Are we more task-oriented or people-oriented? Jane Mouton and Robert Blake, two American management theorists who lived in the last century, developed a Managerial Grid in 1964, which turned out to be useful when analysing leadership styles. Here it is:

(source: The Open University Business School, Exploring Management, 2012, p.72)

 

As we can see, this grid is based on the combination of two factors: concern for people and concern for results. Five leadership styles are identified, as follows:

• Country club management: the manager tries to create a good atmosphere among team members at the expense of the target to be reached
  
  
• Authority-compliance management: the manager is too task-driven and too little concerned about team members
  
  
• Impoverished management: the manager does not care about either reaching any target or being supportive towards team members
  
  
• Middle-of-the-road management: the team manager tries hard to find a compromise between task-oriented leadership and people-oriented leadership with little success
  
  
• Team management: this what the two authors regard as the ideal style, where the team manager succeeds in finding the right balance between concern for people and concern for results

Therefore, as managers, do we tend to be more task-driven than process-oriented or vice-versa? Where do we stand in the grid? Once we have reflected on this, it will be easier to take actions in order to improve our weak points so as to be more effective leaders while managing our team.