oral 510

Scholarly Entry

1. What is the main premise of the article?

In Traits and Behavior Theory of Leadership: Critique from Undistributed Middle, Jalšenjak and Richards (2023) asses the reductionist approach to leadership, which states that possessing certain traits or behaviors inherently makes someone a leader. The authors identify the misconception of the “undistributed middle,” wherein leadership is incorrectly attributed to individuals based solely on their demonstration of traits commonly associated with leaders. They argue that this misinterpretation leads to uncertain definitions of leadership and ineffective leadership programs.

The article explores historical perspectives on trait and behavior theories, observing how these ideas have evolved from early “great man” theories to more contemporary views. Academic advancements, leadership training, and popular discourse continue to oversimplify leadership by promoting lists of traits and behaviors that allegedly define great leaders. The authors demonstrate this fallacy using examples from popular leadership influencers such as Simon Sinek and Brené Brown, showing how their broad claims about leadership characteristics can mislead audiences.

1. What are your reactions to the readings?

Jalšenjak and Richards’ analysis altered my perspective on leadership by expanding on the flaw in equating traits with leadership ability. Their argument made me reflect on how many past leadership programs I witnessed focused on trait acquisition rather than situational adaptability.

I found their discussion on the “undistributed middle” fallacy convincing, as I’ve seen leaders who have common leadership traits yet struggle in practice due to inflexibility and poor team management. However, I think the article could further explore how traits like emotional intelligence and adaptability, when combined with strategic thinking, contribute to effective leadership within different contexts.

1.3 What questions, confusions, and/or ideas for future research emerge as you read?

One question that I have from this reading is how organizations can better define leadership without relying on trait-based models. If traits alone do not determine leadership effectiveness, what other selection criteria can or should be used in leadership advancement programs? Also, it would be useful to explore how cultural differences impact the perception of leadership traits. Do different societies and industries interpret leadership effectiveness in ways that challenge the fallacy of the undistributed middle?

1. What position would you take or discussion question would you pose to get your classmates talking?

I would like to learn the following perspective from people in the class, If leadership cannot be reduced to traits or behaviors, what alternatives should organizations adopt when selecting and developing leaders?

Personal Reflection Entry

Looking at this article from personal experience, I recognize how its assessment of leadership compares with my own experiences. In my career, I have encountered many individuals who displayed qualities commonly associated with leaders like good communication skills and character yet struggled in actual leadership roles due to their inability to navigate complex team dynamics or think strategically. This aligns with Jalšenjak and Richards’ argument that possessing leadership traits does not automatically make someone a leader.

One instance that stands out was during a network migration project where a senior IT manager, known as a “natural leader” due to his confidence and technical expertise, failed to get the team on board with the plan. He possessed many of the traits commonly associated with successful leadership, but his lack of flexibility and collaboration resulted in resistance to the new processes. However, a junior team member, who did not display the “natural leader” look, stepped up by establishing communication and ensuring the team felt heard, guiding the project to success. This example shows the importance of leadership as an emergent and situational phenomenon rather than a desired set of characteristics.

Reference

Jalsenjak, B., & Richards, R. L. (2023). Traits and behavior theory of leadership: Critique from undistributed middle. Journal of Leadership Studies, 17(3), 28-35. https://doi.org/10.1002/jls.21862

Parallel Reflection Assignment

OGL 510

Parallel refers to writing from both an academic/critical scholarly perspective and a personal narrative perspective. Parallel Narratives, therefore, are those that (a) provide a reflection on the reading assigned and (b) a personal reflection on how the readings resonate with your own personal experiences.

A parallel reflection is a potential outlet for chronicling and making sense of your progression of thinking on a particular topic – in this case, leadership theories and frameworks. First, it is to give you the opportunity to share your insights, opinions, and experiences while critically engaging with and reflecting on scholarly models, theories, and research. Thus, as an academic “diary”, it is expected that your entries will showcase your insights as a critical thinker and critic of the readings. Second, based on principles from narrative research, it is theorized that you can best understand and open yourself to course material by engaging in writing the personal experiences that resonate as you read scholarly materials for class.

Your Parallel Reflections include three parts.

PART 1. Scholarly Entry (50 points)

First, your scholarly entry should demonstrate your thoughtful and critical engagement with at least one of the week’s assigned readings (i.e., the reading that is due the day your parallel blog is due). You may, of course, also draw from theories, concepts, and research we have discussed in previous weeks or other readings in addition to the readings due that day.

Second, in the spirit of encouraging engaged class discussion, consider ways in which you might offer insights that will get conversation going with your peers.

The following are some questions and guidelines that may help you as you do your reading and write your scholarly entries. You do not have to follow this formula, but it may be a useful guide for the kind and scope of scholarly insights the blog assignment requires:

1. What is the main premise of the article or chapter? (summarize in a few sentences)

2. What are your reactions (both positive, negative, and/or neutral) to the readings, including the theories, premises, methods, findings, implications, arguments, etc.?

3. What questions, confusions, and/or ideas for future research emerge as you read?

4. What is one position you would take or discussion question you would pose to get your classmates talking?

PART 2. Personal Reflection Entry (25 points)

The personal reflection is a place to voice your opinions, insights, and experiences. Thus, entries should NOT just be summaries of what you read, but rather the articles should be the subject and/or evidentiary support for the insights you gleaned by completing the reading.

You may post during any week of the course that fits best with your schedule. In order to facilitate the most engaged classroom discussion, you should consult our Canvas Discussion Board page regularly and comment on at least one other person’s post.

PART 3. Comments (25 points)

As part of your class participation, you should comment on at least one other person’s Scholarly Entry.

· What images, expressions, or points did the author of the scholarly entry make the resonated with you most? How does his/her response to the reading resonate with you most?

· What will you do with the knowledge you’ve gained from reading about the author of the scholarly entry’s perspective?

Comments to at least ONE peer

3 SKILLS APPROACH

DESCRIPTION

Like the trait approach discussed in 

Chapter 2

, the skills approach takes a leader-centered perspective on leadership. However, in the skills approach we shift our thinking from focusing exclusively on traits to an emphasis on skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. Although personality and behavior certainly play a role in leadership, the skills approach emphasizes the capabilities, knowledge, and skills that are needed for effective leadership.

Researchers have studied leadership skills directly or indirectly for a number of years (see Bass, 2008, pp. 97–109). However, the impetus for research on skills was a classic article published by Katz in the 
Harvard Business Review in 1955, titled “Skills of an Effective Administrator.” Katz’s article appeared at a time when researchers were trying to identify a definitive set of leadership traits. Katz’s approach was an attempt to transcend the trait problem by addressing leadership as a set of developable 
skills. More recently, a revitalized interest in the skills approach has emerged. Beginning in the early 1990s, a multitude of studies have been published that contend that a leader’s effectiveness depends on the leader’s ability to solve complex organizational problems. This research has resulted in a comprehensive skill-based model of leadership that was advanced by M. Mumford and his colleagues (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000; Yammarino, 2000).

