May, 2019 | BlogZynergy

Dunham and Pierce’s Leadership Process Model

The Dunham and Pierce Leadership Process Model doesn’t necessarily seek to define leadership, but it does the job indirectly. This model addresses all of the key elements that play a role in leadership, and helps the manager to understand how each part affects the other parts of the equation. Leadership will never be simple, but using this model is a good way to ‘get your head around’ the various moving parts and hopefully bring it into better focus in your mind.

Learn the Four Factors
According to Dunham and Pierce, there are four factors that play a role in the leadership process. Those four are the Leader, the Followers, the Context, and the Outcomes. Naturally, the Leader is the person in charge of a project or team, regardless of what their title may be. That person may be referred to as an owner, a manager, a V.P., or any other title that confers power and responsibility. The important thing is that they are the person who a group of others answer to, and it is their performance that we are worried about with this model.

The Followers are then, obviously, the people who are being led. Generally, these will be employees of the company in question. Most commonly, the Followers for a specific manager fall within a group or division of the company. The performance that the Leader is able to coax out of the Followers will largely be responsible for the outcomes that are achieved.

The Context is an interested element to this model, and one that is skipped over in some other various leadership models and discussions. Context refers to the circumstances under which the Leader is managing his or her team. Whether it is a project that will run for a predetermined length of time, or simply employees working on a day to day basis, the context of leadership play an important part in what style of management is going to be most successful.

Lastly, the Outcomes portion of the puzzle refers to the results of any project or task that has been worked on by the Followers under direction of the Leader. For example, if a well-defined project has been worked on for two months, the success or failure of that project will be considered an Outcome. Above all else, leaders tend to be judged on their Outcomes because they usually have the most direct influence over the bottom line. If you are a manager within an organization, it is probably your Outcomes that you spend most of your time concerned with.

It’s All Connected
If this model has one overreaching theme that you should take away, it is that all of the aspects of leadership are interconnected in one way or another. It is obvious that your actions as the Leader will affect your followers, but it is more complicated than that. Conversely, the actions of your Followers are likely to affect you as a Leader and your management style. If you are able to learn from your team and how their actions dictate the Context and the Outcomes, everyone will have a better chance at success. The leadership model, then, is not so much a linear one as it is a circular one.

So what does this have to do with management from a practical sense? It should serve as notice that everything done within the context of a leadership situation is important, and it all comes around in the end in one form or another. Things that are done to help the team and empower the individuals on a team can serve to improve future outcomes, while any negativity is likely to manifest in unwanted ways. Taking a holistic approach to management can be powerful when it comes to guiding a team toward long term success.

Some of the Highlights
This model has plenty to teach leaders and managers in a variety of settings, but some of the most important lessons can be found below.

• Grow relationships within the team. Since this model of leadership is circular in nature, it only makes sense that growing relationships well help everyone perform better. When the relationships are strong from the top down, communication will benefit and the team should work more efficiently as a whole.

• Let people do what they do best. This is key for any leader, no matter what context they are working in. When people are able to spend time working on projects that they feel comfortable with and that match up with their skill sets, they tend to be happier (and perform better). When leaders fails to consider the skills of their people, it should be no surprise the results lag.

• Offer feedback. This point goes along with the point regarding relationships among the team. Feedback is valuable because it helps to steer the members of the team in the right direction, in a positive way. Opening the lines of feedback helps the Followers learn what is expected from them, and also gives them an opportunity to provide feedback to the Leader – which can be invaluable.

• Act Ethically and Honestly. The circular nature of leadership dictates that it is vitally important to act with a high degree of honesty on a regular basis. When deceit creeps into the system, it is likely to spread and have a negative effect throughout the organization.

Leadership is complicated and sometimes messy, but the Dunham Pierce Leadership Process Model does a good job of highlighting the key points and identifying how they all affect one another. For the leader who is trying to keep a variety of different interests happy throughout the term of a project, this model can help to sort things out and keep them moving in the right direction.

Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid

It’s no secret that there are a variety of different management and leadership styles out there. In fact, you could argue that there is a different managerial style for each individual person that serves in a leadership role. No two people are exactly alike, and even those who try to follow the same methods will inevitably have their own unique style that they use in an attempt to get the job done. While there is room for individuality in leadership, it is also important that a leader knows what style they are using and how it affects the outcomes and the people that they lead.

The Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid is a system that can be used to group like leaders into categories based on the methods that they use. While no organizational system will ever be perfectly complete, this grid is a great way to understand more about certain leadership styles and how they work. Dating back to the early 1960’s, this is a framework that has stood the test of time and remains relevant today.

Two Ways to Look at It
The two dimensions of this grid quickly identify the priorities of the manager in question – ‘Concern for People’ and ‘Concern for Results’. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, and it shouldn’t take long to determine where along this grid you fit as a leader.

1) Concern for People. The leader that emphasizes Concern for People over Results is one who is trying to do their best to further the careers of those they are leading. As the decisions are being made regarding who will work on what parts of a project, for example, this leader is thinking first about the individuals involved in the job and which tasks will help them move along in their careers. Also, which tasks are likely to be enjoyed is taken into consideration by the manager before making assignments.

2) Concern for Results. Naturally, this is the opposite of the previous approach. With this kind of leadership, the only concern is for the job getting done as successfully as possible. This leader is one who sets aside any level of focus on the individuals and only things about the bigger picture for the organization. Whatever tasks need to be assigned to specific people in order to get the job done right is what will be done. If the individuals within the group don’t like it, that will be their problem to deal with.

The real benefit of using the Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid comes when you start to look at it in terms of four quadrants, and what each of those means for the manager. When plotted on the grid based on the two dimensions, there are four possible quadrants that a management style can land in –

• Impoverished Management
• Country Club Management
• Authority-Compliance Management
• Team Management

Let’s take a quick look at each of these four areas on the grid.

Impoverished Management
As the title would indicate, this isn’t where any leader wants to find themselves. In this case, the manager is failing both in terms of the task and the people. The work isn’t being completed successfully enough to satisfy the needs of the organization, and the individuals involved aren’t getting what they need out of it either. This is a systemic failure, and will usually result in bad outcomes for the leader in question. Getting out of this quadrant as soon as possible should always be the goal of a manager who finds that they are failing on both fronts.

Country Club Management
Most employees will love their manager when this kind of system exists. The results may be suffering, and the manager’s superiors may not be impressed with their performance, but the employees are happy because they are being put first and having their needs met through the actions of the leader. While the short term results of this method may be enjoyable because the work environment is free of tension and conflict, the long term results tend to be less rosy once the results come in and the group is falling short of expectations.

Authority-Compliance Management
This is the opposite of the Country Club management position. Instead of paying sole attention to the employees, this lead is only serving the needs of the project and the results they are looking for. While they might reach the end goal, bridges could be burned in the meantime through the methods that are used. Unhappy employees tend to leave sooner, or decrease in production as their attitude drops. Short term projects may benefit from this kind of strict management style, but it is unlikely to succeed over time.

Team Management
The best of both worlds. This manager is able to successfully juggle the needs of the organization as a whole with the needs of the individual employees involved. Of course, since this is the best model for most managers to strive for, it is also the most difficult to achieve. The needs of your employees might not always jive with what the company is looking for, so getting those things to balance out and keep everyone happy is a battle that takes time and effort to win. However, it will be worth the effort because the leader who is able to reach this quadrant of the grid is one that is likely to be well-received by his or her superiors for their work.

In the real world, things aren’t always as black and white as they can appear on a grid. Leadership styles and decisions take on many different shapes, and it isn’t always easy to decide how they fit into a certain mold. With that said, the Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid is a good starting point for understanding the basic leadership options that a manager has when dealing with their employees. Avoiding the extremes and trying to balance all of the various interests at any one time is usually the best tact to take. Whether using the grid to evaluate yourself or someone else in your organization, it is a tool that remains useful decades after its creation.

Key Points

The Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid is a system that can be used to group like leaders into categories based on the methods that they use.
It uses a two dimensional grid to identify the priorities of the manager in question.
The axes are ‘Concern for People’ and ‘Concern for Results’ giving four possible quadrants that a management style can land in.
Impoverished Management – the manager is failing both in terms of the task and the people.
Country Club Management – employees are happy because they are being put first and having their needs met through the actions of the leader.
Authority-Compliance Management – the manager is focusing too much on getting the task done at the expense of their team’s well being.
Team Management – the manager is able to successfully juggle the needs of the organization as a whole with the needs of the individual employees involved.

