Universal Leadership Behavior

Universal leadership behavior theories argue that certain behaviors enhance leadership in all situations. This approach to leadership is helpful in developing project leaders because it assumes that individuals can modify their behavior to become better leaders. The model provides a generic leadership-behavior baseline, or standard, against which the individual can compare her own behaviors. This comparison enables the individual to detect personal discrepancies from optimal behavior, allowing adjustment of subsequent behavior to improve leadership effectiveness. Thus, the focus of this section is to gain an awareness of universal behaviors that have been found to be important for leaders.

The Leadership Grid

The premise of the leadership grid is that effective leader behavior falls into two generic categories: concern for people, and concern for production. Only by actively demonstrating a concern for both can the leader maximize team performance.