In this chapter, our discussion of the skills approach is divided into two parts. First, we discuss the general ideas set forth by Katz regarding three basic administrative skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Second, we discuss the recent work of Mumford and colleagues that has resulted in a skills-based model of organizational leadership.

Three-Skill Approach

Based on field research in administration and his own firsthand observations of executives in the workplace, Katz (1955, p. 34) suggested that effective administration (i.e., leadership) depends on three basic personal skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Katz argued that these skills are quite different from traits or qualities of leaders. 
Skills are what leaders 
can accomplish, whereas 
traits are who leaders 
are (i.e., their innate characteristics). Leadership skills are defined in this chapter as the ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals or objectives. This chapter shows that these leadership skills can be acquired and leaders can be trained to develop them.

Technical Skills

Technical skills are knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work or activity. They include competencies in a specialized area, analytical ability, and the ability to use appropriate tools and techniques (Katz, 1955). For example, in a computer software company, technical skills might include knowing software language and programming, the company’s software products, and how to make these products function for clients. Similarly, in an accounting firm, technical skills might include understanding and having the ability to apply generally accepted accounting principles to a client’s audit. In both of these examples, technical skills involve a hands-on activity with a basic product or process within an organization. Technical skills play an essential role in producing the actual products a company is designed to produce.

As illustrated in 

Figure 3.1

, technical skills are most important at lower and middle levels of management and less important in upper management. For leaders at the highest level, such as CEOs, presidents, and senior officers, technical competencies are not as essential. Individuals at the top level depend on skilled followers to handle technical issues of the physical operation.

Human Skills

Human skills are knowledge about and ability to work with 
people. They are quite different from technical skills, which have to do with working with 
things (Katz, 1955). Human skills are “people skills.” They are the abilities that help a leader to work effectively with followers, peers, and superiors to accomplish the organization’s goals. Human skills allow a leader to assist group members in working cooperatively as a group to achieve common goals. For Katz, it means being aware of one’s own perspective on issues and, at the same time, being aware of the perspective of others. Leaders with human skills adapt their own ideas to those of others. Furthermore, they create an atmosphere of trust where followers can feel comfortable and secure and where they can feel encouraged to become involved in the planning of things that will affect them. Being a leader with human skills means being sensitive to the needs and motivations of others and considering others’ needs in one’s decision making. In short, human skills are the capacity to get along with others as you go about your work.

Description

Figure 3.1 Management Skills Necessary at Various Levels of an Organization

Source: Adapted from “Skills of an Effective Administrator,” by R. L. Katz, 1955, 
Harvard Business Review, 33(1), pp. 33–42.

Figure 3.1 shows that human skills are important in all three levels of management. Although managers at lower levels may communicate with a far greater number of followers, human skills are equally important at middle and upper levels.

Conceptual Skills

Broadly speaking, conceptual skills are the ability to work with ideas and concepts. Whereas technical skills deal with 
things and human skills deal with 
people, conceptual skills involve the ability to work with 
ideas. A leader with conceptual skills is comfortable talking about the ideas that shape an organization and the intricacies involved. They are good at putting the organization’s goals into words and can understand and express the economic principles that affect the organization. A leader with conceptual skills works easily with abstractions and hypothetical notions.

Conceptual skills are central to creating a vision and strategic plan for an organization. For example, it would take conceptual skills for a CEO in a struggling manufacturing company to articulate a vision for a line of new products that would steer the company into profitability. Similarly, it would take conceptual skills for the director of a nonprofit health organization to create a strategic plan to compete successfully with for-profit health organizations in a market with scarce resources. The point of these examples is that conceptual skills have to do with the mental work of shaping the meaning of organizational or policy issues—understanding what an organization stands for and where it is or should be going.

As shown in 
Figure 3.1, conceptual skills are most important at the top management levels. In fact, when upper-level managers do not have strong conceptual skills, they can jeopardize the whole organization. Conceptual skills are also important in middle management; as we move down to lower management levels, conceptual skills become less important.

Summary of the Three-Skill Approach

To summarize, the three-skill approach includes technical, human, and conceptual skills. It is important for leaders to have all three skills; depending on where they are in the management structure, however, some skills are more important than others.

Katz’s work in the mid-1950s set the stage for conceptualizing leadership in terms of skills, but it was not until the mid-1990s that an empirically based skills approach received recognition in leadership research. In the 

next section

, the comprehensive skill-based model of leadership is presented.

Skills Model

Beginning in the early 1990s, a group of researchers, with funding from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense, set out to test and develop a comprehensive theory of leadership based on problem-solving skills in organizations. The studies were conducted over a number of years using a sample of more than 1,800 Army officers, representing six grade levels, from second lieutenant to colonel. The project used a variety of new measures and tools to assess the skills of these officers, their experiences, and the situations in which they worked.

The researchers’ main goal was to explain the underlying elements of effective performance. They addressed questions such as these: What accounts for why some leaders are good problem solvers and others are not? What specific skills do high-performing leaders exhibit? How do leaders’ individual characteristics, career experiences, and environmental influences affect their job performance? As a whole, researchers wanted to identify the leadership factors that create exemplary job performance in an actual organization.

Based on the extensive findings from the project, M. Mumford and colleagues formulated a skill-based model of leadership (

Figure 3.2

). The model is characterized as a 
capability model because it examines the relationship between a leader’s knowledge and skills (i.e., capabilities) and the leader’s performance (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 12). Leadership capabilities can be developed over time through education and experience. Unlike the “great man” approach (discussed in 
Chapter 2 of this text), which implies that leadership is reserved for only the gifted few, the skills approach suggests that many people have the potential for leadership. If people are capable of learning from their experiences, they can acquire leadership skills. The skills approach can also be distinguished from the leadership approaches, discussed in subsequent chapters, that focus on behavioral patterns of leaders (e.g., the style approach, leader–member exchange theory, and transformational leadership). Rather than emphasizing 
what leaders do, the skills approach frames leadership as 
the capabilities (
knowledge and skills) 
that make effective leadership possible (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 12).

Description

Figure 3.2 Influence of Leader Characteristics on Leader Performance

Source: Adapted from “Leadership Skills for a Changing World: Solving Complex Social Problems,” by M. D. Mumford, S. J. Zaccaro, F. D. Harding, T. O. Jacobs, and E. A. Fleishman, 
The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), p. 23. Copyright 2000 by Elsevier.

The skill-based model of M. Mumford’s group has five components: competencies, individual attributes, career experiences, environmental influences, and leadership outcomes (performance and problem solving) (
Figure 3.2).

