Leadership Behavioral Theory Presentation

In this theory, seeks to arrive to the definition of leadership through the observation of the group behaviors. Therefore, studied the existent behavior in leadership, would be enough to create training programs which modified and adopted the people’s behaviors looking to become leaders.

Several studies were made about the leaders’ behavior styles, from which can be highlighted those performed at the university of Ohio and Michigan.

Ohio investigators have as aim to identify the leader’s behavior dimension. It was concluded that there were two categories capable to describe most of the leaders’ behaviors, which were the structure initiation (goals definition and promotion of tasks performance) and consideration (mutual trust, respect for the subordinates’ ideas, friendly relations). 

Regarding the studies performed at the University of Michigan, were identified two behavior categories, especially the production guidance and the employees guidance. Leaders guided for the employees were associated to a high productivity of the group and an also high professional satisfaction. On the other hand, leaders guided for production originated less productivity of the group and less work satisfaction, worrying fundamentally with the tasks fulfillment and less with the interpersonal relations.

However the most published model in this theory was the leadership grid, created by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton (1964).

 

 

Translated from Portuguese by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.