The
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid Leadership Self Assessment Questionnaire,
made available through The Vision Council (2010), provides varying statements about
leadership so that participants may assign a number from zero to five, with
zero indicating never and five signifying always. According to Rowe and
Guerrero (2013), the third source reviewed for their research focused on work
by Blake and Mouton, one that concluded leaders were apprehensive about both
production and people; and as such, five separate leadership styles emerged
from which leaders generally develop a dominant and back-up style. Once
participants review and rate each statement, points are tallied and multiplied by
0.2 in order to obtain totals to be used as coordinates marked on a vertical
and horizontal axis. The grid is divided into four quadrants labeled with four
of the five leadership styles developed by Blake and Mouton (1964, 1978, 1985)
which include: authoritarian, impoverished, country club, and team leader (as
cited in Rowe & Guerrero, 2013).
After reading and applying the scale
to each statement, my people score was 7.6 while my task score was 7. As
instructed, I plotted the coordinates; and, according to the grid, my dominant
leadership style is team leader (The Vision Council, 2010). This exercise
reminded me of the numerous questionnaires that appear in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, or those from youth, Tiger Beat. Take the challenge and see
if you are the right girl for David Cassidy, or, how to know if your lover is
still interested. As an inside note, I was a huge fan of David Cassidy and The Partridge Family. The problem with
these questionnaires, and the one for this week’s reflective blog assignment,
is that unless David Cassidy or my lover actually read my answers and then
proceeded to communicate with me about my responses, how would I ever know if I
was the right one, or if my lover had lost interest? The same is true for the
leadership self-assessment.
The eighteen statements, and the
subsequent mathematical totals, are totally reliant on a single source, me. I
wonder if the end result would be the same if the assertions were presented to
fellow classmates, former staff, or even my family. I would like to think I am
a team leader. I have always believed that taking care of folks, establishing
trust, helping others to grow, establishing a healthy environment, providing
fair wages, and keeping social relationships in good tact would lead to a sense
of teamwork and working together to get the job done. It is a formula that has
served me in both my family life and career. I never asked my children to do
any chore around the house I was not willing to or could not do myself.
Likewise, this same leading by example approach not only inspired others to
learn, there was an immediate trust as those on my team knew I was willing to
do whatever it took to get the job done.
My sense of teamwork comes from
years of playing softball, neighborhood Sunday afternoon football, volleyball,
bowling, and even fishing. It was all about a group of people, each with
different strengths and weaknesses, coming together for the good of the team,
not the one. We learned from each other. The survey is meant to be used as a
guide to identify weaknesses from which to improve. I do not believe I will
ever be the type of leader that reads a journal or a psychology text and then
tests the theories out on employees. To me, that is the essence of leadership
being done to someone, rather than with them. Is there room for improvement? Of
course there is. Has there ever been a perfect leader, regardless of the style?
It is how one learns to become a better leader. Is it my reading and filling
out questionnaires? If questionnaires provided all of the answers, I’d be one
of a string of women in David Cassidy’s life, and I would be trying to fix a
non-existent problem with my lover.
Perhaps my favorite line from a
beloved movie describes my outlook on my leadership best. In the most moving
scene of Star Trek II The Wrath of
Khan, Mr. Spock tells Captain James T. Kirk why he sacrificed himself
in order to save the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
In a weakened and dying state, Spock says, “It is logical; the needs of the
many outweigh”; and unable to continue, Kirk continues with Spock’s words, “the
needs of the few”, with Spock putting the final exclamation point on his
thoughts with, “or the one” (Beauvois, G., 2013). It has been a philosophy that
has served me well.
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