Leadership Style, Subordinate Personality and Task Type as Predictors of Performance and Satisfaction with Supervision

Interactions between leadership style, subordinate personality, and task type, and the effects of different combinations of these variables on group performance and satisfaction with supervision were investigated. Three different types of leaders were selected and trained: (a) high in human relations and high in task orientation, (b) low in human relations and high in task orientation, and (c) high in human relations and low in task orientation. Each leader worked with eight high- and eight low-dogmatism subjects on four tasks that differed in ambiguity and difficulty. As predicted, there were significant interaction effects for Leader × Subordinate × Task combinations (p < 0.05). These effects on group performance were strongest for difficult- ambiguous tasks. Subordinates, regardless of their personality were significantly more satisfied with leadership behaviour that was high in human relations orientation.