The behavioral approach to leadership involves the measurement of categories of behavior that are characteristic of effective leaders. Two research projects, one at Ohio State University and the other at the University of Michigan, are most commonly associated with the behavioral approach to leadership. The results of both research programs suggested that the behavior of effective leaders could be classified into two general categories. The behavioral approach dominated leadership research throughout most of the 1950s and 1960s.

The Ohio State Studies

Immediately following World War II, a group of scholars, including Carroll L. Shartle, John K. Hemphill, and Ralph M. Stogdill, conducted a series of investigations that became known as the Ohio State Leadership Studies. Rather than focusing on the traits or styles of effective leaders, as ...

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