Behavioral Approach Leadership Style

 

Behavioral Approach

Insights

• This style of leadership emphasizes the behavior of the leader (what they do and how they act) rather than who they are
• The leader engages in two primary types of behavior: task behaviors (facilitates goal accomplishment) and relationship behaviors (helps followers feel comfortable with themselves, with each other , and with the situation in which they find themselves)
• The central purpose of this style of leadership is to explain how leaders combine these two kinds of behaviors to influence followers in their efforts to reach a goal
• Task behaviors may include acts such as: organizing work, giving structure to the work context, defining role responsibilities, and scheduling work activities. Relationship behaviors may include acts such as: building camaraderie, respect, trust, and liking between leaders and followers.

Application

This theory does not provide a “recipe” for effective leadership behavior.  Instead, it provides a framework for assessing leadership in a broad way.  This type of leadership is often used in the education setting.  Based on my prior experiences as a school teacher, I have seen many former principals behave with both types of this leadership theory.  For instance, one principal I worked for was very formal, very task driven.  She would begin her faculty meetings with an agenda, and work her way through the agenda item by item without stopping for feedback or to check and ensure that all of her teachers understood what she was asking us to do.  On the other hand, I had a principal that would begin his faculty meetings by getting the teachers energized and focused.  He would often open his faculty meetings with a team building exercise.  The faculty was given snacks and provided an opportunity to engage with one another prior to the agenda items discussed.  The behavioral difference in the two types of principals aforementioned, yielded different faculty and student outcomes.  The task-driven principal had an unhappy staff that often times fought with one another and the principal that had a relationship behavior had a happy staff that was much more engaging and effective at teaching.

In my experiences as a school principal, I found it imperative to use both types of this leadership theory.

Certain teachers needed their leader to be very task oriented.  The task-oriented teachers were the teachers that needed to know what their expectations were, what their lesson plans needed to include, lesson plan cycle, an agenda at our faculty meetings and what was the structure for the week.  The task-oriented teachers needed a weekly bulletin outlining everything that I had planned for the week and how they fit into that work week.

 

The relationship oriented teachers needed an open door policy where they could drop in my office and “chat” about what was going on in their world, needed advice on how to handle an ill-behaved student, wanted to talk about a project they were thinking about pursing, and in addition needed me to be sensitive to their needs and wants.

In short, this theory applies to nearly everything a leader does.  I believe that this model would be very useful in training managers on how to improve their effectiveness and organizational productivity.  

From a leader prospective, I believe this theory would provide a general framework where the leader would have to determine who on their staff required what type of behavior style and then implement the style that best fits their follower’s needs. 

Strengths

• Broadened the scope of leadership research to include the study of the behaviors of leaders rather than only their personal traits and characteristics
• Is a reliable approach because it is supported by a wide range of studies
• Is valuable because it emphasizes the importance of 2 dimensional leadership behavior: task and relationship

Weaknesses

• Researchers have not been able to correlate behaviors of leaders (task & relationship) with outcomes (morale, job satisfaction, and productivity)
• Researchers have not been able to identify a universal set of leadership behaviors that would consistently result in effective leadership
• Fails to support the idea that most effective leadership styles is a high-high style.  High in task orientation and high in relationship orientation

Leadership Behavior Questionnaire (Northouse, 2016, p 88-89.)

I scored a 97 out of 100 points on this questionnaire. The score of 97 is in the Very High range (High-High leadership style: High in task orientation and high in relationship orientation).  The score reflects the degree to which I help others by defining their roles and letting them know what is expected of them.  I am task directed.  In addition, my score reflects my leadership style as one that helps subordinates feel comfortable with themselves, each other, and the group itself.  I am people oriented.  I believe that being a school principal for a little over 10 years helped me balance this leadership style.

Below is a sample LBDQ XII of how you might rate your leader.

References

Northouse, P.G., (2016). Leadership, Thousand Oaks, California, SAGE Publications.

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