Situational Leadership

Examples of Situational Leadership in the following topics:

• Leadership and Followers: Hersey and Blanchard

  • Hersey and Blanchard's model defines effective leadership based on leadership style and maturity of follower(s).
  • Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard introduced their theory of situational leadership in the 1969 book Management of Organizational Behavior.
  • Situational leadership states that there is no single, ideal approach to leadership because different types of leadership are required in different contexts.
  • The Hersey and Blanchard model explains effective leadership in terms of two variables: leadership style and the maturity of the follower(s).
  • Because maturity level varies based on the group and the task (for example, professional football players are an M4 group on the football field, but an M1 group if asked to play baseball), the leadership style must adapt based on the situation.

• Leadership Styles

  • Leaders may adopt several styles according to what is most appropriate in a given situation.
  • Engaging styles of leadership involve reaching out to employees and understanding their concerns and working situations.
  • This leadership style can help retain employees for the long term.
  • Different situations call for particular leadership styles.
  • Each style of leadership can be effective if matched with the needs of the situation and used by a skilled leader who can adopt a deft approach.

• Leadership and Situational Context: Fiedler

  • Fred Fiedler's model of leadership states that different types of leaders are required for different situations.
  • This situational contingency understanding of leaderships suggests, for instance, that a leader in a strict, task-oriented workplace would have different qualities than a leader in a more open, idea-driven workplace.
  • Fiedler subsequently enhanced his original model to increase the number of leadership traits it analyzed.
  • The Fiedler situational contingency model measures leadership traits with a test that provides a leadership score corresponding to the workplace where the leader would be most suited.
  • The situation analysis has three components:

• Four Theories of Leadership

  • Theories of effective leadership include the trait, contingency, behavioral, and full-range theories.
  • These findings also show that individuals emerge as leaders across a variety of situations and tasks.
  • Stogdill and Mann found that while some traits were common across a number of studies, the overall evidence suggested that persons who are leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in other situations.
  • As such, the theory predicts that effective leaders are those whose personal traits match the needs of the situation in which they find themselves.
  • Fiedler's contingency model of leadership focuses on the interaction of leadership style and the situation (later called situational control).

• The Contingency Viewpoint

  • The contingency viewpoint of management proposes that there is no standard for management; instead, management depends on the situation.
  • Fred Fiedler takes this a step further to identify three leadership styles and empirical situation measurements to assess the degree of favorability a given contingency offers:
  • The degree of task structure, which is the second most important input into the favorableness of the situation.
  • In other words, leadership needs to ensure that it is able to assess a situation, determine the task structure, and obtain a position of formal authority in order to be able to adequately manage a contingency situation.
  • A manager could have a written protocol for this situation in which there is only one option: give the employee notice.

• Fulfilling the Leading Function

  • Management is often associated with the former and leadership with the latter.
  • In contrast to individual leadership, some organizations have adopted group leadership.
  • In this situation, more than one person provides direction to the group as a whole.
  • In some situations, the team members best able to handle any given phase of the project become the temporary leaders.
  • Different situations call for different leadership styles.

• Leadership and Task/Follower Characteristics: House

  • Because individual motivations and goals differ, leaders must modify their approach to fit the situation.
  • House defined four different leadership styles and noted that good leaders switch fluidly between them as the situation demands.
  • House's leadership styles include:
  • This behavior is especially needed in situations in which tasks or relationships are psychologically or physically distressing.
  • Using the Path-Goal model as a framework, their Outstanding Leadership Theory (OLT) expanded the list of leadership behaviors required to channel follower's motivations and goals more effectively toward the leader's vision:

• A Blended Approach to Leadership

  • The full-range leadership theory blends the features of transactional and transformational leadership into one comprehensive approach.
  • The full-range theory of leadership seeks to blend the best aspects of transactional and transformational leadership into one comprehensive approach.
  • Transactional leadership focuses on exchanges between leaders and followers.
  • Depending on the objectives and the situation, a leader may move from using one approach to the other as needed.
  • Assess the intrinsic value of blending transactional leadership behaviors with transformational leadership behaviors

• Leadership and Decision Making: The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model

  • The Vroom-Yetton-Jago model is a leadership theory of how to make group decisions.
  • The model uses a decision-tree technique to diagnose aspects of the situation methodically.
  • By answering the questions honestly, the decision tree provides the leader with the preferred decision style for the given situation.
  • The Vroom-Yetton-Jago model utilizes decision trees to determine the best leadership style for a given situation.
  • Apply the Vroom-Jago decision-tree model to guide leaders in a decision-making situation

• Leadership Traits

  • Researchers now attest that while trait theory may still apply, individuals can and do emerge as leaders across a variety of situations and tasks.
  • These models rests on two basic premises about leadership traits.
  • First, leadership emerges from the combined influence of multiple traits, as opposed to coming from various independent traits.
  • The second premise suggests that leadership traits differ in their proximal (direct) influence on leadership.
  • Summarize the key characteristics and traits that are predictive of strong leadership capacity