The Behavior Era: Mid-1940s to Early 1970s.

 

Because the trait approach did not yield the expected results and as the need for identifying and training leaders came to the forefront during World War II, researchers turned to behaviors, rather than traits, as the source of leader effectiveness. The move to observable behaviors was triggered in part by dominance of behaviorist theories during this period, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. Instead of identifying who would be effective leader, the behavior approach emphasizes what an effective leader does.

 

Focusing on behaviors provides several advantages over a trait approach:

• Behaviors can be observed more objectively than traits.

• Behaviors can be measured more precisely and more accurately than traits.

• As opposed to traits, which either innate or develop early in life, behaviors can be taught.

 

These factors provided a clear benefit to the military and various other organizations with a practical interest in leadership. Instead of identifying leaders who had particular personality traits, they could focus on training people to perform effective leadership behaviors.

 

Democratic leaders were identified as those who consult their followers and allow them to participate in decision making, autocratic leaders are those who make decisions alone, and laissez-faire leaders are those who provide no direction and do not become involved with their followers.

 

Although the three types of leadership style were situational factors would lead to the use of one or another style. Furthermore, each of the styles had different effects on subordinates. For example, laissez-faire leadership, which involved providing information but little guidance or evaluation, led to frustrated and disorganized groups that, in turn , produced low-quality work. On the other hand, autocratic leadership caused followers to become submissive, whereas groups led by democratic leaders were relaxed and became cohesive.

 

Similar to trait approach, the behavior approach to leadership, by concentrating only on behaviors and disregarding powerful situational elements, provides a simplistic view of a highly complex process and, therefore, fails to provide a thorough understanding of the leadership phenomenon. However´, the two general categories of task and relationship behaviors are well established as the primary leadership behaviors.