leadership and motivation in hospitality

Leader orientation

Theoretical approach Production-centred Employee-centred

Michigan studies

Ohio State studies

Leader-Member
Exchange (LMX)

Transformational
leadership

Task-orientated

Initiating structure

Contractual obligations

(out-group)

Reward and punishment /

transactional leadership

Relations-orientated

Consideration

Trust and mutual respect

(in-group)

Individualised consideration /

leadership as a shared

process

Source: author

theoretical contexts Table 2-5 Production- and employee-centred leadership orientation in various

various theoretical contexts

While the striking similarities between the Ohio and Michigan leader behaviour

categorisations are apparent, a significant difference between them relates to the

uni-dimensionality of the Michigan versus the multi-dimensionality of the Ohio

conceptualisation. Specifically, while the (earlier) Michigan findings positioned

task-orientated and relations-oriented behaviour at either end of a continuum, the

findings of the Ohio studies showed that leaders could exhibit both consideration

and initiating structure. Vroom (1997: 423), for example, describes how the

Michigan model dichotomises task- and relations-orientated behaviours while

within the tenets of the Ohio model of initiating structure and consideration

leaders can “...exhibit high levels of both, low levels of both, or high level of one

and low level of the other”.

Judge et al. (2004: 36) have noted that the initiating structure/consideration

framework dominated work within leadership research until the emergence of

transformational leadership theory during the late 1970s: however, they go on to

describe (p. 37) how this approach has attracted criticisms on both

methodological and conceptual grounds. Elsewhere, House and Aditya wrote

that:

As with trait research, little thought was given to the specific role

demands of leaders, the context in which they functioned, or

differences in dispositions of leaders or followers. Failure to consider