We’re sorry, we no longer offer the Management Styles Inventory test.

Purpose: The Management Styles Inventory (MSI) is a self-scored tool that evaluates the effect on co-worker potential of an individual’s style of management in terms of the manager’s assumptions and priorities regarding the relationship between performance concerns and people concerns. To be used for management training and as a basis for discussion.

Co-Worker Feedback: Manager Style Appraisal (MSA) The co-worker feedback companion to the MSI. We recommend a min. of 3 MSAs for each MSI used to maximize effectiveness. Reveals the manager’s style and effectiveness as perceived by recipients of their managerial behavior. This valuable information creates an awareness of the impact the manager is having on others and points the way for discussion and change. Normative conversion tables based on data from over 25,993 co-workers. (Sold Separately)

Video Support: In-depth explanation of Hall’s Style Parallax Model of People/Performance Issues. Creates for the manager an understanding of the benefits and pit-falls of each management style. With real-life vignettes this video dramatizes the impact of each of the five styles: Developer, Manipulator, Taskmaster, Comforter, and Regulator allowing the viewer to proceed toward more effective managing. Includes instructions for scoring/interpeting the MSI & MSA. (Sold Separately)

Format: A 60-item paper/pencil inventory for assessing managers’ perceptions of their practices. The 10-point Williams-Hall equal-interval scale, combining rank-order and equal-interval properties, is employed throughout. Analysis is based on the Hall Style Parallax — a model of management behavior that is an extension of Likert’s Production-Morale Theory, and Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid relating performance concerns with people concerns. The inventory provides a total score for each of the five management styles described by the model, as well as scores for each style on four components: philosophy, planning, implementation, and evaluation. The inventory provides managers with a way of relating their personal priorities with their on-the-job practices and discovering areas needing change. Normative data and conversion tables afford personal comparison with both the “average” manager and a theoretical ideal. The inventory may be administered in conjunction with the MSA for a more complete assessment of management styles.

Brief Description: The purpose of this survey is to provide managers with newly formulated information about the way they manage — or would manage — under a variety of conditions, and the implications of personal style for co-worker potential. A wide range of management situations is covered in order to provide you with meaningful information about yourself. Based on the Hall Style Parallax, the MSI yields a total score for each of five styles described by the model. The MSI provides managers with a way to relate their personal priorities to their practices and, when compared the MSA, can offer valuable insights regarding the impact of managers’ on co-workers’ efforts to realize personal potential in their work practices.

Sample Item: Participants respond to each question by placing each response provided on the point on the scale which would represent how characteristic that response is for them.

Most types of internal activity stem from organizational goals. Once these goals have been identified, plans and policies must be drafted which facilitate goal attainment. How do you, as a manager, handle the planning function in your organization?

a. After consulting with subordinates, I interpret the requirements of organizational policy and develop the final plan.

b. I plan, develop and interpret policy with the major objective in mind keeping the morale of my subordinates high.

c. My subordinates and I jointly plan, develop, and interpret policies in order to arrive at a common perception of the goals and ways of attaining them.
d. I plan and/or interpret the objectives of the organization for my subordinates so that they fully understand what management requires of them.

e. I rely primarily on superiors for plans and interpretation of organizational policies and pass them on to my subordinates as clearly as I can.

Available Languages: English, Spanish, Swedish, French, German, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, and Dutch.

Norms: In this instrument norms provide a reference point in the form of standardized T-scores so that direct comparisons of data can be made. The T-scores have been generated from a sample of 13,446 managers who have completed the MSI.

Reliability and Validity: Reliability is good; the median coefficient of stability (test/re-test) for the MSI is .72. Concurrent validity is good; the instrument discriminates between high, average, and low achieving managers. Construct validity is good as revealed by a Canonical correlation of the instrument with the MMPI: R = .68, significant at the .038 level of confidence. In addition, scores from the MSI have been found to correlate significantly with: philosophy (Theory X – Theory Y), power needs, interpersonal competence, and motivation. The MSI is deemed suitable for both concept and diagnostic training, team discussion, and research.