LEADERSHIP GRID

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PEÑAFLOR, A.; RAMOS, J.; BULAY, K.; OLLAGON, A
LEADERSHIP GRID
By:
Robert Blake & Jane S. Mouton
INTRODUCTION
During World War II, Blake served in the army for some time. Dean Williams, the
author of Real Leadership - Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest
Challenges, shared what he learned from a general in the U.S. army. He was told that
real Leadership was manifested in the "art of motivation" to get soldiers to do what you
want them to do (Williams, 2005). Around 1945, he was discharged from the army and
pursued his doctorate in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Assuming
that all military soldiers worldwide hold the same ideals, it is clear that Blake carried a
lesson from leaving the army that the power of motivation is essential to move people to
a leader's cause.
Leadership, in the 1940s showed that a true leader should focus more on actions
toward tasks and people rather than focusing on their traits or personalities. Various
studies about leadership back this up. Ralph Stogdill, a psychologist, said that different
leaders have over a thousand other characteristics, so it is too complex or irrelevant to
study.
In the mid-1950s, researchers tried to identify personality traits in people. Finally,
they examined specific behaviors of effective managers at that time and related to good
Leadership.
By the way, what is Leadership? According to Ken Blanchard in his book, The
Heart of a Leader, it says, "Leadership isn't just about having a powerful position. Anytime
you use your influence to affect the thoughts and actions of others, you are engaging in
Leadership. So you can be a leader as a parent, spouse, friend, or citizen."
By then, psychologist Robert R. Blake and mathematician Jane S. Mouton
converged all notable findings from these studies, which helped them uncover two (2)
basic styles of leadership behavior - one emphasizes the concept of getting the job done.

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Another highlights the leader's ability to relate or communicate with people (his
interpersonal role), the two factors Stogdill had identified. This is not surprising that
people's behavior is involved since both proponents are humanists. Blake has a Bachelor
of Arts degree in Psychology and Philosophy, enabling him to make clear insights related
to behavioral science. Because of this, Blake and Mouton were teaching managers an
idea in their consulting firm, Scientific Methods, Inc.. They say any leader can be great in
showing concern for results and concern for people (possible) simultaneously, and this
should be the standard of all aspiring leaders (desirable). This leadership perspective
goes beyond the idea that a leader should only delegate tasks and congratulate a team
member for a well-done job because he accomplished what he is supposed to do.
Blake and Mouton fight for the idea that a leader promotes a "team culture" that
enables people to participate, form them into a team of problem-solvers, and make them
commit to the organization's values. With this, Blake and Mouton introduce the best-
known framework of managerial behavior for examining leadership styles (Northouse,
2019). Formerly known as the Managerial Grid, it is a theory-based approach for
analyzing various "team cultures." It displays leadership qualities that first appeared in
the early 1960s and have been refined and revised several times. 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 reach their purposes through two
factors described as leadership orientations or dimensions: concern for production and
concern for people. These two (2) nine-point scales range from a low value of 1 to a high
value of 9. The rationale was that production and people were the two (2) most significant
factors in organizational management. No work could be done without people, and an
organization would be worthless without adequate production of whatever goods or
services they produced. This grid tapped a fundamental management principle - serving
the organization and the individual.
This quantifiable measurement of management style is credited to Mouton's
mathematical prowess. She is an American management theorist (Kurian, 2013) and has
a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, Master of Arts in Science and a Ph.D.
A manager who has little of both concern for people and concern for production is
considered to be not carrying out his or her duties (Westcott, R.T., 2014). With this,
leaders should be exposed to the idea that organizational performance can be improved
by paying attention to their employees and the task at hand.

