Theories in Action #1

One theory that I find to be very relevant to the way SagePoint Financial operates is Blake and Mouton’s grid theory of leadership. The theory offers interesting insights about the relationship between task oriented and relationship oriented leadership in the office and how it affects the atmosphere. All of the leadership at SagePoint is high on the relational side, so I would consider the dominant style to be a 1,9 style within the grid theory. Overall, the leaders have much more concern for people as compared to concern for production. Concern for production is still very important, however it is not as clear as is the concern for the leader’s followers and making sure there are strong, solid relationships present in the office. The leaders all have extreme concern for relationships, perhaps because it is already a relationship-oriented business. The leadership in general is very personable which helps create motivation for everyone in the office. Because the leaders take their followers’ feelings and needs into consideration, I have noticed that it causes the followers to work harder than they might with a more task-oriented leadership presence. It is more the relationships with the leaders, rather than their conveyance of expertise, that motivates people in the office to reach a goal. For example, many times I notice someone in a position of leadership working on their own project but when a follower needs advice or assistance the leaders always make sure to give them the attention they needed, showing a well established relationship of trust and respect.

It is also important to point out that most leaders have a backup style that they tend to use under pressure. In this case, the backup style usually becomes a 9,9 style with the leadership being high in both relationship-focus as well as task-focus. For example, when there is some sort of pressure such as a time constraint on a project or when someone makes a mistake it is clear that the leaders take on a new style of leadership that includes a lot more task-focus. I find this transformation especially interesting because the relationship-oriented score of 9 never seems to drop to a 1, despite changing circumstances. I would expect the leadership style as a whole to transform to a 5,5 , but instead the task-oriented score just increases to a 9 with the relationship-oriented score staying at a 9. I think this happens because there are a lot of high-energy people in the office, so the leadership style might actually be less about the nature of the work and more about the specific people who work in the office, causing me to wonder if, in some situations, leadership is completely dependent from the job and most dependent on the people’s own personalities.