Journal of Management

1979, Vol. 5, No. 2, 127-134

Early Years of the Ohio State

University Leadership Studies
Carroll L. Shartle
Ohio State University
A multidisciplinary program of leadership research was
initiated at Ohio State in 1945. Leader behavior in
organizations was the principal thrust with relationships
shown to other sets of variables. The program had its roots in
occupational research performed on a wide scale in the U.S.
Department of Labor and the War Manpower Commission
beginning in 1934.

What became the Ohio State Leadership Studies had its beginning in
the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C, before and during World
War II. At that time I left a teaching position at what is now Michigan
State University to become director of an extensive multidisciplinary
occupational research program involving job and process analysis in
over 25,000 civilian establishments and army and air corps military
organizations. We developed and published occupational descriptions, a
dictionary of occupational titles, occupational standardized aptitude and
trade tests, tables of occupational and organizational composition, lists
of essential occupations, and definitions of critical and non-essential
civilian occupations for military draft deferment (Shartle, 1961; Shartle
& Dvorak, 1943).
That was interesting and well-received workin fact it has continued
to this daybut for some of us we omitted the most exciting aspect of an
organizational activity, namely the "top side." We covered two levels of
supervisors and foremen in business and industry and the noncommissioned army officer specialties, but never the higher levels
where the most significant decisions were being made. We had plenty to
do as it was. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles was in itself a huge
undertaking.
The National Research Council Committee on the Classification of
Military Personnel, chaired by Walter V. Bingham, often spoke of the
gap and we engaged a fellow member, Henry Garrett, then Head of the
Psychology Department at Columbia University, to chair a
Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Carroll L. Shartle, 218 Leland Avenue,
Columbus. Ohio 43214.
Copyright 1979 by the Southern Management Association 0149-2063/79/00S2-0I27$2.00/0
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subcommittee to plan a program of military leadership research which

came too late to be activated. General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff,
was much interested and emphasized that having an enhsted man in the
wrong MOS was bad enough, but to have a general officer unqualified
for his assignment could be a catastrophe.
While we did not initiate leadership studies in any of our programs, I
had the opportunity every day to informally observe, and make notes on,
persons in high level roles. It was part of my strategy to survive.
Furthermore, I was appointed to what was called the "President's
Committee on Occupational Deferments." There was a chairman who
had formerly held political office and knew his way around the hill, the
various government departments, and the White House. I was the other
member, the technician, with the backup of a large, trained staff, to
make things respectable. The President was required to approve or
disapprove all requests for occupational deferment of government
employees. Members of the Cabinet and persons in critical occupations
were exempt, but there were many high and intermediate level
employees of draft age. We acted for the President. If a department head
disagreed with our decision, he could appeal to the President in person, if
he could get to see him. I remember one case when the Secretary of State
was said to have delayed seeing the President for a week because of fear
of catching the President's cold.
Usually an appeal was an informal hearing held in the west wing of the
White House before the President's Legal Counsel Judge Samuel
Rosenman. FDR always supported us, but he seldom let us know ahead
of time of a change in draft deferment policy. He used the press
conference. It was also wise to read Mrs. Roosevelt's column for hints of
policy change.
Being a dyed-in-the-wool job analyst, I insisted on knowing what each
person did, and it was necessary sometimes to make first-hand
observations. I knew about the Manhattan project months before Harry
Truman did. Two high level individuals with deferment cases were later
to serve in other president's cabinets. Another young fellow became a
Republican vice-president of the United States.
I was beseiged by industry lobbyists wanting certain occupations on
the critical list. One of the most persistent lobbies was a committee of
college presidents looking for faculty deferments.
We also had face-to-face situations in our ow^n large organization, the
War Manpower Commission. For example, a politically active Navy
Lieutenant Commander, a former school teacher, was assigned by the

White House to Manpower problems. His aggressive style was

disturbing in Washington, and FDR transferred him to the Los Angeles
area, where he spent a good deal of time at our research center. In fact,
the director of the center wrote me a personal letter asking for guidance
in the situation. He said the commander had an attractive wife named
Lady Bird and the sociometric pattern he felt obligated to follow took a
good deal of staff time and valuable gasoline coupons. I suggested he

