The Taskmaster management style is primarily concerned with performance and not people. The Taskmaster views people only as contributors to production and expects them to carry out plans and directions given to them. The Comforter management style focuses on people and their relationships and pays little attention to performance needs. The Comforters thinks people are somehow fragile and see themselves as protectors or barriers between their people and the organization. The Regulator management style has little concern for either people or performance.
Regulators seek neither to attain any real production nor to establish sound relationships.
The Regulator's major goal is to stay out of trouble by avoiding risk and to meet minimum requirements for both performance and relationships. It appeared that there was strong agreement on the predominate management style used within ISU Extension. When the results of the managers' styles were compared to the QPA assessment, it was possible to draw some conclusions about the management culture of ISU Extension's administrative team. Because ISU Extension's management team is dominated by a patriarchal style, it is no surprise that the conditions for competence fall below what is needed to fully tap staff potential. According to these findings, if ISU Extension wants to create an organization that fully taps the competence of its staff, the administrative team must change its management culture from patriarchy to one conducive to enhancing competence.