Many experts use Blake Mouton to analyze their team’s performance because the Managerial Grid provides a framework for thinking about leader tasks.
Can you recall the day when you were recruiting new team members? What was your behaviour priority then? Tell them what their work will analyze the teams because of Invariably one and two years?
You should never ignore human resources and workplace tasks. But, unfortunately, a compromise between these two things leads to the average performance of your team. It is because you failed to inspire the people and their excellent work.
There is no ideal leader. Everyone has their weaknesses and strengths. By identifying your strength and weakness as a leader, you can bring those changes that need to boost productivity. It is helpful to understand your natural or original approach, so you can adapt or develop those changes required to increase productivity. People also called this framework a leadership grid or a managerial grid.
Jane Mouton and Robert Blake developed this theory or framework in the late 1960s.
WHAT’S IN IT
What is the Blake Mouton Managerial
The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid works in two different dimensions:
- The focus on people
This behaviour tells leaders to focus on people’s interests, needs and wants. Also, the leader should focus on their performance, weakness, strength regarding their performance.
For this task, it is essential to enable good communication between the team leader and team members. Without communication, you can’t conclude what they want and what their expectations are. Therefore, it would be better to establish good contact for the best productivity out of your team members.
- The focus on results
This behavior tells leaders to focus on results instead of people. Therefore, leaders concentrate on organizational efficiency, objectives, and high performance.
It helps the leader to focus exclusively on their objective and team improvement. To achieve great results, leaders should balance each action. The best thing about the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid is that they offer five leadership styles that can be copied to boost productivity.
Poor people / Low result improvement management:
The indifferent managers are ineffective. The only problem with this style is that they only show interest in the task done. Instead of motivating and inspiring the people, they only focus on the job and the study.
As the definition is self-explanatory, this leadership style negatively impacts the team. This enormous impact on the team causes dissatisfaction or no satisfaction in work. Disharmony and disorganization are an extensive set-back of this type of management style.
Medium people/ Middle result improvement management:
This leadership style doesn’t work because they fail to focus on people & the task. A similar leadership style is adopted when team members want to deliver the average work. If you are looking for an exceptionally great job or output from your team, we will never recommend applying this leadership style.
Strikes a balance between the people and work environment. But this won’t work as they sound.
High people/ High result in improvement management:
People also called this authority compliance or an authorization manager. Also, people who believe in this management category always believe that the tea team comes second place after productivity or a task.
People from this category have stringent rules, procedures, and policies. Also, they believe that punishment is the best way of motivation for their team.
At first, this management boosts productivity. But after some period, this approach causes less motivation. As a result, and due to less morale and team motivation, the performance and productivity decline.
Researchers have seen that leaders from this category waste their time to maintain high productivity and performance. After seeing this low productivity, they think that team members naturally dislike their work. Also, they assume that their employees or team members, or employees are inherently unmotivated.
Leaders always assume that their employees or team members are not inspired or motivated to get highly recommended. Instead, it is just because leaders don’t have the proper skill set.
High people/ Low result in improvement management:
This type of management is best suited for leaders looking to boost their employee’s or team members’ productivity. People from this category assume that the longer their employees or team members will face, the longer they will give their hard work.
Leaders from this category also believe that communication is the best tool for relationships and business. They also believe that a positive work environment leaves a significant impact on the work environment and team members’ mental situations. But productivity can also suffer because of a lack of control and direction.
High people/ High Production task management:
According to the Managerial Grid theory, it’s the best leader or production style. This task management reflects the passionate leaders’ work and know-how to take care of their team members.
In this management theory, people or team members are committed to their organization’s task or work. They motivate the other team members and people who work hard for them and deliver excellent results. But, they inspired the people who work for them.
In this task management, team members respected their employees or team Thousand cited to achieve their work.
It is effective leadership because team managers always prioritize their team’s needs and their organization’s needs. Leaders do this by involving their employees or team members in every important task. Also, they help their team members to understand the production needs.
And when employees and team members are honestly committed to their work and organizational productivity, their production and needs will always coincide. Thus small steps help maintain trust, a good work environment, and respect towards team members and leaders.
Steps for The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid:
Now it’s high time after learning about The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid. Now we have to learn the basic steps for applying The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid.
- Identifying your style:
- Note six or seven conditions where you got recruited as a team leader of the team.
- For every condition, it’s time to place yourself in a situation where you want to position yourself.
Various leadership skills tests can help you to choose the best leadership style and managerial image.
2. Identify your weakness and area where you want to grow:
- Observe your current situation and assume where you want to go.
- Improve communication with others and tell them to correct you when you are wrong.
- Regularly monitor your performance and activities. And carefully noted down when you were wrong in your decisions.
3. Being a good decision maker:
- You need to focus on the situation and decide between people- and task-oriented management approaches.
- You should understand if a task-oriented managerial style is required or a team approach would be better.
- Sometimes, you have to decide to be a good motivation for others to boost the members’ morale.
How do you hire someone?
Hiring someone from a group of people is not an easy task. Hence, you make it easy, here are some tips for you:
- Understand your need
- Provide a clear job description
- Look for candidates having some experience
- Discuss with your partner
- Using a checklist might also be of great help
- Ask some job-related questions
- Try to assess the candidate’s potential to perform the tasks confidently and with ease.
Here is a small test that you can use while assigning a task
The answer to the question, “ How do you assign tasks to the members?” can be given by asking yourself and the member a few questions. Let us understand what those questions are.
- What he is hired for: This will help you understand the qualities you were looking for while hiring the person.
- What he is not hired for: This will make you understand if the member compromises his existing skill.
- What he thinks he is good at: Sometimes you might be unable to correctly figure out the best skill of the person, it is always a good idea to know the same from the person himself.