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keep on going for one never knew when a fellow like this might be useful.
This officer did receive good indoctrination, was favorably impressed
with the research, and later as a senator and then president was helpful
too.
Our assistant manpower director for the Twin Cities area was a bright
pohtical scientist and fast-learner named Hubert Humphrey. His style
included extensive verbal output and years later he was very helpful to us
as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. My favorite in
leadership style was General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, and
later Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, well known for the
Marshall Plan. His administrative pattern was as near ideal as any I had
seen or have seen since.
In observing the way things were being done in what Eisenhower later
called the Military-Industrial Complex, it was obvious to me that an
extended research program on high level jobs and organizational
behavior was called for. In my own case, I had nine different chiefs in 4/2
years. By the time we had trained one, and he found out what was going
on, he moved. Most were competent and looked good on paper, but for
one reason or another did not stay. Some quit; others were eased out or
kicked upstairs, sometimes with my helpful strategy. I was a successful
bureaucrat: I survived. Furthermore, I began with two assistants and
ended 10 years later with over 200 positions in Washington and an
estimated 500 more in the field on other budgets.
Abihty to handle stress was a factor in my survival. In fact, the
Washington Post and two cabinet members at the same time wanted me
fired. FDR did not budge. He had dismissed two cabinet members
previously, and had replaced them with Republicans, for greater
national unity, one week before the Repubhcan National Convention in
1940. That caused a ruckus in both political parties.
Because we had to consider thousands of deferment requests, I
devised a rating system to quantify degrees of criticalness. The
Chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee was incensed by it
and claimed to the press that I was breaking the law. I later changed one
item to stay out of jail.
Organizational changes were often made to correct a problem but
usually resulted in creating new problems. I was involved in 21 of them.
Of equal importance, informal and sometimes devious means of
influence within the power structure were often important. Ability to
present budget requests to congressional committees as well as the
budget bureau was critical and some of my freshmen bosses fell down

miserably.
Feeling that the federal government was not a good place to initiate
and receive support for a multidisciplinary study of leadership, I looked
around for a university setting. I preferred a large state university
because of potentially larger support base. Ohio State was interested
among others. Since I already knew something about Ohio State, as
one might expect, I chose it.

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Ohio State at that time had an ag-engineering state college

organization. Psychology was in the College of Education;
Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, and business organization in the
College of Commerce and Administration, and Pohtical Science,
including pubhc administration, in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Industrial Engineering was of course in the College of Engineering.
As a framework for multidisciphnary personnel research, the
President appointed a university-wide committee of deans, department
heads, bureau directors, and a few professors who were interested. It
was called the Personnel Research Board. The academic vice president
was chairman and I became executive secretary. That was about the time
several other universities were setting up industrial and labor relations
centers. I checked with members of the union power structure in the
State. They were not interested in research at that time but in labor
education, which came later in a separate program.
The PRB in general worked quite well. In a board meeting if you
gained support of the group, you usually had sufficient power to make a
proposal work. We had some turnover on the Board. Our first chairman
became provost at the University of Iowa. Our second chairman
absorbed so much of the leadership research that he was swiped by the
Board of Regents of the University of Michigan and made its president.
I'll never forget the day this appointment was announced. I was at a
meeting in New York with Ren Likert and a couple of other Michigan
faculty. They were thrown for a loop because they had not heard of this
worthy candidate.
Since a former Ohio State vice-president had recently been named
president of the University of Minnesota and a httle later one of our
Ph.D.s became Vice-President of the University of Wisconsin, I was
accused of being involved in a conspiracy to take over the Big 10. After
all there should be a limit to this leadership business!
The Personnel Research Board kept going until the University
reorganized in 1968. Much of its program went into a new Behavioral
Science Laboratory in a new College of Social and Behavioral Science
and to programs in a new College of Administrative Science where
Ralph Stogdill continued the Leadership Research until his untimely
death a year ago.
The Personnel Research Board was a cooperative venture. I was fulltime on the payroll of the Department of Psychology. Our secretary was
supphed by the Bureau of Business Research of the College of
Commerce and Administration, and our space, supphes, postage, and
other operating expenses were furnished by the Office of the President.
Our purpose was to strengthen departments rather than draw from them.
Contracts and grants were administered through the regular channels of
the University, giving full credit to the department in which the principal
investigator held rank.
The leadership studies were programmed to be interdisciplinaryI
think now that multidisciplinary is a better description. We decided to

