and workplace dimensions); (ii) relations-oriented/employee-centred behaviour
(supervisors focus on the creation of employee motivation); and (iii) participative
leadership (Kahn and Katz 1960: 562).
The later Ohio State studies established two dimensions of leadership which
Stogdill and Coons (1957) referred to as: (i) initiating structure (similar to task-
orientated leadership); and (ii) consideration (similar to relations-oriented
leadership). Initiating structure is measured by the degree to which
leaders/managers focus on the task and job-related workplace requirements while
consideration is measured by leaders’/managers’ supportiveness towards, and
concern for, their subordinates.
Although the aims and findings of the Ohio and Michigan were different in a
number of ways, both sets of studies identified two basic categories of leaders’
behaviour:
(1) leader emphasis on task accomplishment, and
(2) leader concern for group maintenance, or a concern for the needs
of subordinates.
(Griffin et al. 1987: 201)Both the Ohio State (initiating structure/consideration) and University of Michigan
(task-/relations-orientated) nomenclatures remain in use – as do the concepts.
Table 2 - 5 illustrates how this broad distinction in leader orientation is reflected
within the two main theoretical perspectives which have been consistently applied
in hospitality-leadership studies (Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and
transformational leadership theories; both of these theoretical approaches will be
examined in greater detail below).
Yukl (2006: 52) writes that, since their introduction in the 1950s and early 1960s,
the Ohio State leadership questionnaire instruments (and derivatives thereof)
have been used many hundreds of times in a variety of contexts, however, the
findings have not been consistent. Some subordinates have reported greater
satisfaction with, and performed better with, a structuring leader while in other
studies the findings indicated a reversed relationship or no relationship at all. The
relationship between leader consideration and subordinate satisfaction has,
however, been consistently observed.