Individual Attributes

The leftmost box in 
Figure 3.2 identifies four individual attributes that have an impact on leadership skills and knowledge: general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality. These attributes play important roles in the skills model. Complex problem solving is a very difficult process and becomes more difficult as people move up in an organization. These attributes support people as they apply their leadership competencies.

General Cognitive Ability.

General cognitive ability can be thought of as a person’s intelligence. It includes perceptual processing, information processing, general reasoning skills, creative and divergent thinking capacities, and memory skills. General cognitive ability is linked to biology, not to experience.

General cognitive ability is sometimes described as fluid intelligence, a type of intelligence that usually grows and expands up through early adulthood and then declines with age. In the skills model, intelligence is described as having a positive impact on the leader’s acquisition of complex problem-solving skills and the leader’s knowledge.

Crystallized Cognitive Ability.

Crystallized cognitive ability is intellectual ability that is learned or acquired over time. It is the store of knowledge we acquire through experience. We learn and increase our capacities over a lifetime, increasing our leadership potential (e.g., problem-solving skills, conceptual ability, and social judgment skills). In normally functioning adults, this type of cognitive ability grows continuously and typically does not fall off in adulthood. It includes being able to comprehend complex information and learn new skills and information, as well as being able to communicate to others in oral and written forms (Connelly et al., 2000, p. 71). Stated another way, crystallized cognitive ability is 
acquired intelligence: the ideas and mental abilities people learn through experience. Because it stays fairly stable over time, this type of intelligence is not diminished as people get older (Rose & Gordon, 2015).

Motivation.

Motivation is listed as the third attribute in the model. While Kerns (2015) identified three categories of motivations (self-interest, career considerations, and higher purposes) that propel leaders, the skills model takes a different approach, instead suggesting there are three aspects of motivation—
willingness, dominance, and 
social good—that are essential to developing leadership skills (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 22).

First, leaders must be 
willing to tackle complex organizational problems. This first step is critical. For leadership to occur, a person must want to lead. Second, leaders must be willing to express 
dominance—to exert their influence, as we discussed in 
Chapter 2. In influencing others, the leader must take on the responsibility of dominance because the influence component of leadership is inextricably bound to dominance. Third, leaders must be committed to the 
social good of the organization. 
Social good is a broad term that can refer to a host of outcomes. However, in the skills model it refers to the leader’s willingness to take on the responsibility of trying to advance the overall human good and value of the organization. Taken together, these three aspects of motivation (willingness, dominance, and social good) prepare people to become leaders.

Personality.

Personality is the fourth individual attribute in the skills model. Placed where it is in the model, this attribute reminds us that our personality has an impact on the development of our leadership skills. For example, openness, tolerance for ambiguity, and curiosity may affect a leader’s motivation to try to solve some organizational problems. Or, in conflict situations, traits such as confidence and adaptability may be beneficial to a leader’s performance. The skills model hypothesizes that any personality characteristic that helps people to cope with complex organizational situations probably is related to leader performance (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000).

Competencies

As can be observed in 
Figure 3.2, problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge are at the heart of the skills model. These three competencies are the key factors that account for effective performance (M. Mumford et al., 2012).

Problem-Solving Skills.

What are problem-solving skills? According to M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, and colleagues (2000), problem-solving skills are a leader’s creative ability to solve new and unusual, ill-defined organizational problems. The skills include being able to define significant problems, gather problem information, formulate new understandings about the problem, and generate prototype plans for problem solutions. M. Mumford, Todd, Higgs, and McIntosh (2017, p. 28) identified nine key problem-solving skills leaders employ to address problems:

1.
Problem definition, the ability to define noteworthy issues or significant problems affecting the organization

2.
Cause/goal analysis, the ability to analyze the causes and goals relevant to addressing problems

3.
Constraint analysis, the ability to identify the constraints, or limiting factors, influencing any problem solution

4.
Planning, the ability to formulate plans, mental simulations, and actions arising from cause/goal and constraint analysis

5.
Forecasting, the ability to anticipate the implications of executing the plans

6.
Creative thinking, the ability to develop alternative approaches and new ideas for addressing potential pitfalls of a plan identified in forecasting

7.
Idea evaluation, the ability to evaluate these alternative approaches’ viability in executing the plan

8.
Wisdom, the ability to evaluate the appropriateness of these alternative approaches within the context, or setting, in which the leader acts

9.
Sensemaking/visioning, the ability to articulate a vision that will help followers understand, make sense of, and act on the problem

Figure 3.3

 shows the relationship between these different skills as a developing process, where employment of one skill can lead to development of the next.

Description

Figure 3.3 Hypothetical Relationships Between Problem-Solving Skills

Source: Reprinted from “Cognitive Skills and Leadership Performance: The Nine Critical Skills,” by M. D. Mumford, E. M. Todd, C. Higgs, and T. McIntosh, 
The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), p. 28. Copyright 2017 by Elsevier.

To clarify how these problem-solving skills work in conjunction with one another, consider the following hypothetical situation. Imagine that you are the director of human resources for a medium-sized company and you have been informed by the president that you must develop a plan to reduce the company’s health care costs. In deciding what you will do, you demonstrate problem-solving skills in the following ways. First, you identify the full ramifications for employees of changing their health insurance coverage (problem definition; forecasting). What is the impact going to be (cause/goal analysis)? Second, you gather information about how benefits can be scaled back (constraint analysis). What other companies have attempted a similar change, and what were their results (forecasting)? Third, you find a way to teach and inform the employees about the needed change (planning; creative thinking). How can you frame the change in such a way that it is clearly understood (planning; creative thinking; wisdom)? Fourth, you create possible scenarios for how the changes will be instituted (forecasting; idea evaluation). How will the plan be described? Fifth, you look closely at the solution itself (idea evaluation). How will implementing this change affect the company’s mission and your own career (sensemaking; visioning)? Last, are there issues in the organization (e.g., union rules) that may affect the implementation of these changes (constraint analysis; forecasting)?

Problem-solving skills also demand that leaders understand their own leadership capacities as they apply possible solutions to the unique problems in their organization (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly, & Marks, 2000).

Being able to construct solutions plays a special role in problem solving. In considering solutions to organizational problems, skilled leaders need to attend to the time frame for constructing and implementing a solution, short-term and long-term goals, career goals and organizational goals, and external issues, all of which could influence the solution (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 15).

The process of dealing with novel, ill-defined organizational problems is complex and demanding for leaders. In many ways, it is like a puzzle to be solved. For leaders to solve such puzzles, the skill-based model suggests that problem-solving skills are essential.

Social Judgment and Social Skills.