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study leadership in business, governmental, and educational organizations. I began alone in an insurance company, using a job analysis
and organizational analysis format modified from what I had used in the
government. Ralph Stogdill was the first to come aboard in a segment
supported for many years by the Office of Naval Research. Ralph and I
initiated the field work by studying the top structure of the tenth Naval
district. Ralph also finished his first publication on personal factors
associated with leadership which was pubhshed in 1948 and wellreceived (Stogdill, 1948).
With additional foundation, business, and governmental support we
enlarged our group to include among others John Hemphill, Lawrence
Siegal, Donald T. Campbell, Andrew Halpin, Alvin Coons, Melvin
Seeman, Pauline Pepinsky, and various paid and unpaid consultants.
Drawn in later were Robert Wherry, Harold Burtt, and Harold Pepinsky.
There were many very promising graduate students including Bernie
Bass and Ed Fleishman, also Ellis Scott, Ed Harris, Bill Jaynes, Ben
Winer, Charlotte Christner, Ruben Shevits, C. G. Browne, Robert Stoltz,
Jon Bentz, Ralph Canter, Carl Rush, William Pavhc, Lorraine Eyde,
Charles Weste, Bob Hites, Frank Michaelson, Margaret Estep, and
Richard Morris. Karl Weick and Bob House came along later to enrich
the graduate program.
Although I startled the university administration at the onset by saying
we required a million dollars for a 10-year program to study leadership,
the base support was favorable and aided us in getting outside grants.
After we were well started I was invited to explain the program to
University Board of Trustees. Much to my surprise the only trustee with a
research background made quite a fuss. He was C. F. Kettering,
distinguished graduate of our College of Engineering and at that time
Vice President for Research at General Motors, who was best known for
his invention of the automobile self-starter. Mr. Kettering said that our
method was all wrong; that a high level executive was like a spark coil.
He started things, and moved quickly back and forth from one problem
situation to another. The fact that we were quantifying our data was a
mistake; we should limit ourselves to case histories. I learned
subsequently that he had given support to the Harvard Graduate School
of Business. That explained it. I had later correspondence with Mr.
Kettering, but he remained unconvinced that quantification of data was a
viable step although he favored having engineers take more psychology
to broaden their training base.
Our initial research planning group was from psychology, sociology,
and economics with various sessions including business organization,
educational research, public administration, and industrial engineering.
There were many, many sessions over the first two-year period. In these
group meetings I made the coffee, smoked my pipe, and tried to listen
rather than talk. Finally a model was developed that we called a
paradigm. One of our off-campus consultants labeled it a hypothesis
factory.

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Leader behavior variables were the core, with lines showing

relationships to other variables such as group behavior and structure,
organizational characteristics, and environmental situations (economic,
social, and political). It was really an approach to the study of leadership.
There was no significant theory.
I soon learned that theory was an individual affair that could be
expressed best in individual studies within the framework. If we had
required ourselves to agree on a theory, we would never have had a
program. The Ohio State Leadership Studies were often criticized for a
lack of theory.
Richard T. Morris, then a graduate student in sociology, drafted our
thinking into a paradigm format, and he and Melvin Seenam published it
in 1950 in the American Journal of Sociology. Both became professors of
sociology at U.C.L.A.
The paradigm gave me a great sense of relief for at times I felt we were
disintegrating into fragments. Seven years later, Stogdill and Coons
edited a monograph that included a revised paradigm I prepared
reflecting program changes. It was remarkably similar to the original,
but some details had been modified as the studies had progressed
(Stogdill & Coons, 1957).
My own interest was primarily leader behavior. I felt that if we could
get a handle on it, the program would be worthwhile.
The first mass of objective data from industry, government, and
education on leader behavior was studied by our group. Factor analyses
showed two principal dimensions that were eventually named initiating
structure and consideration. There were some less dominant factors and
items, and the one which still appeals to me most was "facilitating action"
leadership acts to provide the means by which individuals, groups,
and organizations can reahze their objectives. For example, the
leadership acts of a dean in providing a new lab for his faculty and
students.
The Leader Behavior Description Scales have received wide attention,
usage, and refinement and have been translated into several languages.
There were also scales for describing responsibility, authority, and
delegation and forms for leader activity patterns in terms of time spent in
various activities. Group dimensions received a good deal of attention,
particularly by John Hemphill and later by Andrew Halpin.
With these scales an existing or ideal leader or organization could be
described. Comparisons could be made between the ideal and the
present leadership. There were also many criterion studies in which
indices ranged from a study of bombing accuracy of air force crews to
departmental rankings at Wayne State University.
The criterion always involved a troublesome time dimension. New
situational variables might make a leader or an organization that was
rated at the top in a study at the bottom six months later when we
returned on a follow-up visit.

