The Managerial Grid Model (also known as the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid or Leadership Grid) is a behavioral leadership model developed by Robert R. Blake and Jane Mouton in the early 1960s.
It is a two-dimensional grid used to categorize leadership styles based on two primary behavioral dimensions, each scored on a 1 (low) to 9 (high) scale:
- Concern for Production (x-axis): The leader’s focus on organizational tasks, goals, efficiency, and achieving results.
- Concern for People (y-axis): The leader’s focus on the well-being, satisfaction, development, and needs of their team members.
The grid identifies five main leadership styles:
| Style | Concern for Production (X) | Concern for People (Y) | Description |
| Impoverished Management (1,1) | Low | Low | Minimal effort exerted to get work done or sustain employee morale. The manager is largely disengaged. |
| Country Club Management (1,9) | Low | High | Focuses on creating a friendly, comfortable atmosphere and meeting people’s needs, often at the expense of production goals. |
| Authority-Compliance / Produce or Perish (9,1) | High | Low | Focuses heavily on task efficiency and results, often through rules and control, with little regard for the human element. |
| Middle-of-the-Road Management (5,5) | Moderate | Moderate | Attempts to balance production goals and people’s needs, resulting in adequate but often mediocre performance and satisfaction. |
| Team Management (9,9) | High | High | Considered the most effective style. The manager fosters a committed, trusting work environment while also driving for high performance and results. |
The model is used as a framework to help leaders identify their dominant style, understand its impact, and ideally, move toward the high-high Team Management (9,9) style, which Blake and Mouton posited as the ideal for achieving both high morale and high productivity.