In addition to problem-solving skills, effective leadership performance requires social judgment skills (
Figure 3.2). Social judgment skills are the capacity to understand people and social systems (Zaccaro, Mumford, Connelly, Marks, & Gilbert, 2000, p. 46). They enable leaders to 
work with others to solve problems and to marshal support to implement change within an organization. Social judgment skills are the people skills that are necessary to solve unique organizational problems.

Conceptually, social judgment skills are like Katz’s (1955) early work on the role of human skills in management. In contrast to Katz’s work, Mumford and colleagues have delineated social judgment skills into the following: perspective taking, social perceptiveness, behavioral flexibility, and social performance.

Perspective taking means understanding the attitudes that 
others have toward a particular problem or solution. It is empathy applied to problem solving. Perspective taking means being sensitive to other people’s perspectives and goals—being able to understand their point of view on different issues. Included in perspective taking is knowing how different constituencies in an organization view a problem and possible solutions (Gasiorek & Ebesu Hubbard, 2017). According to Zaccaro, Gilbert, Thor, and Mumford (1991), perspective-taking skills can be likened to 
social intelligence.These skills are concerned with knowledge about people, the social fabric of organizations, and the interrelatedness of each of them.

Social perceptiveness is insight and awareness into how others in the organization function. What is important to others? What motivates them? What problems do they face, and how do they react to change? Social perceptiveness means understanding the unique needs, goals, and demands of different organizational constituencies (Zaccaro et al., 1991). A leader with social perceptiveness has a keen sense of how followers will respond to any proposed change in the organization. In a sense, you could say it allows the leader to know the pulse of followers on any issue at any time.

In addition to understanding others accurately, social judgment skills involve reacting to others with flexibility. 
Behavioral flexibility is the capacity to change and adapt one’s behavior in light of understanding others’ perspectives in the organization. Being flexible means one is not locked into a singular approach to a problem. One is not dogmatic but rather maintains an openness and willingness to change. As the circumstances of a situation change, a flexible leader changes to meet the new demands.

Social performance includes a wide range of leadership competencies. Based on an understanding of followers’ perspectives, leaders need to be able to communicate their own vision to others. Skill in persuasion and communicating change is essential to do this. When there is resistance to change or interpersonal conflict about change, leaders need to function as mediators. To this end, skill in conflict resolution is an important aspect of social performance competency. In addition, social performance sometimes requires that leaders coach followers, giving them direction and support as they move toward selected organizational goals. In all, social performance includes many related skills that may come under the umbrella of communication.

To review, social judgment skills are about being sensitive to how your ideas fit in with others. Can you understand others’ perspectives and their unique needs and motivations? Are you flexible, and can you adapt your own ideas to those of others? Can you work with others even when there is resistance and conflict? Social judgment skills are the people skills needed to advance change in an organization.

Knowledge.

As shown in the model (
Figure 3.2), the third aspect of competencies is knowledge. Knowledge is inextricably related to the application and implementation of problem-solving skills in organizations. It directly influences a leader’s capacity to define complex organizational problems and to attempt to solve them (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000). 
Knowledge is the accumulation of information and the mental structures used to organize that information. Such a mental structure is called a 
schema (a summary, a diagrammatic representation, or an outline). Knowledge results from having developed an assortment of complex schemata for learning and organizing data.

For example, all of us take various kinds of facts and information into our minds. As we organize that information into categories or schemata, the information becomes more meaningful. Knowledge emerges from the facts 
and the organizational structures we apply to them. People with a lot of knowledge have more complex organizing structures than those with less knowledge. These knowledgeable people are called 
experts.

Consider the following baseball example. A baseball expert knows a lot of facts about the game; the expert knows the rules, strategies, equipment, players, and much, much more. The expert’s knowledge about baseball includes the facts, but it also includes the complex mental structures used in organizing and structuring those facts. This person knows not only the season and lifetime statistics for each player, but also each player’s quirks and injuries, the personality of the manager, the strengths and weaknesses of available substitutes, and so on. The expert comprehends the complexities and nuances of baseball, and thus knows the game. The same is true for leadership in organizations. Leaders with knowledge know much about the products, the tasks, the people, the organization, and all the different ways these elements are related to each other. A knowledgeable leader has many mental structures with which to organize the facts of organizational life.

Knowledge has a positive impact on how leaders engage in problem solving. It is knowledge and expertise that make it possible for people to think about complex system issues and identify possible strategies for appropriate change.Furthermore, this capacity allows people to use prior cases and incidents to plan for needed change. It is knowledge that allows people to use the past to constructively confront the future.

To summarize, the skills model consists of three competencies: problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. Collectively, these three components are positively related to effective leadership performance (
Figure 3.2).

Influences on Skills Development

As you can see in 
Figure 3.2, the skills model identifies two influences that are related to the leader’s attributes and competencies and leadership outcomes: career experiences and environmental influences.

Career Experiences.

The skills model suggests that the 
career experiences (represented in 
Figure 3.2 as the topmost box) acquired in the course of leaders’ careers influence their development of knowledge and skills for solving complex problems. M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, and colleagues (2000, p. 24) pointed out that leaders can be helped through challenging job assignments, mentoring, appropriate training, and hands-on experience in solving new and unusual problems. In addition, the authors think that career experiences can positively affect the individual attributes of leaders. For example, certain on-the-job assignments could enhance a leader’s motivation or intellectual ability.

In the first section of this chapter, we discussed Katz’s (1955) work, which notes that conceptual skills are essential for upper-level administrators. This is consistent with M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, and colleagues’ (2000) skills model, which contends that leaders develop competencies over time. Career experiences help leaders to improve their skills and knowledge over time. Leaders learn and develop higher levels of conceptual capacity if, as they ascend the organizational hierarchy, the kinds of problems they confront are progressively more complex and longer term (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly, et al., 2000). Similarly, upper-level leaders, as opposed to first-line supervisors, develop new competencies because they are required to address problems that are more novel, are more poorly defined, and demand more human interaction. As these people move through their careers, higher levels of problem-solving and social judgment skills become increasingly important (M. Mumford & Connelly, 1991).

So the skills and knowledge of leaders are shaped by their career experiences as they address increasingly complex problems in the organization. This notion of developing leadership skills is unique and quite different from other leadership perspectives. If we say, “Leaders are shaped by their experiences,” then it means leaders are not born to be leaders (M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000). Leaders can develop their abilities through experience, according to the skills model.

Environmental Influences.

Another important component of the skills model is environmental influences, which is illustrated at the bottom of 
Figure 3.2. Environmental influences represent factors that lie outside the leader’s competencies, characteristics, and experiences. These environmental influences can be 
internal and 
external.

Internal environmental influences include such factors as technology, facilities, expertise of followers, and communication. For example, an aging factory lacking in high-speed technology could have a major impact on the nature of problem-solving activities. Another example might be the skill levels of followers: If a leader’s followers are highly competent, they will definitely improve the group’s problem solving and performance. Similarly, if a task is particularly complex or a group’s communication poor, the leader’s performance will be affected.