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We developed a small group laboratory that was particularly helpful in

studying attempted leadership acts under a variety of experimental
conditions.
From time to time, and particularly in the McCarthy period, social
science research had some hard times. Foundation grants and
universities, as well as government agencies, were questioned. We
needed favorable visibility and were fortunate in getting Ralph Stogdill
to edit the reports of the leadership studies and to prepare a series of
printed monographs labeled Ohio Studies in Personnel. Ralph also wrote
a book "Individual Behavior and Group Achievement" later to be
published in paperback for college textbook use (Stogdill, 1959). I did a
less technical book on executive performance and leadership which was
published in the United States (Shartle, 1956) and in the United Kingdom
(Shartle, 1957), with a Spanish edition for Latin America (Shartle, 1960). I
emphasized the role of the executive as an experimenter using our
techniques.
I became interested in organizational value dimensions and branched
out with a new subgroup including Gary Brumback and John Rizzo
(Shartle, Brumbach, & Rizzo, 1964). I returned to the government for
two exciting years during the Kennedy Administration and ended up as a
research administrator at the University helping some new programs.
One was in political science and involved laboratory simulation of
intemation communications. Another, in sociology, concerned disaster
research. It included both laboratory simulation and field studies. I
tinkered with seminars, including models for the prediction of
administrative decisions.
Ralph continued his research and teaching at the University in the
leadership and organizational behavior areas, received generous grants,
directed various projects, and prepared his final major contribution.
Handbook of Leadership (Stogdill, 1974), the year he became an
emeritus professor in management science and psychology. Ralph did
not let the emeritus title bother him but kept right on with his leadership
research until a year ago, when we suddenly lost him. I assure you that he
is missed on our campus very, very much, not only as a productive
scholar but as an admired friend.
References
Morris, R. T., fit Seeman, M. The problem of leadership: An interdisciplinary approach.
American Journal of Sociology, 1950, 56, 149-155.
Shartle, C. L. Executive performance and leadership. Englewood Cliffs, NJ . PrenticeHall, 1956.
Shartle, C. L. Executive performance and leadership. London: Staples Press, 1957.
Shartle, C. L. THreccion y desempeno executive. Mexico City: Herrero Hermanos, 1960.
Shartle, C. L. The occupational research program: An example of research utilization. In
Case studies in bringing behavioral science into use (Vol. 1). Stanford: Institute for
Communication Research, Stanford University, 1961.
Shartle, C. L., Brumback, G. B., & Rizzo, J. R. An approach to dimensions of valtte.
Journal of Psychology, 1964, 57, 101-111.

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Shartle, C. L., & Dvorak, B. J. Occupational analysis activities in the War Manpower
Commission. Psychological Bulletin, 1943, 40, 701-713.
Stogdill, R. M. Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature.
Journal of Psychology, 1948, 25, 35-71.
Stogdill, R. M. Individual Behavior and group achievement. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Stogdill, R. M. Handbook of Leadership. New York: Free Press, 1974.
Stogdill, R. M., & Coons, A. E. (Eds.) Leader behavior: Its description and measurement. Columbus: Bureau Business Research Monograph No. 88, Ohio State University, 1957.