Action Centered Leadership

One of the great challenges when it comes to proper leadership is balancing the various interests of those who you are required to lead. Not everyone is going to have the same goals and aspirations, even within the same business or organization. Therefore, it is the job of a good leader to reconcile all of those various interests and bring them together in a way that keeps the team working in the right direction. With good leadership, it is possible to bring everyone together in a common pursuit even if they have divergent goals among themselves.

As you are surely aware, there are a number of different leadership models available to help guide managers as they try to get the most from their teams. The model we are discussing in this article, Action Centered Leadership, is notable because it can help to deal with the problem that was outlined above – that is, how to reconcile the various goals and desires of individuals while still accomplishing the specific goals set out for the team and the project as a whole.

Action Centered Leadership

Action Centered Leadership is a model that was presented by John Adair back in 1973. At its simplest form, the model can be described by the three areas that it divides leadership into – Task, Team, and Individual. Each of these three elements plays an important role in the leadership picture, and only when all three are balanced properly will the leader be achieving success. Without even diving in any further, it is pretty easy to understand how each of these three aspects is important. Harmony among the three might not always be the easiest goal to reach, but it is the job of the leader to make it happen.

To grasp a better picture of the Action Centered Leadership model, let’s take some time to look individually at each of the three elements.

It All Starts with a Task
Without a task, there is no reason to have a team made up of individuals, and no reason to lead them in the first place. Every leadership role is developed because there is a goal in mind, and someone needs to be in charge of directing the team toward that goal. Such a goal can be rather general, such as simply running a profitable business, while other goals will be very specific – like developing a new product to launch to market by the end of the year. No matter what the goal is, that task is what will guide the leadership that has to be provided to the team.

Action Centered Leadership Task

Speaking of the variety of tasks that are possible for a leader to work toward, one of the most important jobs of the leader is to actually define and identify the task at hand. Sometimes this will be quite easy, but other times it can actually be a serious challenge. Teams work together better when they are clear on the task at hand, so providing that definition in no uncertain terms is a major part of the equation.

Leadership style for action centered leadership

Among the other important parts of the task including identifying milestones along the way that need to be met, establishing who is responsible for which part of the task, and what will be defined as success in the end. Monitoring progress and making sure that the group is getting closer and closer to accomplishing the task falls on the leader, and is an important part of the Action Centered Leadership model.

Teamwork is Essential
Leading the team is what most people think of traditionally as being ‘leadership’. Any given team is made up of individuals with various skills and experiences, so it is up to the leader to extract the best possible performance from each of them. The way the team works together should be defined by the leader, such as communication standards and methods for resolving conflict. Whenever two or more people are working together on a task there is bound to be conflict along the way – the best leaders are able to moderate those conflicts and resolve them quickly.

Encouragement is another important part of the Action Centered Leadership plan, especially for long projects. The members of the team need to remain focused on the ‘prize’ at the end of the task so they can remain motivated and determined to reach a successful conclusion to the project. Making sure that the team as a whole feels invested in the success of the group is something that a good leader will be able to accomplish.

Don’t Forget About the Individuals
Forgetting about individuals within the team is probably the most common leadership mistake that is made by managers in all areas of business. It is tempting to just treat each individual as a robot who is programmed to only do what is best for the organization – but real life is just not that simple. Individual people have varying desires, fears, experiences, motivations, etc. Extracting the best from each person on the team means treating them as the individual that they are. Offering rewards or praise for a strong contribution to the team is a common tact for getting the best possible performance from members of the team. Only when the leader is able to place each person in the role that is best suited for their skills and interests will the team be able to function as successfully as possible.

Action Centered Leadership is a popular leadership model to follow in large part because of the simplicity that it offers. Just by understanding the basics of the three areas of leadership provided in this model – Task, Team, and Individual – a leader will be well on the way to a successful project. Each of these three areas is vitally important, and it will be difficult to succeed in one area without support from the other. Bringing all three together properly isn’t always going to be easy, but it is a goal that each leader in an organization should strive to achieve.

Key Points

Action center d leadership involves balancing task, team and individual focus.
Each of these three elements plays an important role in the leadership picture, and only when all three are balanced properly will the leader be achieving success.
No matter what the goal is, that task is what will guide the leadership that has to be provided to the team.
Making sure that the team as a whole feels invested in the success of the group is something that a good leader will be able to accomplish.
Only when the leader is able to place each person in the role that is best suited for their skills and interests will the team be able to function as successfully as possible.