Management Blog

Professor Robin Stuart-Kotze Behavioural Theories

Behavioural Theories

World War II provided a huge stimulus for studies into leadership, particularly in the United States. Experience with a large number of people in leadership roles in the armed forces showed that some of them were highly effective and some were ineffective. Given that most of these people had undergone a relatively similar selection process, the question was what made some of them better leaders than others. One example was bomber commanders, some of whom managed to fly hundreds of sorties, drop their bombs on target and on time and return to base on schedule, while others got lost, got shot down, dropped their bombs on the wrong target and failed to get home. Why were some commanders better at the job than others?

About $500,000 was spent in the early 1950s by the US Department of Defence to investigate this phenomenon. The result was what are known as the Ohio State Studies. Vast amounts of data were collected, analysed and subjected to various statistical techniques. The resulting conclusion was that two variables accounted for about two thirds of what leaders did. The Ohio State researchers called these two things initiating structure (essentially a focus on task, organising things and getting them completed) and consideration (essentially a focus on people and relationships).

Out of this came the first big commercial leadership style model, the Managerial Grid (Blake and Mouton.) Blake talked about styles in terms of numbers on the grid – i.e. where a person’s behaviour fitted on the two scales: their degree of concern for people and their degree of concern for production. Essentially he was saying that these two scales are independent of one another. That is, your score on one does not affect your score on the other.

Article by Professor Robin Stuart-Kotze

This is an article written by Professor Robin Stuart-Kotze - The Leadership Theory guru.

This is a somewhat personal note. In some sense it is a reminiscence of my life in the field of leadership and of some of the interesting people I have been fortunate to have met, known and be friends with. It will give you the context of my Momentum Radar model – how it was developed and where it sits in the world of leadership models and diagnostics. It all began when I met Bill Reddin in 1967 and began working with him a couple of years later. He was my great mentor and friend and he got me started on my lifelong interest in leadership.

In this note I have stuck to talking about leadership models that are applicable and practical and have omitted any of the more academic stuff like Vroom and Yetton’s Leader Participation Model, Path-Goal theory and some of the more esoteric things written about leadership. That reflects my bias. I am only interested in things that can be made to work easily and simply and that address observable behaviour. (However if you are interested in some of the more academic approaches but don’t want a heavy treatment you can look at Management, Robbins and Stuart-Kotze, Prentice Hall, any edition – it’s currently in its 7th.)Early leadership theoriesDiscussions about management style have been going on since antiquity. Confucius, in about 500 BC, travelled around China trying to persuade the various feudal kings that he had the formula for effective leadership. His view was that one simply had to be benevolent, humane, just and moderate and all would work well. About 200 years later the first Emperor of China, Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, made his opinion about this formula pretty clear by having 460 Confucian monks buried alive or buried up to their necks and decapitated.

The Trait Approach

Early twentieth century writing and thinking on leadership was based on what one might call "The Great Man Theory." The idea was that if one studied the lives of great leaders one should be able to identify the qualities that differentiated them from ordinary people. This resulted in long lists of characteristics like energy, intelligence, articulacy, assertiveness, determination, focus, etc, etc. The underlying assumption was that leaders were born, not made.People with nothing better to do still try to argue this issue despite the fact that we know that leadership, like pretty well all behaviour, is learned. There are still large numbers of people, many occupational psychologists among them, who claim that there are a number of specific traits which define effective leaders. Unfortunately for them, extensive and definitive research by R. M. Stogdill in 1948, extended and revisited 25 years later, proved without any doubt that there is no set of traits that universally defines effective leadership. Instead Stogdill concluded:

“the qualities, characteristics, and skills required in a leader are determined to a large extent by the demands of the situation in which he is to function as a leader.”

(Apparently, Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership listed over 4,000 studies of leadership. His conclusion was that "the endless accumulation of empirical data has not produced an integrated understanding of leadership." ed.)