External environmental influences, including economic, political, and social issues, as well as natural disasters, can provide unique challenges to leaders. How U.S. public schools responded to the COVID-19 pandemic is a good recent example of this. As stay-at-home restrictions were enacted, most public schools closed months before the school year would have ended. A majority of these schools were unprepared to switch to online learning. Many districts faced an additional barrier in delivery of online learning due to access: 17% of U.S. students did not have computers in the home, and 18% of students lacked access to high-speed internet (Melia, Amy, & Fenn, 2019).

School leaders across the country scrambled to come up with solutions, including working with local governments and nonprofits to find ways to establish internet hotspots in neighborhoods and to secure and distribute devices to students so they could access online learning. In addition, because most teachers had never actually engaged in online teaching, they were untrained and struggled and underperformed. Others, however, found that having to teach online serendipitously improved their teaching performance. School leaders nationwide had to respond to the very unique challenges posed by an external force completely beyond their control and did so with varying degrees of success.

The skills model does not provide an inventory of specific environmental influences. Instead, it acknowledges the existence of these factors and recognizes that they are indeed influences that can affect a leader’s performance, but not usually under the control of the leader.

Leadership Outcomes

In the right-hand boxes in 
Figure 3.2, effective problem solving and performance are the outcomes of leadership. These outcomes are strongly influenced by the leader’s competencies (i.e., problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge). When leaders exhibit these competencies, they increase their chances of problem solving and overall performance.

Effective Problem Solving.

As we discussed earlier, the skills model is a 
capability model, designed to explain why some leaders are good problem solvers and others are not. Problem solving is the keystone in the skills approach. In the model (
Figure 3.2), problem-solving skills, as competencies, lead to effective problem solving as a leadership outcome. The criteria for good problem solving are determined by the originality and the quality of expressed solutions to problems. Good problem solving involves creating solutions that are logical, effective, and unique, and that go beyond given information (Zaccaro et al., 2000).

Performance.

In the model, performance outcomes reflect how well individual leaders have done their job. To measure performance, standard external criteria are used. If a leader has done well and been successful, the leader’s evaluations will be positive. Leaders who are effective receive good annual performance reviews, get merit raises, and are recognized by superiors and followers as competent leaders. In the end, performance is the degree to which a leader has successfully performed the assigned duties.

Taken together, effective problem solving and performance are the outcomes used to assess leadership effectiveness in the skills model. Furthermore, good problem solving and good performance go hand in hand.

Summary of the Skills Model

In summary, the skills model frames leadership by describing five components of leader performance. At the heart of the model are three competencies: 
problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and 
knowledge. These three competencies are the central determinants of effective problem solving and performance, although individual attributes, career experiences, and environmental influences all have impacts on leader competencies. Through job experience and training, leaders can become better problem solvers and more effective leaders.

HOW DOES THE SKILLS APPROACH WORK?

The skills approach is primarily descriptive: It 
describes leadership from a skills perspective. Rather than providing prescriptions for success in leadership, the skills approach provides a structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership. In the previous sections, we discussed the skills perspective based on the work of Katz (1955) and M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, and colleagues (2000). What does each of these bodies of work suggest about the structure and functions of leadership?

The three-skill approach of Katz suggests that the importance of certain leadership skills varies depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. For leaders operating at lower levels of management, technical and human skills are most important. When leaders move into middle management, it becomes important that they have all three skills: technical, human, and conceptual. At the upper management levels, it is paramount for leaders to exhibit conceptual and human skills.

This approach was reinforced in a 2007 study that examined the skills needed by executives at different levels of management. The researchers used a four-skill model, similar to Katz’s approach, to assess cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, business skills, and strategic skills of 1,000 managers at the junior, middle, and senior levels of an organization. The results showed that interpersonal and cognitive skills were required more than business and strategic skills for those on the lower levels of management. As one climbed the career ladder, however, the execution of higher levels of all four of these leadership skills became necessary (T. Mumford, Campion, & Morgeson, 2007).

In their skills model, M. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, and colleagues (2000) provided a more complex picture of how skills relate to the manifestation of effective leadership. Their skills model contends that leadership outcomes are the direct result of a leader’s competencies in problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. Each of these competencies includes a large repertoire of abilities, and each can be learned and developed. In addition, the model illustrates how individual attributes such as general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality influence the leader’s competencies. And finally, the model describes how career experiences and environmental influences play a direct or indirect role in leadership performance.

The skills approach works by providing a 
map for how to reach effective leadership in an organization: Leaders need to have problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. Workers can improve their capabilities in these areas through training and experience. Although individual leaders’ personal attributes affect their skills, it is a leader’s 
skills themselves that are most important in addressing organizational problems.

STRENGTHS

In several ways, the skills approach contributes positively to our understanding about leadership. First, it is a leader-centered model that stresses the importance of developing particular leadership skills. It is the first approach to conceptualize and create a structure of the process of leadership around 
skills. Whereas the early research on skills highlighted the importance of skills and the value of skills across different management levels, the later work placed learned skills at the center of effective leadership performance at 
all management levels. The skills approach also supports succession planning in organizations by ensuring that there is a pool of potential managers ready to assume leadership at the next level (Griffith, Baur, & Buckley, 2019).

Second, the skills approach is intuitively appealing. To describe leadership in terms of skills makes leadership available to everyone. Unlike personality traits, skills are competencies that people can learn or develop. It is like playing a sport such as tennis or golf. Even without natural ability in these sports, people can improve their games with practice and instruction. The same is true with leadership. When leadership is framed as a set of skills, it becomes a process that people can study and practice to become better at performing their jobs.

 BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

DESCRIPTION

The behavioral approach emphasizes the behavior of the leader. This distinguishes it from the trait approach (
Chapter 2), which emphasizes the personality characteristics of the leader, and the skills approach (

Chapter 3

), which emphasizes the leader’s capabilities. The behavioral approach focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act.In shifting the study of leadership to leader behaviors, the behavioral approach expanded the research of leadership to include the actions of leaders toward followers in various contexts.

Researchers studying the behavioral approach determined that leadership is composed of two general kinds of behaviors: 
task behaviors and 
relationship behaviors. Task behaviors facilitate goal accomplishment: They help group members to achieve their objectives. Relationship behaviors help followers feel comfortable with themselves, with each other, and with the situation in which they find themselves. The central purpose of the behavioral approach is to explain how leaders combine these two kinds of behaviors to influence followers in their efforts to reach a goal.