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Components of the
Leadership Grid
Concern for production refers to how a leader is concerned with achieving
organizational tasks, which is an efficiency concern and is a left-brain activity. It involves
a wide range of activities, including:
- attention to policy decisions (satisfaction of organizational objectives),
- new product development (desire for achieving better results),
- process issues (getting the job done; efficiency),
- workload (on-time performance), and
- sales volume (cost-effectiveness; resource utilization), to name a few.
Not limited to an organization's manufactured product or service, concern for
production can refer to whatever the organization seeks to accomplish.
Concern for people refers to a leader attending to the people in the organization
trying to achieve its goals. It is an emotional and human-relations measure that is a right-
brain activity. This concern includes:
- building organizational commitment (friendship and respect) and trust,
- promoting the personal worth of followers (helping people to achieve their personal
goals),
- providing good working conditions (facilitating to achieve results),
- maintaining a fair salary structure (minimizing conflicts), and
- promoting good social relations (cooperation and friendship).
The Leadership (Managerial) Grid joins concern for production and concern for
people in a model with two intersecting axes (Figure 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 expresses maximum concern. By plotting scores from each of
the axes, various leadership styles can be illustrated. These two made a lot of sense to
combine left and right brain activities into a comprehensive whole to gauge management
style.

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Figure 1. The Leadership Grid
The Leadership Grid portrays five major leadership styles (team cultures):
authority–compliance (9,1), country-club management (1,9), impoverished management
(1,1), middle-of-the-road management (5,5), and team management (9,9).
1. Authority–Compliance Management (9,1): Autocratic; Task-centered; Directive
The 9,1 style of leadership places heavy emphasis on task and job requirements
(the primary concern) and less on people (secondary concern), except that people are
tools for getting the job done.
Communicating with followers is not emphasized except to give 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.

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Example:
- Rapidly dishing out projects that have unreasonable deadlines that will
eventually lead to the exhaustion of the people working on the project thus,
even though the deadlines are met, the quality will ultimately be neglected.
2. Country-Club Management (1,9): Content workforce
The 1,9 style represents a low (secondary) concern for task accomplishment and
a high (primary) 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,
pleasant, easygoing, eager to help, comforting, and uncontroversial.
Example:
- A manager is always setting up various team-building activities but is not
constantly accepting any projects for their team. The manager will hope that
when a project is assigned to their team, they will do it with ease because
of the positivity that is spread throughout the workplace.
3. Impoverished (Laissez-faire) Management (1,1): Why are they leading?
The 1,1 style represents a leader with minimal concern for either task (productivity)
or interpersonal relationships (people). This type of leader goes through 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.
Example:
- A manager who is just surfing the web every day in the workplace tells their
team not to worry about a deadline and worry about it next month.
Furthermore, the manager stays in the office and tells the team not to
disturb them.
4. Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5): Comfortable but ineffective
The 5,5 style describes leaders who are compromisers, who have an intermediate
(moderate) concern for both the task and the people who do the task to maintain the
status quo. They find a balance between taking people into account and still emphasizing
the work requirements.
Their compromising style gives up some push for production and some attention
to employee needs. To arrive at an equilibrium, the 5,5 leader avoids conflict and
emphasizes moderate production and interpersonal relationships. This type of leader
often is described as
- expedient one,

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- prefers the middle ground,
- soft-pedals disagreement, and
- swallows convictions in the interest of "progress."
Example:
- A supervisor delivers a project on time and gives enough time for their team
to rest before moving on to the next project. Doing just the right amount of
work not to be demoted but at the same time not striving brings more effort
to have a promotion.
5. Team Management (9,9): The level we all aspire to!
The 9,9 style emphasizes (high concern) 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.
With these, it was regarded as the ideal management style for most work
environments. This finding seems to be especially true in a technology-oriented
environment, where managers have to lead people toward innovative results in an
uncertain environment. In addition, technology managers often have to step across
functional lines and build a work team consisting of people over whom they have limited
authority and control. The manager must build trust and respect and direct the activities
via team commitment and self-control to get results. Many training programs have been
developed that focus on the Leadership Grid to assist managers in achieving a leadership
style that is most effective for their specific work environment.
Example:
- They are raising the team's morale after a triumphant win on a project by
taking the whole team to a nice restaurant to celebrate while also discussing
how to improve their performances on the following upcoming projects.
In addition to the five major styles described in the Leadership Grid, Blake and his
colleagues have identified two other behaviors (extra team cultures) that incorporate

