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managerial styles
and areas of 
weakness or 'unbalance', for the purposes of management development. 
The managerial grid
Concern for production
High
Low
High
Low
Concer
n f
or people
(task) 9.1
(team) 9.9
1.9 (country club)
5.5
(middle road)
1.1 (impoverished)
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PART D: LEADING AND MANAGING INDIVIDUALS AND TEAMS 
 
310
 
The extreme cases shown on the grid are: 
(a) 1.1
 
impoverished:
the manager is lazy, showing little interest in either staff or work. 
(b) 1.9 
country club:
 
the
 
manager is attentive to staff needs and has developed satisfying 
relationships. However, there is little attention paid to achieving results. 
(c) 9.1 
task management:
almost total concentration on achieving results. People's needs are 
virtually ignored. 
(d) 5.5 
middle of the road 
or the 
dampened pendulum:
adequate performance through balancing (or 
switching between) the necessity to get out work with team morale.
(e) 9.9 
team:
 
high work accomplishment through 'leading' committed people who identify 
themselves with the organisational aims. 
The managerial grid was intended as an appraisal and management development tool. It recognises that 
a balance is required between concern for task and concern for people, and that a high degree of both is 
possible (and highly effective) at the same time. 
5.2.3 Evaluating the managerial grid 
The grid thus offers a number of useful insights for the identification of management 
training and 
development
needs. It shows in an easily assimilated form where the behaviour and assumptions of a 
manager may exhibit a lack of balance between the dimensions and/or a low degree of concern in either 
dimension or both. It may also be used in team member selection, so that a 1.9 team leader is balanced 
by a 9.1 co-leader, for example. 
However, the grid is a simplified model, and as such has practical limitations. 
(a) 
It assumes that 9.9 is the desirable model for effective leadership. In some managerial contexts, 
this may not be so. Concern for people, for example, would not be necessary in a context of 
comprehensive automation: compliance is all that would be required. 
(b) 
It is open to oversimplification. Scores can appear polarised, with judgements attached about 
individual managers' suitability or performance. The grid is intended as a simplified 'snapshot' of 
a manager's preferred style, not a comprehensive description of their performance. 
(c) 
Organisational context and culture, technology and other 'givens' (Handy) influence the manager's 
style of leadership, not just the two dimensions described by the grid. 
(d) 
Any managerial theory is only useful in so far as it is useable in practice by managers: if the grid 
is used only to inform managers that they 'must acquire greater concern for people', it may result 
in stress, uncertainty and inconsistent behaviour.