What technique did Blake and Mouton develop?

If you are looking for one simple model that can more than pull its weight in understanding management, then look no further. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton developed their Managerial Grid in the 1950s and early 1960s. Its simplicity captures vital truths about management styles and their implications.

Every manager should understand the basics of the Managerial Grid. Even if you are not familiar with it, there’s a good chance you will recognise its organising principle. And if you don’t, then read on. This is fundamental stuff.

Robert R Blake

Robert Blake was born in Massachusetts, in 1918. He received a BA in psychology and philosophy from Berea College in 1940, followed by an MA in psychology from the University of Virginia in 1941. His studies were broken by the war, where he served in the US Army. On his return, he completed his PhD in psychology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1947.

He stayed at the University of Texas as a tenured professor until 1964, also lecturing at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities. In the early 1950s, he began his association with his student, Jane Mouton, which led to their work together at Exxon, the development of the Managerial Grid, and co-founding of Scientific Methods, Inc in 1964. The company is now called Grid International.

Robert Blake died in Austin, Texas, in 2004.

Jane S Mouton

Jane Mouton was born in Texas, in 1930. She got a BSC in Mathematical Education in 1950, and an MSc from Florida State University in 1951. She then returned to the University of Texas, completing her PhD in 1957. She remained there until 1964 in research and teaching roles.

It was at the University of Texas that she met Robert Blake. They were hired by Exxon to study management processes after Blake collaborated with Exxon employee, Herbert Shepard. The work led to their development of the Managerial Grid and, in 1961, to the founding of Scientific Methods, Inc (now Grid international).

Jane Mouton died in 1987.

The Managerial Grid

In many ways, Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid is a development of the Theory X, Theory Y work of Douglas McGregor. The two researchers were humanists, who wanted to represent the benefits of Theory Y management.

They did so by defining two primary concerns for a manager:

1. Concern for People
2. Concern for Production
   (sometimes referred to as Concern for Task)

Although their work is often simplified to a familiar 2 x 2 matrix formulation, it was a little more subtle. They created two axes and divided each into nine levels, to give a 9 x 9 grid. It was the extreme corners, and the centre, of this grid that they labelled and characterised. They recognised that most managerial behaviours fall within the grid, rather than at the extremes.

The Five Styles on the Grid

The five styles they originally identified are at the corners and in the centre. They are still best known by the first labels Blake and Mouton published for them (shown in italics in our illustration). Blake did later refine those labels, as well as define two additional styles. This was after Jane Mouton died, in 1987.

Indifferent
Impoverished Management | Low Results/Low People

This is an ineffective management style, in which an indifferent manager largely avoids engaging with their people or the needs of the job at hand. Such managers reason (wrongly) that if you don’t do much, little can go wrong, and you won’t get blamed. The Peter Principle suggests managers rise to their level of incompetence, and here is the style we may see as a result.

This style is only suitable as a calculated decision to be hands off and delegate to a highly capable and strongly motivated team. Even then, a retreat into the very corner is not appropriate.

Dictatorial
Produce-or-Perish Management | High Results/Low People

Authoritarian managers want to control and dominate their team – possibly for personal reasons, or an unhealthy psychological need. They don’t care about their people, they just want the results of their endeavours. Away from the extreme, this Theory X-like approach can be suitable, in a crisis.

The theory X origin of this behaviour mean managers here prefer to enforce rules, policies and procedures, and can view coercion, reprimands, threats and punishment as effective ways to motivate their team. Short term results can be impressive, but this is not a sustainable management style. Team morale falls rapidly and compromises medium and long-term performance.

Status Quo
Middle-of-the-Road Management | Medium Results/Medium People

This is a compromise and, like all compromises, it is characterised as much by what the manager gives up as by what they put in. A little attention to task and a bit of concern for people sounds like balance, but it also reflects a level of impoverishment – not much concern for either.

This is neither an inspiring, nor developmental approach to management and can only be effective where the team itself can meet the leadership deficits it leaves behind. A good manager could only legitimately use this approach where this one team is a low priority among other competing demands, and the manager is confident they can manage themselves to a large degree. If not, mediocrity will be the best result the manager will achieve from this strategy.

Accommodating
Country Club Management | High People/Low Results

Sometimes, you need to rest your team, take your foot off the accelerator, and accommodate their needs. These may be for a break, for team-building, or for development, perhaps.

However, as a long term strategy, it is indulgent, and leads to complacency and laziness among team members. There is little to drive them, yet we know pride in achievement, autonomy, and development are principle workplace motivators. Without a sufficient focus on production, the team will get little of any of these.

The work environment may be relaxed, fun, and harmonious, but it won’t be productive,. The end point will also be a lack of respect, among team members, for the manager’s leadership.

Sound
Team Management | High Production/High People

According to Blake and Mouton, the Team Management style is the most effective approach. This is routed in McGregor’s Theory Y. It is the most solid leadership style, with a balance of strong concern for both the means and the end.

A manager using this style will encourage commitment, contribution, responsibility, and personal and team development. This builds a long-term sustainable and resilient team.

Peaks and troughs in workload and team needs will mean a flexible manager with stray away from the corner from time to time, either towards accommodating or dictatorial styles. But this flexibility and their general concern for both dimensions will prevent them from an unhealthy move right into the corners.

When people are committed to both their organisation and a good leader, their personal needs and production needs overlap. This creates an environment of trust, respect, and pride in the work. The result is excellent motivation and results, where employees feel a constructive part of the company.

Two Additional Styles

After Mouton’s death, Blake continued to refine the model, adding two additional styles.