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multiple aspects of the grid. In other words, these two do not occupy unique positions on
the grid (Blake, 1987).
6. Paternalism/Maternalism
Paternalism/maternalism refers to a leader who uses both 1,9 and 9,1 styles but
does not integrate the two (Figure 2). This is the "benevolent dictator" who acts graciously
but does so for 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 critical decisions; and reward loyalty and
obedience while punishing noncompliance.
Figure 2. Paternalism/Maternalism
7. Opportunism
Opportunism refers to a leader who uses any combination of the basic five styles
for personal advancement (Figure 3). An opportunistic leader will adapt and shift their
leadership behavior to gain personal advantage, putting self-interest ahead of other
priorities. Both the performance and the leader's effort are to realize personal gain. Some
phrases used to describe this leadership behavior include ruthless, cunning, and self-
motivation, while some could argue that these leaders are adaptable and strategic.

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Figure 3. Opportunism
Blake and Mouton (1985) indicated that people usually have a dominant grid style
(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 in the Ohio State and University of Michigan studies. It is
used in consulting for organizational development throughout the world.

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Modern Developments of the
Leadership Grid:
Other 2D Dual Concern Models
Managing Organizational Conflict: A Model for Diagnosis and Intervention
This model recognizes conflict has to be managed at any level within an
organization as shown in Figure 4 and are the following:
❖ Intrapersonal
❖ Interpersonal
➢ Intragroup
➢ Intergroup
➢ Interorganizational
Figure 4: Classification of Organization Conflict based on Level of Origin

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This can be done by altering the behavioral and structural sources of conflict and
enabling the organizational participants to effectively learn the various conflict-handling
styles to deal with different conflict situations (Rahim and Bonoma, 1979).
The management of intrapersonal conflict involves aligning the goal of the
person and his expected role to the task and role demand. This is to promote the
individual's well-being and the organization's goals. The management of intragroup
conflict involves maximizing the capabilities and potentials of members to formulate or
attain group goals. The management of intergroup conflict involves combining the
capabilities and potentials of members from different conflicting groups to solve their
common problem to achieve overall organization goals.
In addition, too little or no conflict (stagnate) or too much conflict (divisive) can
jeopardize the organization's effectiveness. Therefore, an optimum level of organizational
effectiveness should be maintained at moderate conflict, which relates to the two having
an inverted-U function, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Relationship between Conflict and Organizational Effectiveness

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Similar to Blake and Mouton's and Thomas' conceptualization, the five (5) specific
styles of handling came to be by combining a concern for self and concern for others
which motivates or satisfies a person, as shown in Figure 6 and are the following:
❖ Positive-sum styles:
➢ Integrating = communication + examination –(problem-solving)→
acceptance
➢ Obliging = commonalities - differences
❖ Zero-sum styles:
➢ Dominating = winner's mindset - ignorance to others
➢ Avoiding = failed to satisfy self and others → withdraw/buck-
passing/sidestep
❖ Mixed style:
➢ Compromising = both give up something → mutually acceptable decision
Figure 6: Interpersonal Styles of Handling Conflict
Conflict MODE (Management-Of-Differences Exercise) Instrument
In social science research, Ralph H. Kilmann and Kenneth W. Thomas (1977)
developed and reinterpreted Blake and Mouton's ideas. It is an instrument that attempts

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to control the social desirability response bias by using a five-category scheme for
classifying interpersonal conflict-handling modes. These five reflect the independent
dimensions of interpersonal conflict behavior. The scheme is based upon the two
separate dimensions of cooperation (attempting to satisfy the other person's concerns)
and assertiveness (trying to satisfy one's concerns). The modes are presented in Figure
7 and are the following:
- Competing = assertive + uncooperative
- Collaborating = assertive + cooperative
- Compromising = intermediate in both cooperativeness and assertiveness
- Avoiding = unassertive + uncooperative
- Accommodating = unassertive + cooperative
Figure 7: Conflict MODE Instrument
Support and Challenge Leadership Model
It was built from the leadership grid of Blake and Mouton, suggesting that an
effective leader needs to provide support to their team and challenge them (Cook, 2009).
When a leader provides support to their team, this involves:
- Offering motivational feedback,
- Listening,
- Empathizing,
- Assisting,
- Showing understanding, and
- Providing their own time and effort.
When a leader provides challenge, this can mean:

