Journal of Management Development 14,1 34

Managerial development through self and group evaluation of managerial style

Yehuda Baruch and Ronnie Lessem
City University Business School, London, UK
During this century we have been faced with substantive developments in leadership and managerial theory. Beginning with Trait theory, a huge step forward was taken when contingency theory was proposed, suggesting that different kinds of leadership and management would be more or less effective in different situations. Fiedlers works[1,2], through his contingency framework, related to the leader or manager as a person who is either people oriented or task oriented. Blake and Mouton[3,4] suggested that a person can possess the two dimensions (task and people orientation) orthogonally as manifested through the managerial grid approach. Another important contingencybased approach to assessing the best fit between the leader/manager and the group was developed by Hersey and Blanchard[5,6]. This approach correlated a groups maturity, or readiness to perform, with the stage in the life cycle of the group where the leader performed. All of those orientations, though, covered only two dimensions, whereas people, work and life situations are much more complicated. The idea of transactional versus transformational leadership, moreover, emerged in the 1980s. Again, two types of managerial/leadership characteristics were added to the analysis and development of leadership and management styles[7,8]. Management styles The spectral management type inventory (SMTI) approach leads to eight different kinds of management style. The selection of eight dimensions emerges from the spectral theory of personality by Kingsland[9], later developed by Lessem[10-12]. It is based on three characteristics of a person: cognitive (C), affective (A), and behavioural (B). These characteristics or three aspects of a human being were similarly proposed by philosopher Rudolf Steiner [13] at the beginning of the twentieth century. He maintained that thinking (T), feeling (F), and willing or doing (W) form the basis for personal functioning. Sometimes a component is dominant and is represented by an upper case letter A, B or C; sometimes it is recessive and is represented by a lower case a, b or c. Thus an eight-category model emerges; each one of these management types is associated with a particular colour, selected from the colour spectrum, for ease of reference. q Innovative manager CAB violet q Developmental manager CAb indigo

Journal of Management Development, Vol. 14 No. 1, 1995, pp. 34-39. MCB University Press, 0262-1711

Analytical manager CaB blue q Enterprising manager cAB green q Manager of change Cab yellow q People manager cAb orange q Action manager caB red q Adoptive manager cab grey In this article we shall present findings that emerge from an analysis of responses to a questionnaire based on the SMTI, directed at measuring these components in managers. The questionnaire was recently tested successfully for its reliability and validity. What are these types in practice? Below are descriptions of the main characteristics for each of the eight.
q

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The innovator (violet) Truly innovative managers are total originals, able to create something out of seemingly nothing. They are propelled forward by an inner compulsion, which is projected onto others by a powerful and visually expressive imagination. Such individuals will be creative learners and while in a group will emerge as inspired team members. They are inventors and visionaries. Developmental (indigo) Developmental managers may have a balancing role, more akin to that of enabler rather than fixer, that is essentially developmental in nature. For the truly developmental manager is able to recognize and harness the forces of diversity in people or products, in markets or environments where others might either suppress or counteract them. Co-operation and interdependence is second nature to these managers. In team situations they are natural facilitators, and as learners they like to harmonize, that is to integrate diverse concepts, people and situations. Analytical manager (blue) The analytical manager is the archetypal executive. He or she fits comfortably into role or functionally based organizations where bureaucracy, in either its negative or positive sense, prevails. Impersonal, objective and honest in their dealings, such managers prefer certainty to uncertainty and well-laid plans to devious manoeuvres. They are a force of law and order in their organizations and progress through the managerial hierarchy along conventional promotional lines. In teams they are natural organizers, and as learners they are inherently methodical, purposeful and deliberative in their approach. Enterprising manager (green) Enterprising managers exploit new markets, recognize and grasp new business opportunities, and generally enjoy the rough and tumble of business life. If not jungle fighters they are certainly gamesmen and women who love a good scrap,

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and respond immediately to a challenge, especially if it involves some personal and financial risk. They are at home in the salesforce, in charge of a profit centre or heading up a new venture. They can be ruthless and unscrupulous but also fun loving, larger than life characters. As team members they are inclined to take a lead, that is to initiate, and as learners they respond to an emotional charge, thereby needing to be energized to learn. Manager of change (yellow) Such a manager of change is characteristically intellectual rather than primarily emotional or practical. Such managers need to work in a mentally stimulating environment, and will seek professional advancement rather than promotion, necessarily, within a particular organization. As a result they are often job hoppers, for the sake of professional stimulus rather than, at least primarily, money or status. As team members they serve as proverbial networkers, linking people together within and without, and as learners their orientation is experimental. People manager (orange) People managers, unlike the more detached personnel manager, are naturally gregarious, sociable and warm. They characteristically emerge from the salesforce or from the shop floor, rather than through the graduate management ranks. In cultures where such a people orientation is a prerequisite for advancement, apprenticeship schemes abound. In teams such a person is a natural animator, and as a learner this individual responds to warm people and non-threatening situations. Action manager (red) Action management is at a premium in very fast moving industries, where the expression work hard, play hard has become commonplace. In a production or distribution context, where action speaks louder than words, such a red management orientation is often called for. The ability to act fast, and to enact situations, can be at a premium. As a team member such a person is your proverbial doer, and as a learner is inclined to be immediately reactive to people and situations. Adopter-manager (grey) Our last manager is virtually non existent in western Europe and North America, for this person has such humility, and faith in the company or the creed, that he or she has minimal individual identity. The adopter-manager immerses him or herself in the surrounding group and culture completely. As such, this manager is able to carry out required tasks with a degree of persistence and precision, typified by Eastern cultures. As team members such people are reflective in their orientation and as learners imitative in their approach.