Opportunistic Management

Some managers are highly opportunistic, and are prepared to exploit any situation, and manipulate their people to do so. This style does not have a fixed location on the grid. Managers adopt whichever behaviour offers the greatest personal benefit. It is the ultimate in flexibility, and is highly effective.

What matters is motivation. Some managers are highly flexible for reasons of great integrity others for purely self-serving reasons.

Paternalistic Management

The loaded label represents a flip-flopping between accommodating ‘Country Club management’ and dictatorial ‘Produce-or-Perish management’. At each extreme, this managerial style is prescriptive about what the team needs and how they will supply it.

The subtlety of sound team management adapting to the team’s needs is not present. Such managers rarely welcome a team trying to exercise its own autonomy. They will feel it as an unwelcome challenge.

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The managerial grid model is a very popular framework that unfolds the “task versus people” orientation. This was developed by Robert.R.Blake and Jane Mouton in 1964. This model identifies five different leadership styles based on the concern for production and concern for people. The perspective of people orientation and task orientation as two independent dimensions was a big step in leadership studies. The managerial grid model is represented as a matrix with concern for people at the Y-axis and concern for production at the X-axis, each dimension ranging from low (1) to high (9); creating 81 different combinations in which a leader’s style may fall. This theory has been continued to evolve and develop.

The grid highlights how focusing too much on one dimension at the expense of the other leads to a fall in overall productivity. In other words, it signifies that too much of just one thing is not a good thing. It is essential to balance the team for an effective team building.

Example- When a manager is concerned only with the output and constantly pushes or drives his team with little empowerment, communication and interaction, the employees will soon be demoralized and the productivity is bound to suffer. While, on the other hand, if a manager is concerned only with his people, without direction and support, the targets will not be accomplished and in turn suffers productivity.

In Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid, leadership styles are subdivided into 4 quadrants, 2 dimensions, and 5 basic leadership styles namely

• Impoverished Management
• Country Club
• Task Management
• Middle of the road and
• Team Management

Understanding The Model

The 2 main behavioural dimensions of this model are

• Concern for people and
• Concern for production

Concern For People

This is the degree at which a leader considers his team members interests, areas of personal development and needs while determining how to attain goals.

Concern For Production

This is a degree to which the leader emphasizes organizational efficiency, productivity and concrete objectives while determining how to accomplish the task.

Leadership Styles

Impoverished Management (1, 1):

In this approach, managers harbor low concern for both people and production. The leader has no or very low concern for work deadlines or employee satisfaction, because of which, the organization exhibits disorganization and disharmony. Leaders are ineffective and actions are aimed at safeguarding their jobs. This form of leadership is mostly employed to safeguard their position in the organization; by shielding themselves from getting into trouble. This leadership style results in low levels of productivity and innovation.

Task Management (9, 1):

The leader is completely task-oriented. Employee well-being is neglected; as production is the only point of focus. The leader exerts disciplinary pressure and is authoritative or dictatorial by nature. The leader here believes that efficiency is a result of properly organized work systems by eliminating people whenever required. Task management certainly increases the output of an organization in a very short term and also results in high labour turnover due to rigid procedures and policies. Jane Mouton and Robert Blake specify that there are situations in which this form of leadership needs to be employed.

Middle of The Road (5, 5):

The happy medium is adopted in this form of leadership. This is a compromising leadership style where the leader strikes a balance between people and production; scoring an average mark on both the criteria. The leaders here do not focus on the boundaries of accomplishment which results in average organizational performance.  Here, neither the production nor the people needs are rightfully met. Robert Blake and John Mouton suggest that this is not the best style of leadership, but can be applied to encourage employees to meet their deadlines.

Country Club (1, 9):

Most leaders are driven by this style, which focuses on high concern for people and low concern for production. This is a collegial style, where the leaders don’t come across as too authoritarian and are characterized by a high on people orientation and low on tasks, wherein the leader pays a thoughtful attention to the needs of the employees; enabling a comfortable and compassionate work environment. The leader believes that it will result in self-motivated employees. Nonetheless, too much focus on people can hamper production; resulting in a questionable outcome.

Team Management (9, 9):

In this form of leadership, a high degree of concern towards both, people and production, is noticed. Managers employing this style encourage commitment and teamwork among employees. The leaders following this leadership style succeed in clinching a lot of respect from his employees who also entrusts and motivates them. Here, the employees tend to be recognized as a productive part of the organization with high mutual involvement.

How to use the Model?

1. Identify your natural leadership style
2. Identify real-world examples
3. Identify ways to improve
4. Reflect regularly

Advantages of Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid

The managerial grid is employed to aid managers in analyzing their leadership styles using a tool known as grid training. This is achieved by administering a questionnaire that helps in identifying where they stand with respect to their concern for people and production. This training aims to aid leaders to get the ideal 9, 9 mark.

Disadvantages of Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid

This managerial grid model disregards the significance of external and internal limits, scenario, and context.

The Green Zone

Leadership styles are often determined by the situations the leaders get into. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton suggested that the best point in the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid is 5, 5 [middle of the road] and 9, 9 [team management]. They named this space the ‘Green Zone.’  It is recommended to annihilate emotions towards the employees and focus on production, but a leader would do well focusing on his people when emotions run high amongst his employees. Therefore, Leadership can be effective only when it is applied according to the situation.

Conclusion

It is crucial to remind yourself that great managers have a very strong understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. The managerial grid is great techniques to aid you to appraise your style and equip you with a useful insight into various leadership styles. There is no one right way or a wrong way, per se, nevertheless just like there is no one leadership style that is beneficial for all situations.