Relationship-oriented (or relationship-focused) leadership is a behavioral approach in which the leader focuses on the satisfaction, motivation and the general well-being of the team members.
They will often actively define the work and the roles required, put structures in place, and plan, organize, and monitor progress within the team.
Additionally, these types of leaders tend to exemplify a strong understanding of how to get the job done, focusing on the necessary workplace procedures and delegating work accordingly to ensure that everything is completed in a timely and productive manner.
[3] However, because task-oriented leaders do not tend to focus on their team's well-being, this approach can suffer many of the flaws of autocratic leadership, including causing motivation and retention problems.
This may involve offering incentives like bonuses, providing mediation to deal with workplace or classroom conflicts, having more casual interactions with team members to learn about their strengths and weaknesses, creating a non-competitive and transparent work environment, or just leading in a personable or encouraging manner.
Personal conflicts, dissatisfaction with a job, resentment and even boredom can severely drive down productivity, so these types of leaders put people first to ensure that such problems stay at a minimum.
[6] In Forsyth, the leadership substitute theory is defined as "a conceptual analysis of the factors that combine to reduce or eliminate the need for a leader.
"[1] A leader may find that behaviors focusing on nurturing interpersonal relationships, or coordinating tasks and initiating structure, are not required in every situation.
The characteristics of organized rewards, cohesive work groups, and physical distance have also been shown to negate the need for relationship oriented leadership styles.
[12] The table below shows a breakdown of the theory: An experiment was conducted in 1972 with a total of 128 United States Military cadets in 4-man groups, to test the predictive validity of Fiedler's contingency model of leadership effectiveness.