By the mid-twentieth century, the inability of trait theory to explain effective leadership and the emerging human relations movement encouraged researchers to shift attention to how leadership behaviors influenced others. Behavioral studies attempt to identify the behavioral factors that differentiate effective leaders from ineffective leaders, so organizations can use discoveries to train leaders. Leadership studies conducted in the 1950s at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan produced the assumptions that drive behavior theories. This section summarizes the findings of both studies, exploring the dimensions of leadership identified by the Ohio State studies and the managerial grid that emerged from the University of Michigan studies, then considering the implications of behavioral leadership theories in a contemporary context.

Ohio State Leadership Studies

Researchers at Ohio State University identified two dimensions of leadership behavior: consideration and initiating structure [See Image 2: Ohio State Dimensions of Leadership]. Consideration focuses on the leader’s behavior associated with meeting the needs of people, like creating trust, support, respect, warmth, and other behaviors that meet the needs and desires of followers. Initiating structure focuses on the leader’s behavior associated with tasks, like organizing work, defining roles and relationships, developing communications channels, and other behaviors that get the job done (Bass, 2008; Yukl, 2010; Jex, 2002).

Two extreme leadership styles emerge from the people and task leader dimensions: autocratic and participative. An autocratic leader solves problems, makes decisions using available information, and then tells followers what to do. Participative leaders share problems with subordinates to evaluate alternatives and reach a consensus as a group, then do what the group wants to do. Considering the degree to which leaders exhibit one or the other dimension yielded four leadership styles, as follows [See Image 3: Ohio State Leadership Matrix] (Bass, 2008; Yukl, 2010):

• Low structure, high consideration; the leader focuses on meeting the needs of the employees and is less concerned about getting the job done.
• High structure, high consideration; the leader actively organizes and directs employee work while demonstrating high consideration for employee needs and wants.
• Low structure, low consideration; the leader provides little structure for how followers should do work and demonstrates low consideration for employee wants and needs.
• High structure, low consideration; the leader focuses on structuring work while demonstrating low consideration for employee needs.

 Researchers hypothesized that a high-structure, high-consideration style would be the most effective. However, research has not supported this position. In a recent meta-analysis of 130 studies, Timothy Judge, Ronald Piccolo, and Remus Ilies (2004) found that people prefer working for considerate leaders but achieve higher performance under structuring leaders. In other words, consideration and structure are essential behaviors, but no best style exists.

 Further, Abraham Korman (1966) criticized the Ohio State studies for the following reasons:

• The model does not consider situational factors.
• Research produced inconsistent results.
• The methodology allowed researchers to distort perceptions to achieve balanced results.
• Determining the influence that task structure and consideration have on performance is impossible. Still, the opposite can be proved: performance may cause consideration and task structure.
• The research could not determine scores that made a difference in leadership effectiveness.

Steven Kerr and Chester Schriesheim (1974) later argued that researchers had “progressed in our understanding of consideration and initiating structure.” Still, additional research was necessary to determine if consideration and initiating structure influence leadership effectiveness (p. 565). More recently, Yukl (2010) points out the Ohio leadership studies have received considerable research attention, “but the results are difficult to interpret” (p. 58). The connection between consideration and subordinate satisfaction is the only dimension in the Ohio studies that have received consistent research support. In other words, followers are usually more satisfied when leaders demonstrate considerate behavior.

Managerial grid

Researchers at the University of Michigan also attempted to isolate the behaviors of effective leaders. Rensis Likert (1961, in Yukl, 2010) extracted two leadership styles from the University of Michigan studies: employee-oriented leaders and job-centered leaders. Job-centered leaders focus on the technical aspects that enhance productivity. Employee-centered leaders focus on the needs of employees while developing relationships [See Image 4: Leadership behavior continuum]. Likert argued that employee-oriented leaders are most effective at motivating performance. Research does not support this central assumption of the managerial grid (Yukl, 2010).

Drawing from the Michigan Studies, Robert Blake and Jane Mouton (1964) proposed a managerial grid that shows a scale between the degree to which a manager exhibits concern for people and how a manager exhibits concern for production. The grid presents 81 possible leadership styles; but the extremes closely align with those of the Ohio State studies, as follows:

Country Club Management. Country Club Management means that the leader demonstrates high concern for people but low concern for productivity. This leader pays careful attention to the needs of people and works hard to build a comfortable, friendly atmosphere with satisfying relationships—at the expense of productivity.

Authority-Obedience Management. Authority-Obedience Management means that the leader demonstrates a high concern for productivity and low concern for people. This leader focuses on building efficient operations in a way that minimizes human involvement.

Impoverished Management. Impoverished Management means that the leader demonstrates low concern for people and low concern for production. This leader exerts the minimum effort necessary to get the job done and sustain organizational membership.

Team Management. Team Management means that the leader demonstrates a high concern for people and a high concern for productivity. This leader focuses on developing people committed to interdependently working to accomplish common goals in an environment of respect and trust.

Organization Man Management. Organization Man Management falls in the middle of the grid, showing that the leader has an adequate concern for people and an adequate concern for productivity. This leader achieves satisfactory organizational performance by balancing task needs, and people needs to maintain morale at a satisfactory level.

Implications of behavioral styles

While trait theory assumes that great leaders are born, behavior theory argues that leaders can be made. Considering leadership development systems in professional, academic, military, and paramilitary settings, ample evidence supports the assumption that leader behaviors can be developed and improved (Day, Harrison, & Halpin, 2009). Behavior research has not generally supported assumptions that high concern for people affects performance. But, research has fostered the understanding that followers prefer structure over consideration when roles are poorly defined (Yukl, 2010).

A weakness of early behavior research is that it attempts to seek simple answers to complex problems. Addressing the issue of oversimplified explanations, Yukl proposes, “behaviors interact in complex ways… Complementary behaviors are woven together in a complex tapestry” (2010, p. 80). This means that understanding leadership takes more than isolating behaviors; it requires studying the interactions among the behaviors to identify a pattern of leadership behavior and understanding how those patterns interact with the traits, the environment, and the follower. This leads to the final point: although behavior researchers failed to identify the best style of leadership, their results help to support the case for the primary assertion of situational leadership theory: the most effective leadership behavior depends on the situation.

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