Remember the word situation as we go through the sequence of major management/leadership models since then

Call of the Wild Move Closer to Obtaining The Investors In People Standard

Call of the Wild have commenced our work towards obtaining the prestigious Investors In People Standard. Investors in People Standard is a business improvement tool designed to advance an organisation's performance through its people. Developed in 1990 by a partnership of leading businesses and national organisations, the Standard helps organisations to improve performance and realise objectives through the management and development of their people

Call of the Wild, being one the foremost training companies in the UK already provide innovative solutions for Companies to develop their people. Our mission statement contains at its heart our objective of  delivering business improvement through the continuing professional development of our own staff.

Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development, said “We want to formalise our existing training culture and demonstrate a continued commitment towards developing ourselves and others. When we can achieve this Standard it will reinforce to our clients that we are a progressive Company fully committed to delivering business improvement through people development.”

The Company aim to have the Standard awarded by June 2008.

Call of the Wild Training Become An Institute of Leadership and Management Accredited Centre

Call of the Wild are pleased to announce that they have become an accredited training center with the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). Following a rigorous inspection, the ILM Business Manager, she was satisfied that we not only met all the necessary criteria for quality, procedures and resourcing but surpassed many.

Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development said “This is fantastic news for Call of the Wild. Our clients have always been delighted with the quality and relevance to the workplace of our programmes. However this accreditation further reinforces the quality and resources that Call of the Wild can offer our clients. This  adds to our existing portfolio of programmes and allows us offer bespoke accredited ILM courses for our clients.”

Call of the Wild Press Releases

We thought we'd compile a list of our latest press releases for people to view on this blog. They are all created in pdf format and you obviously need Adobe Acrobat installed on your machine to view them. If you don't, please download it for free by clicking on the icon.

Best National Awards (pdf)

New Blended Learning Approach (pdf)

Call of the Wild Become an Accredited ILM Centre (pdf)

Call of the Wild Aim for Investors in People Award (pdf)

Call of the Wild Work with BBC on Extreme Dreams (pdf)

Call of the Wild Move to Larger Offices

Call of the Wild have taken the decision to move to larger offices in order to cope with the increased demand for our management training, team building and corporate events. Having been in our current offices since 1999 and grown into adjoining properties it is now time to move given the space limitations imposed by our existing premises.

“We have seen a vast increase in demand for our services in the last 18 months,” explained Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development, “which means that we have needed to take on additional staff to cope with this extra work. So far 5  new facilitation and support staff have been employed. With this growing team we need further space to accommodate them and the associated office infrastructure. We are committed to providing a quality service for our clients and this will enable us to so.”

It is proposed to move into a recently vacated large former doctors surgery building situated in the same Town as the current office. The building has been vacated due to a new state of the art large medical centre being built. This has provided us with a fantastic opportunity to relocate and expand our operations.

All our clients will be informed  in due course of the impending move.

Call of the Wild Client Survey 2007

Call of the Wild have just compiled the results of their 2007 client survey research. The results are extremely pleasing and have again improved on those from 2006.

Overall quality of  our products, on a scale from 1 to 5 with 5 being very satisfied, were rated 4.1, very satisfied. Similarly with the quality of the overall customer service which was rated by our clients at 4.1, very satisfied.

In assessing what services our clients bought from us in 2007 33% bought team development , 33% leadership development, 11% corporate events and 5% our development academy.

As to where our clients found us 17% said it was via a referral. In answer to the question “How likely would they be to recommend our services to friends and colleagues” 64% were likely, 17% neutral and encouragingly only a small 5% wouldn’t.

New Staff

Call of the Wild Expand with More Staff Appointments

Call of the Wild are delighted to announce the appointment of Sebastian Thomas as a Trainee Facilitator. Seb takes up his position this week. He will assist our current training staff in preparing and delivering our management training, team development and leadership development programmes

Seb has been employed to assist with the increased demand for our people development services. We have seen a vast increase over the last 18 months and have been looking to add to our exiting team for some time. Sebastian has a background in Environmental Sciences together with leadership and organisational skills. He has a passion for the outdoors and mountaineering.

“We are always looking to add excellent people to our team and Seb certainly meets this objective. He will be a valuable asset and will greatly assist his new colleagues in preparing and delivering quality programmes for our clients which deliver a return on investment,” stated Managing Director, Geraint Lewis.