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Explain Managerial Grid Approach
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This approach is considered to be the most widely known of all leadership theories. This approach was developed by Blake and Mouton. This approach focuses on various blends of leadership styles. The grid has been style as well as a device of managerial training. The two dimensions of the grid show, "concern for production" and "concern for people" indicating the extent of concern for production and/or people. Although 81 possible combinations of the leadership styles are possible with varying mixes of concern for production and people, Blake and Mouton emphasised five of them, four in the corners and one in the middle. These five styles are:
Style 1,1, Impoverished Management.
Style 1,9, Country Club Management.
Style 9,1, Production Oriented Management.
Style 9, 9, Team Management.
Style 5, 5, Mid of the Road Management.
Style 1,1, i.e., impoverished management shows very little concern for production and people. The leader lets things drift. He neither satisfies production requirements nor employee needs.
Style 1, 9, i.e., country club management aims at keeping the employees happy and shows little concern for production. Such a leader thinks that if he takes care of employees, production will lakes care of itself. Unfortunately, happy workers are not necessarily highly productive.
Style 9,1, i.e., production oriented management shows maximum concern for production and minimum concern for people. He is authoritarian and demands compliance by using mainly threats and coercion. He causes employees' alienation from the organisation.
Style 5,5, i.e., mid of the road management emphasises both production as well as employee need satisfaction but not maximally. They involve people in decision-making and provide an environment for employee need satisfaction, though they do not optimise on and of these dimensions.
Style 9,9, i.e., team management is close to Likert's System 4. Such leaders place maximum emphasis on production as well as people. They integrate the individual and group goals with organisational goals. Thus they optimise on dimensions-employee involvement and need satisfaction as well as production. Blake and Mouton strongly suggest this position for all-round welfare. It is team approach that makes managers effective leaders.
