The Nature of Leadership

The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum

In the 1950s, Tannenbaum and Schmidt created a continuum along which leadership styles range from authoritarian to extremely high levels of worker freedom. Subsequent to Tannenbaum and Schmidt's work, researchers adapted the continuum by categorizing leader power styles as autocratic (boss-centered), participative (workers are consulted and involved), or free-rein (members are assigned the work and decide on their own how to do it; the leader relinquishes the active assumption of the role of leadership).

Exhibit 12.6 Tannenbaum and Schmidt's Leadership Continuum