Leadership is an important aspect in the accomplishment of the organizational goals. As a result the concept of leadership has attracted attention from many scholars and researchers who have worked out different leadership models. Ohio University and university of Michigan have taken a leading role in the study of leadership and different leadership behaviors exhibited by different leaders (Lussier & Achua, 2013). The different leadership models also suggest specific leadership behaviors to be applied in a specific situation or environment.  This paper will have an in depth analysis of how Ohio university leadership model compares with the leadership grid.

The study from the Ohio University identified two types of leader behaviors that are paramount in leadership skills. These two variables include; consideration and initiating structure.  Consideration is concerned with the relationship behaviors such as respect and trust. Leaders will always exhibit traits that show concern for people. On the other hand, initiating structure is another leadership trait identified by the Ohio University. This is concerned with task behaviors such as organizing, scheduling and seeing that all tasks within the organization are completed. It is also paramount to note that the study by the Ohio state university viewed these two behaviors as distinct and independent.  This implies that a leader could be high or low in one or both of the two behaviors. A good leader is one who is high on the two traits while bad leaders can do neither or can only do one and completely fail in the other.

Leadership grid is another important aspect that helps in understanding the leadership traits exhibited by different leaders in different environment and indifferent situations. The leadership Grid is built on the Ohio State studies and is hence based on the two leadership dimensions (Lussier & Achua, 2013).  The grid was developed by Blake and Mouton and they referred to the two dimensions as ‘’concern for production’’ and ‘’concern for people’’. They used a questionnaire with a scale of 1 to 9 and have 81 possible combinations of concern for production and people. it is also imperative to note that the leadership grid identifies five leadership styles namely; impoverished, authority compliance, country club, middle of the road and a team leader.

According to the studies by Ohio University, effective leaders must possess a strong ability to work with others and build a cohesive team balanced with the capability to create structure within which activities can be accomplished. This notion is also similar to the leadership grid that is concerned with production as well as concern for people.  On the same note, the two theories use the same leadership behaviors with the only difference being the choice of names (Lussier & Achua, 2013).  Nevertheless, the great distinction between the two theories is the fact that leadership grid identifies five leadership styles while the Ohio model identifies four leadership styles. It is also worth noting that the leadership grid also gives each combination of the two-dimensional behavior one leadership style name. Also, authors of the leadership grid were strong supporters of the high team leadership style as the best.

References

Lussier, R. & Achua, C. (2013). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill DevelopmentMason, Ohio: Thomson/SouthWestern.

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