we needed to have written should be complete. 

Furthermore, my boss exemplifies relationship behavior by being considerate. Relationship behaviors include building camaraderie, respect, trust, and liking between leaders and followers (PSU WC, 2022, L.5). Last month my boss gave me two major projects to work on which needed to be completed by the end of the month. On top of those projects, a short story needed to be written. She reached out to me asking if I would like to write the story because of my experience. However, she gave me the option to turn the story down because of the other stuff she gave me to work on. In addition, she said she understands how I am a full-time student and didn’t want me to be overwhelmed. I really appreciated her giving me the option to turn the story down because I was starting to get overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to complete. This example exemplifies relationship behavior because my boss showed how she was considerate and how she respected me and my time. Furthermore, she demonstrated that she trusted me to write the story based on my experience.

The best known model of managerial behavior is the Leadership (Managerial) Grid  (Northouse, 2018). It was designed to explain how leaders help organizations to reach their purposes through two factors: concern for production and concern for people (Northouse, 2018). Concern for production “Refers to how a leader is concerned with achieving organizational tasks”(Northouse, 2018, p.76). It involves attention to policy decisions, new product development, process issues, workload, and sales volume (Northouse, 2018). Concern for people “Refers to how a leader attends to people in the organization who are trying to achieve its goals” (Northouse, 2018, p.76). This includes organizational commitment, trust, promoting the personal worth of employees, and providing good working conditions (Northouse, 2018). The Leadership Grid has two interesting axes, the horizontal is the leader’s concern for results and the vertical is the leader’s concern for people. 

Source: Adapted from Northouse, P. G. (2018). Behavioral Approach. In Leadership: Theory and practice (Eight, p.77). essay, SAGE Publications.

According to the Leadership Grid, the most successful leaders have both high concern for people and high concern for production (PSU WC, 2022, L.5). As shown on the grid, Team Management has coordinates of (9,9) meaning this style places a strong emphasis on both tasks and interpersonal relationships. Some phrases that could be used to describe a Team Management leader are: stimulates participation, acts determined, gets issues into the open, makes priorities clear, behaves open-mindedly, and enjoys work (Northouse, 2018). According to Indeed (2021), there are multiple ways a leader can hone their team management skills in a real-life setting within the workplace. Some examples include “Focus on serving rather than managing, don’t always assume you’re right, make transparency a priority, provide a positive workspace, emphasize constant and effective communication within the workplace, encourage and nurture your team’s growth, and be open to change” (“8 Team Management Skills Every Leader Should Know,” 2021). These skills are very important in order to achieve Team Management because this style places a strong emphasis on interdependence within an organization. 

Overall, the behavioral approach makes several positive contributions to understanding the leadership process (Northouse, 2018). First, the behavioral approach marked a major shift in the general focus of leadership research. Before this approach, researchers treated leadership exclusively as a trait (Northouse, 2018). Second, a wide range of studies on leadership behavior validate the basic tenets of this approach (Northouse, 2018). Third, the behavioral approach broadened the scope of leadership and provided help to understand the complexities of leadership (Northouse, 2018). Some limitations to this approach include that research has not adequately proven how leaders’ behaviors are associated with performance outcomes (Northouse, 2018). Another limitation is that the behavior approach failed to find a universal style of leadership that could be effective in every situation (Northouse, 2018). In conclusion, a lot of leadership training and development programs throughout the country are structured around the behavioral approach (Northouse, 2018). An example of a training and development program that uses the behavioral approach is Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid seminar. Grid seminars are about increasing productivity, moral, and employee commitment (Northouse, 2018).

References

8 Team Management Skills Every Leader Should Know. Indeed Career Guide. (2021, December 8). Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/team-management-skills

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Behavioral Approach. In Leadership: Theory and practice (Eight, pp.73-92). essay, SAGE Publications.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2022). PSYCH 485 Lesson 5: Style and situational approaches. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2177519/modules/items/33991684