- What you think he is good at: Though the person understands his capabilities better, you can still find a better side of the person he was always unaware of.
What should a leader work on?
Being a leader, you should understand that your team members are what you inspire them to be. The statement might be a bit confusing. In simple words, you have to keep up the pace of the tasks that are to be done, maintain the team’s enthusiasm, and keep them encouraged. When your team members see you working hard, you will be an inspiration to them, encouraging them to work with confidence. Hence, you should frequently question yourself:
- Do you doubt your ability to succeed?
- How do you want your team to work?
- When someone from my team is upset, what do you do?
- In tough times when you struggle to find what’s next, do you involve your team?
- Do you make your team members feel special?
- If your team member failed to do a talk because of personal reasons, what do you do?
- What do you think about your team’s motivation?
- Do you get upset at the workplace because of your team? Invariably, they don’t do the work on time?
When you ask these questions to yourself, you will figure out the points where you need to perform better or where your team is lacking. You are the leader of your team, and you have to find ways to improve it.
Do you want to find out how efficient you are in leadership? If yes, we have got an amazing quiz for you. Answer these questions mentioned below with complete honesty and you’ll get to know about it.
Leadership Test
- How do you assign talk to team?
- What he is hired for +1
- What he is not hired for -2
- What he thinks he is good at +1
- What I think he is good at +2
- Mix of 3rd and 4th –3
- Do you doubt your ability to succeed
- Never it’s my duty +3
- really +2
- sometimes +1
- I don’t think being successful is everything -3
- most of the time -1
- Do you always look for perfect results?
- Never -2
- Really -1
- Sometimes +1
- often +3
- Always +2
- How you want your team to work
- As hard as be more than me +3
- More than me +2
- why would I hire if I wanted to work -3?
- It’s my work; they can do what they want to do -2
- When someone from my team is upset, what do I do?
- it’s party time +1
- nothing, it’s not my duty -2
- I ask him/her what’s wrong and try to give solution +2
- Give him/her extra work +0
- I give him/her a paid leave -1
- In tough times when I struggle to find what’s next
- Ask my team for the suggestion +3
- Want intellectual indies videos +0
- Ask on social media +2
- Wait for the idea -1
- Meditate to relax -1
- If your team member failed to do a talk because of personal reasons, what would I do?
- Nothing +0
- Try to understand the problem +2
- Give them a warning +2
- Fire them -1
- Salary cut -2
- What do you think about your team’s motivation?
- Always +2
- Often +1
- Sometimes +0
- Never, it’s not my duty -2
- Rarely -1
- Do you get upset at the workplace because of your team?
- Invariable, they don’t do the work on time -3
- Sometimes +0
- Rarely, but it’s a part of life +2
- Never, my team is best +3
- I am not getting paid to get upset -2
- I enjoy analysing problems
- Always +2
- Often +1
- Sometimes +0
- Never, it’s not my duty -2
- Rarely –1
- How often you want others to accept your ideas?
- Always -2
- Never -1
- Ask others and then come up to conclusion +3
- Sometimes +1
- You are leader, everyone should accept –2
- When do you feel it necessary to meet your team?
- Sometimes -1
- Never -2
- On occasions +0
- For discussion of team development +1
- To make them feel comfortable +2
- What is a best asset for a leader?
- ability to motivate +2
- inspire a team +1
- Discuss about his/her life -2
- Party with him/her -1
- How to delegate responsibilities?
- give them the opportunity to take on the task +3
- would monitor his/ her progress +1
- Help him/her in work -2
- How to deliver something inconvenient to team?
- Bring them together and state the news. +2
- Share viewpoints to know how to avoid a situation.+3
- Scold team for the situation.-3
- Hold on and wait for whatever happens. -2
- How do you respond to criticism?
- Argue -3
- Stay quiet -2
- Realize and then react +2
- Understand and work accordingly +3
- How to praise a team member?
- a meeting to bring up the praise +2
- Appreciate them with a text -1
- Give them bonus -2
- recognize success in front of the group +3
- How to work according to schedules?
- Pressurize the team -3
- Communicate about goals +2
- Work according to time management +3
- Mark up progress +0
- Leave everything on team -2
- How often do you see changes?
- Never -1
- Sometimes +0
- All the times +3
- Whenever something is required in extent -2
- How to create work-life balance?
- Maintain integrity +2
- Be communicative +1
- Work less and focus on other issues -3
Well, here you can examine your performance based on the score you have got while answering these questions.
Score less than 16 or in middle of 16 – 34
If you are in this category, you have to work hard on overall development and improving your leadership skills.
Score 35-52
In this category you’re doing okay in your leadership skill as there’s a lot of scope of improvement. You can examine the questions on which you have lost score and work on improving those portions specifically.
Score between 53-90 or greater than 90
Great job! If you are in this category are you already on your way to becoming a great leader. As there is always the scope of improvement you can work a bit on the pointers you didn’t score that well then there’s no going back.
Irrespective of whatever score you have got you can always improve as a leader. There are various skills and human traits that combine which make a great leader and you should always have self-confidence and a positive attitude towards it.
Conclusion
The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid works in two different dimensions.
The focus on people: This behaviour tells leaders to focus on people’s interests, needs, and wants. Also, the leader should focus on their performance, weakness, strength regarding their performance.
For this task, it is essential to enable good communication between the team leader and team members. Without communication, you are unable to know what they want and what their expectations are. Therefore, it would be better to establish good contact for the best productivity out of your team members.
The focus on results: This behavior tells leaders to focus on results instead of people. In this behavior, leaders concentrate on organizational efficiency, objectives, and high productivity.
Also, you can read our blog on How To Help Your Team Feel Good
