Leadership Grid
The Leadership Grid is a behavioral leadership model developed in the 1960s by Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton. It maps leadership styles on two axes—concern for production (task orientation) and concern for people (relationship orientation)—each scored from 1 (low) to 9 (high). Positions on the grid represent five principal leadership types.
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How the grid works
* X-axis: Concern for production (task, goals, efficiency) — 1 to 9.
* Y-axis: Concern for people (well‑being, morale, relationships) — 1 to 9.
* A pair of numbers (X,Y) denotes a leader’s emphasis on production and people.
Five leadership styles
* Impoverished (1,1)
Minimal concern for both production and people. Leaders do the bare minimum to maintain their position, often resulting in low productivity and morale.
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Produce or Perish / Authority-Compliance (9,1)
High concern for production, low concern for people. Task‑focused and controlling; can produce results short term but often causes high turnover and low engagement. -
Country Club (1,9)
High concern for people, low concern for production. Prioritizes employee comfort and relationships, sometimes at the cost of performance and objectives. -
Middle of the Road (5,5)
Moderate concern for both people and production. Seeks compromise and balance but may deliver only adequate results rather than excellence. -
Team (9,9)
High concern for both production and people. Encourages participation, commitment, and empowerment; generally regarded by the model’s creators as the most effective style for sustained productivity and morale.
Benefits of using the Leadership Grid
* Clarifies trade‑offs between task and relationship emphasis.
* Provides a simple framework for self‑assessment and leadership development.
* Useful for diagnosing team culture and designing training or management interventions.
* Encourages reflection on how leadership behavior affects performance and morale.
Limitations and cautions
* Simplifies complex leadership dynamics to two dimensions and five archetypes.
* Largely prescriptive: favors the 9,9 Team ideal without fully accounting for situational needs.
* Limited empirical validation across all organizational contexts.
* Does not explicitly incorporate external variables (industry, culture, crisis situations) that can justify different approaches.
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Applying the grid in practice
* Self-assessment: map your typical behaviors on the two axes to identify tendencies and development areas.
* Development plans: use the grid to set concrete goals (e.g., increase delegation while maintaining standards).
* Team diagnostics: assess whether current leadership style aligns with team needs and organizational objectives.
* Contextualize: consider task complexity, time pressures, and culture—sometimes more task‑focused or directive approaches are appropriate.
Key takeaways
* The Leadership Grid compares concern for production and concern for people to describe five leadership styles.
* The Team (9,9) style aims to maximize both productivity and employee satisfaction, but situational factors may call for different approaches.
* The model is a helpful diagnostic and development tool, though it should be applied with awareness of its simplifications and limitations.