Many studies have been conducted to investigate the behavioral approach. Some of the first studies to be done were conducted at The Ohio State University in the late 1940s, based on the findings of Stogdill’s (1948) work, which pointed to the importance of considering more than leaders’ traits in leadership research. At about the same time, another group of researchers at the University of Michigan was conducting a series of studies that explored how leadership functioned in small groups. A third line of research was begun by Blake and Mouton in the early 1960s; it explored how managers used task and relationship behaviors in the organizational setting.

Although many research studies could be categorized under the heading of the behavioral approach, the Ohio State studies, the Michigan studies, and the studies by Blake and Mouton (1964, 1978, 1985) are strongly representative of the ideas in this approach. By looking closely at each of these groups of studies, we can draw a clearer picture of the underpinnings and implications of the behavioral approach.

Task and Relationship Behaviors

The essence of leadership behavior has two dimensions—task behaviors and relationship behaviors. There are leadership situations and challenges that call for strong task behavior, while others demand strong relationship behavior, but some degree of each is required in every situation. At the same time, because of personality and life experiences, leaders bring to every situation their own unique tendencies to be either more task oriented or more relationship oriented, or some unique blend of the two. On the surface, this may seem incidental or ho-hum, but in regard to leader effectiveness, the utilization of both of these behaviors is absolutely pivotal to success or failure.

Task Orientation

Simply put, task-oriented people are doers, and task leadership behaviors facilitate goal accomplishment. Researchers have labeled these behaviors differently, but they are always about task accomplishment. Task leadership considers the elements involved in task accomplishment from organizing work and defining roles to determining policies and procedures to facilitate production.

Relationship Orientation

Relationship-oriented people differ from task-oriented people in that they are not as goal directed in their leadership behavior; they are more interested in connecting with others. Relationship-oriented leadership behaviors focus on the well-being of followers, how they relate to each other, and the atmosphere in which they work. Relationship leadership explores the human aspects of leadership from building camaraderie, respect, trust, and regard between leaders and followers to valuing followers’ uniqueness and attending to their personal needs.

Task and relationship leadership behaviors are inextricably tied together, and the behavioral approach looks at how leaders engage in both of these behaviors and the extent to which situational factors affect these behaviors.

Historical Background of the Behavioral Approach

The Ohio State Studies

A group of researchers at Ohio State believed that the results of studying leadership as a personality trait seemed fruitless and decided to analyze how individuals 
acted when they were leading a group or an organization. This analysis was conducted by having followers complete questionnaires about their leaders. On the questionnaires, followers had to identify the number of times their leaders engaged in certain types of behaviors.

The original questionnaire used in these studies was constructed from a list of more than 1,800 items describing different aspects of leader behavior. From this long list of items, a questionnaire composed of 150 questions was formulated; it was called the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ; Hemphill & Coons, 1957). The LBDQ was given to hundreds of people in educational, military, and industrial settings, and the results showed that certain clusters of behaviors were typical of leaders. Six years later, Stogdill (1963) published a shortened version of the LBDQ. The new form, which was called the LBDQ-XII, became the most widely used instrument in leadership research. A questionnaire similar to the LBDQ, which you can use to assess your own leadership behavior, appears later in this chapter.

Researchers found that followers’ responses on the questionnaire clustered around two general types of leader behaviors: 
initiating structure and 
consideration (Stogdill, 1974). Initiating structure behaviors are essentially task behaviors, including such acts as organizing work, giving structure to the work context, defining role responsibilities, and scheduling work activities. Consideration behaviors are essentially relationship behaviors and include building camaraderie, respect, trust, and liking between leaders and followers.

The two types of behaviors identified by the LBDQ-XII represent the core of the behavioral approach and are central to what leaders do: Leaders provide structure for followers, and they nurture them. The Ohio State studies viewed these two behaviors as distinct and independent. They were thought of not as two points along a single continuum, but as two different continua. For example, a leader can be high in initiating structure and high or low in task behavior. Similarly, a leader can be low in setting structure and low or high in consideration behavior. The degree to which leaders exhibit one behavior is not related to the degree to which they exhibit the other behavior.

Many studies have been done to determine which leadership behavior is most effective in a particular situation. In some contexts, high consideration has been found to be most effective, but in other situations, high initiating structure is most effective. Some research has shown that being high in both behaviors is the best form of leadership. Determining how a leader optimally mixes task and relationship behaviors has been the central task for researchers from the behavioral approach. The path–goal approach, which is discussed in 

Chapter 6

, exemplifies a leadership theory that attempts to explain how leaders should integrate consideration and structure into their behaviors.

The University of Michigan Studies

While researchers at Ohio State were developing the LBDQ, researchers at the University of Michigan were also exploring leadership behavior, giving special attention to the impact of leaders’ behaviors on the performance of small groups (Cartwright & Zander, 1970; Katz & Kahn, 1951; Likert, 1961, 1967).

The program of research at Michigan identified two types of leadership behaviors: 
employee orientation and 
production orientation. Employee orientation is the behavior of leaders who approach followers with a strong human relations emphasis. They take an interest in workers as human beings, value their individuality, and give special attention to their personal needs (Bowers & Seashore, 1966). Employee orientation is very similar to the cluster of behaviors identified as consideration in the Ohio State studies.

Production orientation consists of leadership behaviors that stress the technical and production aspects of a job. From this orientation, workers are viewed as a means for getting work accomplished (Bowers & Seashore, 1966). Production orientation parallels the initiating structure cluster found in the Ohio State studies.

Unlike the Ohio State researchers, the Michigan researchers, in their initial studies, conceptualized employee and production orientations as opposite ends of a single continuum. This suggested that leaders who were oriented toward production were less oriented toward employees, and those who were employee oriented were less production oriented. As more studies were completed, however, the researchers reconceptualized the two constructs, as in the Ohio State studies, as two independent leadership orientations (Kahn, 1956). When the two behaviors are treated as independent orientations, leaders are seen as being able to be oriented toward both production and employees at the same time.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a multitude of studies were conducted by researchers from both Ohio State and the University of Michigan to determine how leaders could best combine their task and relationship behaviors to maximize the impact of these behaviors on the satisfaction and performance of followers. In essence, the researchers were looking for a universal theory of leadership that would explain leadership effectiveness in every situation. The results that emerged from this large body of literature were contradictory and unclear (Yukl, 2003). Although some of the findings pointed to the value of a leader being both highly task oriented and highly relationship oriented in all situations (Misumi, 1985), the preponderance of research in this area was inconclusive.

Blake and Mouton’s Managerial (Leadership) Grid

Perhaps the best-known model of managerial behavior is the Managerial Grid®, which first appeared in the early 1960s and has been refined and revised several times (Blake & McCanse, 1991; Blake & Mouton, 1964, 1978, 1985). It is a model that has been used extensively in organizational training and development. The Managerial Grid, which has been renamed the Leadership Grid®, was designed to explain how leaders help organizations to reach their purposes through two factors: 
concern for production and 
concern for people. Although these factors are described as leadership orientations in the model, they closely parallel the task and relationship leadership behaviors we discuss throughout this chapter.

