Iowa Studies and the Leadership Continuum

The most famous early behavioural research on leadership was the Iowa Studies, run by the German-American psychologist Kurt Lewin and his graduate students in the late 1930s. The studies identified three classical leadership behaviours that still appear in every leadership textbook today: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. They also opened the door to a richer model, the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum, which is one of the more useful tools a school head can keep in her pocket.

The Iowa Studies

Kurt Lewin and his team at the University of Iowa initiated studies to identify effective leader behaviour. They considered three behaviours: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. They studied groups of ten-year-old boys working on craft projects under each style, with the same boys experiencing each style at different times.

The findings of the Iowa Studies became foundational. The styles are still the starting point for almost any discussion of leadership behaviour.

The autocratic leader

An autocratic leader makes unilateral decisions, dictates work methods, limits the group’s knowledge of goals to the next step, and gives punitive feedback.

An autocratic leader makes decisions alone. She tells the group what to do and how to do it. She controls information; the group sees only the next step, not the bigger picture. Feedback is harsh when given.

In a school: the principal who decides without consulting, who issues detailed instructions to teachers, and who criticises sharply when work falls short, is operating in autocratic mode. The mode has its uses (emergencies, new staff, high-stakes situations) but produces resentment if it is the leader’s permanent style.

The democratic leader

A democratic leader involves the group in decision making, lets workers choose the work method, makes the overall goals known, and uses feedback for coaching.

A democratic leader consults the group on major decisions. She sets goals collaboratively or at least communicates them clearly. She lets people decide how to do the work within those goals. Feedback is coaching, not punishment.

In a school: the principal who consults senior teachers before making curriculum changes, who explains the why behind decisions, and who treats appraisals as growth conversations, is operating in democratic mode. This mode works well in steady-state schools with experienced staff.

The laissez-faire leader

A laissez-faire leader gives the group full freedom, provides the needed material, participates only to answer questions, and avoids giving feedback.

A laissez-faire leader (French for “let it be”) stays out of the way. She makes resources available, answers questions when asked, and otherwise lets the group decide everything. She rarely gives feedback.

In a school: the principal who hires senior teachers and then lets them run their sections almost entirely, only stepping in when explicitly asked, is operating in laissez-faire mode. This works with highly experienced, motivated staff. It fails badly with new or struggling staff who need direction.

What Lewin found

Children working under the democratic leader produced the highest quality work and the highest motivation. The autocratic group produced the most output but with more dependency and resentment. The laissez-faire group produced the least output and was the most chaotic.

The findings made democratic leadership look like the answer. Decades of later research showed it was more complicated: the categories blurred, behaviours overlapped, and the right style depended on the situation.

The three styles existed on a continuum, not as discrete categories. Real leaders mixed them. And the right style depended on the situation, a finding that pointed towards contingency thinking.

Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s continuum

In 1958, Robert Tannenbaum and Warren H. Schmidt published a paper in the Harvard Business Review that became one of the most reprinted articles in leadership literature. They argued that the Iowa Studies’ three styles were too crude. Leadership behaviour, they said, lay on a continuum from fully autocratic to fully democratic, with several gradations in between.

Tannenbaum and Schmidt expanded the views of democratic and autocratic leadership from a simplistic choice between two distinctive behaviours at extreme ends to a continuum of seven behaviours.

The seven behaviours

The Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum, from most autocratic to most democratic:

A school head can think of these seven as a dial she can turn for any given decision.

1. Tells. Emergency evacuation procedure: she sets it and announces it.
2. Sells. New uniform policy: she decides and explains the reasoning.
3. Tests. Annual school timetable: she presents a draft and invites questions.
4. Consults. New assessment policy: she presents a tentative version and modifies based on staff input.
5. Suggests. Annual parent engagement plan: she presents the goal and asks for ideas.
6. Joins. Year-end staff retreat agenda: she sets the limits and asks the staff to design within them.
7. Delegates. Department-level lesson plan format: she lets the head of department decide.

A leader who uses only one of these for every decision is wasting the dial. A leader who turns the dial deliberately for each decision uses the team better.

What the dial depends on

Tannenbaum and Schmidt named three sets of forces that should shape where the leader sets the dial.

1. Forces in the leader. Her confidence in the team. Her own preferred style. Her time constraints. Her values.
2. Forces in the employees. Their need for autonomy. Their experience. Their tolerance for ambiguity. Their interest in the issue.
3. Forces in the situation. The stakes. The time available. The complexity. The history.

This approach also set the stage for later contingency theories that viewed leadership in terms of the manager’s particular situation.

This is the seed of contingency thinking in leadership. The right leadership behaviour depends on the leader, the followers, and the situation, three sets of forces that the leader must read each time.

Research findings on behavioural style

Later research on the behavioural approach refined the picture. When subordinates feel pressure from deadlines or unclear tasks, people-oriented leaders raise satisfaction and performance.

In high-pressure conditions, people-oriented leadership matters more. Staff under stress need support, not just direction.

When the task itself is interesting or satisfying, there is less need for the leader to be people-oriented.

When the work itself is engaging, the leader’s people-orientation matters less. Staff are motivated by the work.

When the task and the goals are clear, people-oriented leaders raise satisfaction and task-oriented leaders raise dissatisfaction.

When the task is clear, adding more task structure annoys staff. They know what to do; they want to feel valued while doing it.

When staff do not know what to do or lack the knowledge and skills, production-oriented leadership matters more than people-orientation.

When staff are inexperienced or confused, they need direction more than warmth.

These findings produced a clear conclusion: the right leadership style depends on the followers’ clarity and capability. This is the contingency view in early form.

Flashcard

What did Lewin find about the three leadership styles in the Iowa Studies?

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Answer

Democratic led to best quality and motivation.

• Autocratic produced the most output but with resentment and dependency.
• Laissez-faire produced the least output and the most disorder.

Those three styles later expanded into a finer-grained dial.

Flashcard

What are the seven leadership behaviours on the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum?

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Answer

A range from autocratic to democratic.

1. Tells
2. Sells
3. Tests
4. Consults
5. Suggests
6. Joins
7. Delegates

Those seven steps describe the what. The next card covers the why: the forces that tell a leader which step to use.

Flashcard

What three forces help a leader choose a style on the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum?

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Answer

The leader, the employees, and the situation.

• Forces in the leader: confidence, values.
• Forces in the employees: experience, need for autonomy.
• Forces in the situation: time pressure, stakes.

Now apply these behavioural findings to a common school leadership challenge.