Ohio State Leadership Studies

Researchers at Ohio State University identified two dimensions of leadership behavior: consideration and initiating structure [See Image 2: Ohio State Dimensions of Leadership]. Consideration focuses on the leader’s behavior associated with meeting the needs of people, like creating trust, support, respect, warmth, and other behaviors that meet the needs and desires of followers. Initiating structure focuses on the leader’s behavior associated with tasks, like organizing work, defining roles and relationships, developing communications channels, and other behaviors that get the job done (Bass, 2008; Yukl, 2010; Jex, 2002).

Two extreme leadership styles emerge from the people and task leader dimensions: autocratic and participative. An autocratic leader solves problems, makes decisions using available information, and then tells followers what to do. Participative leaders share problems with subordinates to evaluate alternatives and reach a consensus as a group, then do what the group wants to do. Considering the degree to which leaders exhibit one or the other dimension yielded four leadership styles, as follows [See Image 3: Ohio State Leadership Matrix] (Bass, 2008; Yukl, 2010):

• Low structure, high consideration; the leader focuses on meeting the needs of the employees and is less concerned about getting the job done.
• High structure, high consideration; the leader actively organizes and directs employee work while demonstrating high consideration for employee needs and wants.
• Low structure, low consideration; the leader provides little structure for how followers should do work and demonstrates low consideration for employee wants and needs.
• High structure, low consideration; the leader focuses on structuring work while demonstrating low consideration for employee needs.

 Researchers hypothesized that a high-structure, high-consideration style would be the most effective. However, research has not supported this position. In a recent meta-analysis of 130 studies, Timothy Judge, Ronald Piccolo, and Remus Ilies (2004) found that people prefer working for considerate leaders but achieve higher performance under structuring leaders. In other words, consideration and structure are essential behaviors, but no best style exists.

 Further, Abraham Korman (1966) criticized the Ohio State studies for the following reasons:

• The model does not consider situational factors.
• Research produced inconsistent results.
• The methodology allowed researchers to distort perceptions to achieve balanced results.
• Determining the influence that task structure and consideration have on performance is impossible. Still, the opposite can be proved: performance may cause consideration and task structure.
• The research could not determine scores that made a difference in leadership effectiveness.

Steven Kerr and Chester Schriesheim (1974) later argued that researchers had “progressed in our understanding of consideration and initiating structure.” Still, additional research was necessary to determine if consideration and initiating structure influence leadership effectiveness (p. 565). More recently, Yukl (2010) points out the Ohio leadership studies have received considerable research attention, “but the results are difficult to interpret” (p. 58). The connection between consideration and subordinate satisfaction is the only dimension in the Ohio studies that have received consistent research support. In other words, followers are usually more satisfied when leaders demonstrate considerate behavior.