Concern for production refers to how a leader is concerned with achieving organizational tasks. It involves a wide range of activities, including attention to policy decisions, new product development, process issues, workload, and sales volume, to name a few. Not limited to an organization’s manufactured product or service, concern for production can refer to whatever the organization is seeking to accomplish (Blake & Mouton, 1964).

Concern for people refers to how a leader attends to the people in the organization who are trying to achieve its goals. This concern includes building organizational commitment and trust, promoting the personal worth of followers, providing good working conditions, maintaining a fair salary structure, and promoting good social relations (Blake & Mouton, 1964).

The Leadership (Managerial) Grid joins concern for production and concern for people in a model that has two intersecting axes (

Figure 4.1

). The horizontal axis represents the leader’s concern for results, and the vertical axis represents the leader’s concern for people. Each of the axes is drawn as a 9-point scale on which a score of 1 represents 
minimum concern and 9 represents 
maximum concern. By plotting scores from each of the axes, various leadership styles can be illustrated. The Leadership Grid portrays five major leadership styles: authority–compliance management (9,1), country-club management (1,9), impoverished management (1,1), middle-of-the-road management (5,5), and team management (9,9).

Description

Figure 4.1 The Leadership Grid

Source: The Leadership Grid© figure, Paternalism figure, and Opportunism figure from 
Leadership Dilemmas—Grid Solutions, by Robert R. Blake and Anne Adams McCanse. (Formerly the Managerial Grid by Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton.) Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company (Grid figure: p. 29, Paternalism figure: p. 30, Opportunism figure: p. 31). Copyright 1991 by Scientific Methods, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the owners.

Authority–Compliance Management (9,1).

The 9,1 style of leadership places heavy emphasis on task and job requirements, and less emphasis on people, except to the extent that people are tools for getting the job done. Communicating with followers is not emphasized except for the purpose of giving instructions about the task. This style is result driven, and people are regarded as tools to that end. The 9,1 leader is often seen as controlling, demanding, hard driving, and overpowering.

Country-Club Management (1,9).

The 1,9 style represents a low concern for task accomplishment coupled with a high concern for interpersonal relationships. De-emphasizing production, 1,9 leaders stress the attitudes and feelings of people, making sure the personal and social needs of followers are met. They try to create a positive climate by being agreeable, eager to help, comforting, and uncontroversial.

Impoverished Management (1,1).

The 1,1 style is representative of a leader who is unconcerned with both the task and interpersonal relationships. This type of leader goes through the motions of being a leader but acts uninvolved and withdrawn. The 1,1 leader often has little contact with followers and could be described as indifferent, noncommittal, resigned, and apathetic.

Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5).

The 5,5 style describes leaders who are compromisers, who have an intermediate concern for the task and an intermediate concern for the people who do the task. They find a balance between taking people into account and still emphasizing the work requirements. Their compromising style gives up some of the push for production and some of the attention to employee needs. To arrive at an equilibrium, the 5,5 leader avoids conflict and emphasizes moderate levels of production and interpersonal relationships. This type of leader often is described as one who is expedient, prefers the middle ground, soft-pedals disagreement, and swallows convictions in the interest of “progress.”

Team Management (9,9).

The 9,9 style places a strong emphasis on both tasks and interpersonal relationships. It promotes a high degree of participation and teamwork in the organization and satisfies a basic need in employees to be involved and committed to their work. The following are some of the phrases that could be used to describe the 9,9 leader: 
stimulates participation, acts determined, gets issues into the open, makes priorities clear, follows through, behaves open-mindedly, and 
enjoys working.

In addition to the five major styles described in the Leadership Grid, Blake and his colleagues have identified two other behaviors that incorporate multiple aspects of the grid.

Paternalism/Maternalism

Paternalism/maternalism refers to a leader who uses both 1,9 and 9,1 styles but does not integrate the two (

Figure 4.2

). This is the “benevolent dictator” who acts graciously but does so for the purpose of goal accomplishment. In essence, the paternalistic/maternalistic style treats people as if they were dissociated from the task. Paternalistic/maternalistic leaders are often described as “fatherly” or “motherly” toward their followers, regard the organization as a “family,” make most of the key decisions, and reward loyalty and obedience while punishing noncompliance.

Figure 4.2 Paternalism/Maternalism

Source: The Leadership Grid© figure, Paternalism figure, and Opportunism figure from 
Leadership Dilemmas—Grid Solutions, by Robert R. Blake and Anne Adams McCanse. (Formerly the Managerial Grid by Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton.) Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company (Grid figure: p. 29, Paternalism figure: p. 30, Opportunism figure: p. 31). Copyright 1991 by Scientific Methods, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the owners.

Opportunism

Opportunism refers to a leader who uses any combination of the basic five styles for the purpose of personal advancement (

Figure 4.3

). Opportunistic leaders will adapt and shift their leadership behavior to gain personal advantage, putting self-interest ahead of other priorities. Both the performance and the effort of the leader are to realize personal gain. Some phrases used to describe this leadership behavior include 
ruthless, cunning, and 
self-motivated, while some could argue that these types of leaders are 
adaptable and 
strategic.

Description

Figure 4.3 Opportunism

Source: The Leadership Grid© figure, Paternalism figure, and Opportunism figure from 
Leadership Dilemmas—Grid Solutions, by Robert R. Blake and Anne Adams McCanse. (Formerly the Managerial Grid by Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton.) Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company (Grid figure: p. 29, Paternalism figure: p. 30, Opportunism figure: p. 31). Copyright 1991 by Scientific Methods, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the owners.

Blake and Mouton (1985) indicated that people usually have a dominant grid style (which they use in most situations) and a backup style. The backup style is what the leader reverts to when under pressure, when the usual way of accomplishing things does not work.

In summary, the Leadership Grid is an example of a practical model of leadership that is based on the two major leadership behaviors: task and relationship. It closely parallels the ideas and findings that emerged in the Ohio State and University of Michigan studies. It is used in consulting for organizational development throughout the world.

Recent Studies

More recently, Behrendt, Matz, and Göritz (2017) have created a leadership behavior model that reflects the evolving demands of organizational environments. The Integrated Model of Leadership Behavior (IMoLB; 

Figure 4.4

), which is based on a multitude of studies on leader behavior, builds on the heuristic taxonomy of leader behavior developed by Yukl (2012). The IMoLB relates task-oriented behavior to organizational change demands through envisioning change, innovation, and encouraging learning. Relations-oriented behavior relates to influencing followers to meet the external demands of networking, monitoring the environment, and mobilizing resources to respond to them.

