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1.2.3 The Blake and Mouton management grid

Perhaps the most important work balancing a manager's concern for people or processes was undertaken by Blake and Mouton who developed a two dimensional view of leadership style structured in a managerial grid with two axis: concern for people; and concern for production. The grid has nine possible positions along each axis creating 81 different positions into which a leader's style can fall (Blake & Mouton, 1984).

 

Figure 3 Blake and Mouton Management Grid

Figure 3 Blake and Mouton Management Grid

Blake and Mouton identified five key positions on the grid:

Cell 1:1 Impoverished: The leader exerts minimum effort to accomplish work.
Cell 9:1 Task: The leader concentrates on task efficiency but shows little concern for the development and morale of subordinates.
Cell 1:9 Country-club: The leader focuses on being supportive and considerate of subordinates to the exclusion of concern for task efficiency.
Cell 5:5 Middle-of-the-road: Adequate task efficiency and satisfactory morale are the goals of this style.
Cell 9:9 Team: The leader facilitates task efficiency and high morale by coordinating and integrating work-related activities.

Blake and Mouton conclude that in a workplace context supervisors and managers perform best using behaviours that achieve a 9:9 result (Blake & Mouton, 1984).

The trait approach spans behavioural and role approaches to defining leadership. Traits are the characteristics that 'good', or indeed great, leaders display. From his observations, Bennis defined four traits common to every one of the 90 managers studied:

  1. Management of Attention
  2. Management of Meaning
  3. Management of Trust
  4. Management of Self. (Bennis, 1985:126)

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