The Leadership Style Approach
The third approach in the Leadership Studies is the Leadership style approach. While the Leadership Traits Approach took into account the personality of the leader, and the Leadership skills approach takes into account the knowledge and abilities that the leader has, the Leadership Style approach focus its attention on the Leader’s Behavior.
“Leadership style is the combination of traits, skills, and behaviors leaders use as they interact with followers”. (Lussier, 2004)
Even though, leadership style is based on leadership skills and leadership traits, leadership behavior is the important component. A consistent pattern of behavior is what characterizes a leader. “In shifting the study of leadership to leader style or behaviors, the style approach expanded the study of leadership to include the actions of the leader toward subordinates in various contexts”. (Northouse, 2004).
In the early studies of leadership we see the term “behavior”, but in modern literature we find the term “style” instead. Basically they refer to the same.
In this article I’m going to talk about four different approaches to leadership style. The first one is the Iowa’s University Styles approach, it appears as the oldest in the books I’ve reviewed. The next one is the approach is proposed by the University of Michigan. In third place we’ll look at the Ohio State University approach to leadership style. In the last place we’ll see the Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid®.
Leadership Styles and The University of Iowa Research
Back in the 1930s, Kurt Lewin and associates at the University of Iowa conducted studies focused on the leadership style of the manager. Their studies identified two styles of management: autocratic and democratic.
- Autocratic Leadership Style: The leader that exhibits this behavior makes the decisions, gives orders to employees, and is constantly supervising his subordinates.
- Democratic Leadership Style: The leader that exhibits this behavior promotes shared decisions, team work, and does not supervise his subordinates closely.
It’s clear that these leadership styles are opposite ends of a continuum. As such, it’s easy to think that a leader’s leadership style follows between those ends.
The importance of the studies of The University of Iowa is that they led the shift from a “traits perspective” (as we saw in the Leadership Traits Approach) to a “behavioral perspective” on leadership.
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