Description

Figure 4.4 Integrated Model of Leadership Behavior (IMoLB)

Source: Behrendt, P., Matz, S., & Göritz, A. S. (2017). An integrative model of leadership behavior. 
The Leadership Quarterly, 
28(1), 229–244.

Still in the early stages of its development, this model has not been measured or tested at the time of this printing, but still offers a relevant look at the relationship of leadership behaviors in the context of modern organizational environments.

HOW DOES THE BEHAVIORAL APPROACH WORK?

Unlike many of the other approaches discussed in the book, the behavioral approach is not a refined theory that provides a neatly organized set of prescriptions for effective leadership behavior. Rather, the behavioral approach provides a framework for assessing leadership in a broad way, as behavior with a task and relationship dimension. The behavioral approach works not by telling leaders how to behave, but by describing the major components of their behavior.

The behavioral approach reminds leaders that their actions toward others occur on a task level and a relationship level. In some situations leaders need to be more task oriented, whereas in others they need to be more relationship oriented. Similarly, some followers need leaders who provide a lot of direction, whereas others need leaders who can show them a great deal of nurturance and support. And in some cases, a leader must combine both approaches (Casimir & Ng, 2010).

An example may help explain how the behavioral approach works. Imagine two college classrooms on the first day of class and two professors with entirely different styles. Professor Smith comes to class, introduces herself, takes attendance, goes over the syllabus, explains the first assignment, and dismisses the class. Professor Jones comes to class and, after introducing herself and handing out the syllabus, tries to help the students to get to know one another by having each of the students describe a little about themselves, their majors, and their favorite nonacademic activities. The leadership behaviors of Professors Smith and Jones are quite different. The preponderance of what Professor Smith does could be labeled task behavior, and the majority of what Professor Jones does could be labeled relationship behavior. The behavioral approach provides a way to inform the professors about the differences in their behaviors. Depending on the response of the students to their leadership behaviors, the professors may want to change their behavior to improve their teaching on the first day of class.

Overall, the behavioral approach offers a means of assessing in a general way the behaviors of leaders. It reminds leaders that their impact on others occurs through the tasks they perform as well as in the relationships they create.

STRENGTHS

The behavioral approach makes several positive contributions to our understanding of the leadership process. First, the behavioral approach marked a major shift in the general focus of leadership research. Before the inception of this approach, researchers treated leadership exclusively as a trait (see 
Chapter 2). The behavioral approach broadened the scope of leadership research to include the behaviors of leaders and what t

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PART 1. Scholarly Entry

1. What is the main premise of the article or chapter? (summarize in a few sentences)

This week we discussed Path-Goal Theory in our textbook,

 

Leadership: Theory and Practice, which emphasizes a leader’s approach in reference to a follower’s motivation and task characteristics. Like the Situational Approach, the Path-Goal Theory identifies four distinct leadership styles when working with followers. In addition to considering followers’ characteristics, the theory encourages leaders to assess task characteristics before selecting an appropriate leadership behavior. However, unlike the Situational Approach, Path-Goal Theory places less emphasis on supportive behavior. Instead, it prioritizes analyzing followers’ attributes and the specific task requirements to determine the most effective leadership approach.

  2. What are your reactions (both positive, negative, and/or neutral) to the readings, including the theories, premises, methods, findings, implications, arguments, etc.?

This theory was somewhat challenging to grasp in the textbook, which is why I chose it for this assignment. Although the concept was difficult to connect, it was interesting because it focused primarily on how the leader was responsible for outcomes due to the emphasis and making sure their followers had clear direction and a path to achieve their goals. However, I did not find a clear explanation of how this theory connects to leadership behavior. In 
Leadership: Theory and Practice (Northouse, 2021), the description of Path-Goal Theory was somewhat ambiguous in explaining how a leader can adapt based on a follower’s motivation and task characteristics.

Additionally, this theory appears to be more rigid and less flexible than the Situational Approach discussed in the previous chapter. Reduced flexibility in leadership seems incongruent with today’s leadership climate. Furthermore, since Path-Goal Theory considers follower motivation as a key variable, it would seem necessary to incorporate greater flexibility to respond effectively to different motivational factors and task characteristics.

  3. What questions, confusions, and/or ideas for future research emerge as you read?

Table 6.1 presents leadership styles as if each type is exclusively paired with one follower characteristic and one task characteristic. However, how do we determine the correct leadership behavior when a follower characteristic from the first row and a task characteristic from the fourth row intersect? Would these elements ever overlap, and if so, how should a leader navigate these intersections?

Additionally, while addressing follower characteristics, task characteristics, removing obstacles, and creating a clear path for followers, how does a leader implement growth tasks? As leaders, our role is to help others navigate their positions, but if we do not give them opportunities to make decisions and find solutions independently, are we truly leading? Are we teaching them to fish, or simply fishing for them? I am specifically considering this theory from the perspective of an executive or upper-level manager, though it could be applied to all levels of management.

   4. What is one position you would take or discussion question you would pose to get your classmates talking?

From an employee perspective, it seems that many followers are driven by self-serving motivations rather than the organization’s broader goals. These motivations often include monetary incentives, personal obligations such as family, and career advancement. How can a leader effectively motivate followers in this situation beyond their self-serving interests and align their motivation with organizational success?

Does Path-Goal Theory place too much responsibility on the leader, requiring less engagement from the follower? If so, how does this approach empower followers to develop leadership skills and adopt a leadership mindset?

 

PART 2. Personal Reflection Entry

Path-Goal Theory was not exactly what I expected, but I can see how certain aspects of the theory can be highly beneficial in specific situations. In my personal experience as both a follower and a leader, I connected the idea of finding self-motivation with an annual review process that asked employees to share their professional and personal goals. The first time I completed one of these reviews at my first marketing job after college, my boss ripped it up in front of me. She said, “I love that you want to align your personal goals with the company’s goals, but that’s not what I want for your life.” Her name is Hilary Halstead-Scott, and you may hear me refer to her often in my program because she truly inspired me to become a leader.

What was unique about this moment was that she understood my long-term aspirations. She recognized that my ultimate career goal was not to become the best marketer for a wholesale jewelry supply company, but rather that this role was a stepping stone toward my next position. In a motivational and empowering way, she showed me that she was realistic about my true motivations, and that was okay. Moving forward in our reviews, my personal and professional goals reflected a growth mindset, and she encouraged that.

If I had to guess, Hilary likely applied aspects of Path-Goal Theory in these reviews. She understood what motivated me while also recognizing that, as a new employee, the tasks she assigned required clear direction and structure. Additionally, for me, this approach served as an effective retention strategy because it reinforced that the company was a safe place for growth. It was clear that my personal motivations were acknowledged and supported in a way that ultimately contributed to the broader goals of the organization.