Method This article presents the results of a managerial workshop which was carried out using the SMTI self-assessment questionnaire. The second questionnaire used in the workshop was based on the same dimensions, asking all the participants to evaluate their peers on these scales. The workshop programme was part of a management development programme which the company believed to be essential in a stage of overcoming changes and re-structuring. The changes required closer teamwork of the top management team. They felt they needed to find a way to develop further self and group awareness and create opportunities for development for the team members. The participants The participants were all 31 top managers in one large UK industrial corporation (employing about 5,000 people). These people work together and are very well acquainted with each other. All took part in a scheme where the SMTI approach was introduced and explained in detail. The participants were asked to fill in the SMTI questionnaire, and then another form for them to evaluate their peers on the same dimensions. Results All of the participants filled in the SMTI self-perception questionnaire. As for the peers evaluation, out of the 31, 24 responded to this. Since each could relate to most of the peers (average 22.1, SD 6.7), and altogether we had 16.2 (SD 3.3) evaluations for each participant. For every participant the average of the scores was calculated for each of the eight styles. At this stage the order of the scores was determined and compared with the order of the self-perception for each participant. The average difference was 1.76, whereas according to random choice it would be 2.6. Then a non-parametric Spearman rank correlation was calculated for this sample between the two series of order. The results were as shown in Table I. Altogether significant positive correlations were found for all of the eight types, albeit the small size of the sample. The results of these two tests indicate a high connection between the self and the group perception of the individuals. Discussion What is the contribution of such an exercise to managerial development? How could these managers be developed by such an experience? In order to answer these questions we need to realize that two cases could be applied: (1) A case of congruence, where the individual self-perception matched the group evaluation of the SMTI. (2) Where there was no such match. In the first case the person received feedback on his or her stronger areas of comparative strength and relative weakness. He or she was able to acknowledge

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Journal of Management Development 14,1 38

Participant Violet Indigo Blue Green Yellow Orange Red

Correlation 0.55 0.30 0.40 0.49 0.46 0.30 0.33 0.36

Significance 0.01 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.05 0.05 0.05

Table I. Results of Spearman rank correlation

Grey

what were their best qualities as well as what they need to develop further. Such feedback may stimulate people to work on their less developed attributes. An example would be a person who comes out as a green entrepreneurial type, located in production; it may be that the person is better fitted to another kind of role, perhaps in sales. The other kind of important feedback is when there is no fit between the individual and the group perceptions. In this case it does not matter that much who is right the group or the individual (actually there is no room for this question since no definite answer could be provided). What matters is the fact that people working with a person see him or her in a different light. It could be due to their genuinely different perspectives, or that the individual uses a mask to hide his or her own true nature. Such cases were identified in the group under the study. This kind of feedback created deeper understanding and insight. In the workshop there was an open discussion of the results. This meant that everyone shared their self-perceptions and group evaluations of the SMTI for each participant. This encouraged open discussion, including cases of noncongruence. Emerging out of this was, for individuals and groups, a process of mutual recognition. The importance of congruence between a person and his or her environment, in this case the people surrounding him or her, has been widely recognized in the literature[14]. Altogether the workshop led to an improvement in the teamwork of these managers. Future opportunities What is the possible contribution of the SMTI approach in managerial development and practice? It is commonly accepted that people should know themselves and understand their colleagues in order to establish a good working environment. As Cabarro and Kotter[15] have pointed out, knowing your fellow worker better (the manager in their case) will increase personal and organizational effectiveness. Proper use of the SMTI approach can facilitate better self awareness and group understanding. The conditions needed to

facilitate such developments are groups of people working together, thereby knowing one another to the extent that they will be able to present sincere feedback. A readiness for open discussion can establish benefits of the participants as a group as well as individuals.
References 1. Fiedler, F.E., A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1967. 2. Fiedler, F.E., Validation and extension of the contingency model of leadership effectiveness: a review of empirical findings, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 76, 1971, pp. 128-48. 3. Blake, R.R. and Mouton, J.S., Building a Dynamic Corporation through Grid Organisational Development, Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, 1969. 4. Blake, R.R. and Mouton, J.S., The Managerial Grid III, Gulf, Houston, TX, 1985. 5. Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K.H., Life cycles theory of leadership, Training and Development Journal, Vol. 23, 1969. 6. Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K.H., Management of Organizational Behavior, 6th ed., PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993. 7. Bass, B.M., From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 18 No. 3, 1990, pp. 19-31. 8. Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J., Transformational leadership and organizational culture, Public Administration Quarterly, Vol. 17 No. 1, 1993, pp. 112-21. 9. Kingsland, K., The personality spectrum, unpublished working paper, 1984. 10. Lessem, R., Intrapreneurship, Gower, Aldershot, 1987. 11. Lessem, R., Global Management, Prentice -Hall, Hemel Hempstead, 1989. 12. Lessem, R., Developmental Management, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990. 13. Steiner, R., Study of Man, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1966. 14. Assouline, M. and Meir, E.I., Meta-analysis of the relationships between congruence and well-being measures, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 31 No. 3, 1987, pp. 333-6. 15. Cabarro, J.J. and Kotter, J.P., Managing your boss, Harvard Business Review, JanuaryFebruary, 1980, pp. 92-100.

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