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- Offering development feedback,
- Asking others to do better, through both the requests you make of them and
the challenges you set them,
- Questioning them, getting them to rethink their actions and decisions,
- Offering alternatives,
- Setting stretching targets,
- Stating positive and negative consequences of actions and
- Confronting underperformance assertively.
Figure 8 shows the model and the different mixes of support and challenge that
lead to very different styles of Leadership creating different environments, and a scoring
matrix is used as shown in Figure 9:
● High challenge + low support = Taskmaster → stress
● High Support + low challenge = Counselor → comfort-zone
● Low challenge + low support = Abdicator → apathy
● High challenge + high support = Coach → high-performance
The model assesses the balance of the challenge level leaders impose on their
people and should note that low challenge needs to be increased to stimulate higher
performance. In contrast, too-high challenge levels need to be reduced to a manageable
level.
Figure 8. The Support and Challenge Model

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Figure 9. Score Matrix for the Support and Challenge Model

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References
Blake, R., Mouton, J., & Allen, R. (1987). Spectacular Teamwork: How to Develop the
Leadership Skills for Team Success. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from
https://booksc.org/book/11880315/a5126b
Clayton, M. (2018, March 19). Robert Blake & Jane Mouton: Managerial Grid.
Management Pocketbooks from
https://www.pocketbook.co.uk/blog/2017/05/16/robert-blake-jane-mouton-managerial-
grid/
Cook, Sarah. (2009). Leading for Success - Unleash Your Leadership Potential to
Achieve Extraordinary Results - 2.2 The Support and Challenge Leadership Model. (pp.
21-23, 29). IT Governance Publishing. Retrieved from
https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt00BIZDT1/leading-success-unleash/support-
challenge-leadership
Kilmann, R. H., & Thomas, K. W. (1977). Developing a Forced-Choice Measure of
Conflict-Handling Behavior: The "Mode" Instrument. Educational and Psychological
Measurement, 37(2), 309–325. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447703700204
Kurian, George Thomas. (2013). The AMA Dictionary of Business and Management -
Motivational research. (pp. 189). AMACOM. Retrieved from
https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt00C97CB1/ama-dictionary-business/motivational-
research
Leadership Grid. The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2022, from
https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/management/leadership-grid
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th ed.). SAGE.
Rahim, A., & Bonoma, T. V. (1979). Managing organizational conflict: A model for
diagnosis and intervention. Psychological Reports, 44(3c), 1323–1344.
https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1979.44.3c.1323
Thamhain, Hans J.. (2005). Management of Technology - Managing Effectively in
Technology-Intensive Organizations - 5.4.2.1 GE's Commitment-Competence Grid. (pp.
111-113). John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from
https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt0047I9W1/management-technology/ges-
commitment-competence

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Thomas, Philippa Paul, Debra Cadle, James. (2012). Human Touch - Personal Skills for
Professional Success - 5.8.2 Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership®. (pp. 69-70).
BCS The Chartered Institute for IT. Retrieved from
https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt00C4PZT3/human-touch-personal/hersey-
blanchard-situational
Westcott, Russell T.. (2014). Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence
Handbook (4th Edition) - 8.2.1.11 Seven Habits. (pp. 142). American Society for Quality
(ASQ). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt00C4ZK21/certified-
manager-quality/seven-habits
Williams, Dean. (2005). Real Leadership - Helping People and Organizations Face Their
Toughest Challenges - 1.1 The Features of Real Leadership. (pp. 4). Berrett-Koehler.
Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/pdf/id:kt011CEAQ1/real-leadership-
helping/features-real-leadership

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