What is Leadership? Why are there so many types of Leadership? Which one is the right one? These are all important questions people who are trying to lead ask. John Maxwell a well-known author on leadership stated simply “Leadership is influence”. There are numerous types of leadership styles, they all have their strong points about them, and depending who you are the circumstances can dictate which type of person with what type of leadership style will be successful. In this paper I will discuss one of the many types of leadership style which is situational leadership. I will discuss how situation leadership can be effective on the culture of an organization. Also I briefly describe the three situational leadership theories and go over some strengths and weaknesses.
Leadership is a key in any aspect of a business. The right leaders in the right place can move a company in the right direction and inspire people to achieve goals that they never thought they could. One type of leader is a situational leader. This leadership style is effective in an organization because the leader is willing to adapt or adjust their style to the need of the employees based on their behavioral and skill level. Providing support for employees based on their needs can potentially create a motivating environment (Kelchnar, 2014). Employees feel that the leader cares about them, therefore they care about their leader and are willing to go that extra mile to ensure that the task get accomplished
Situational and Authentic leadership are increasingly important skills to possess in today’s era of technological changes and availability and flow of information we have in this day and age. Leaders today must be able to adjust their leadership styles to the whatever situation arises as well as to the people who they are leading. Leaders are not limited to just use one style in one situation, being able to adapt appropriate styles to different situations will influence and help a leader succeed. A leader’s judgement, intelligence, cultural awareness, and self-control plays major roles in helping them choose the proper style and appropriate technique for the task at hand (Lau & Cronin, 1998).
Situational leadership focuses on adapting your leadership style or approach based on the situation and the amount of direction and support that is needed by followers. As Jesus trained and equipped his disciples from simple fishermen to fishers of men, who carried on his ministry after he ascended to heaven, he integrated different styles and theories of leadership that best served and supported his followers (Blanchard & Hodges, 2003). Depending on the level of competency and commitment of their people, leaders will adjust their style to provide the necessary support and direction. The core competencies of situational leaders are the ability to identify the performance, competence and commitment of others, and to be flexible (Paterson, 2013). From being highly directive, telling their people exactly what to do and how, to delegating, clearly stating the objective and allowing them to complete the task with little direction and support, situational leaders adapt their approach to the needs of their people and the particular situation.
According to Institute of Medicine (2011) capabilities of situational leaders include skill presentation recognition, flexibility including competence and pledge of others. Situational leaders relate with their subordinates by encouraging and directing them. Situational leadership is an association between the subordinates’ development level and leaders ' behaviour to offer encouragement and direction. (Carter et al, 2005; Northouse, 2013) The
Situational leadership has very little in common with the other models mentioned herein. This model revolves around the leader changing leadership behaviors to meet the needs in relationship to the follower (Kouzes, 2003, p. 111). The difference between situational leadership and charismatic, servant, and transformational leadership is the lack of an organizational vision and the empowerment of the followers. Situational leadership uses followers based on their readiness level that relate to their ability and willingness to complete the task (Wren, 1995, p. 208). This aspect coupled with the leader’s task and relationship behavior is used in relation to the
Situational leadership is useful and relevant in developing an effective leadership culture because it allows the leader to become flexible in pursuing different styles of leading employees towards achieving success. Leaders are free to adapt and make changes to the leadership style based on the situation at any given point in time. Situational
There is much that is written about leadership; like books on leadership styles, techniques and also biographies of leaders that have inspired people to action. While this is true, there is the everyday leadership and a slightly different outlook to leadership as well. Here are a few of them.
Situational Leadership is simple in concept when introduced by Hersey and Blanchard in 1969, through to Blanchard’s recent advanced modeling circa 2013, as part of Situational Leadership II. In its simplicity, many workers, managers, and leaders can find some basis of common understanding in leadership having both a directive (task) and supportive (people) framework (Northouse, 2015). To have an emotional and foundational connection early with an audience on such a challenging subject as leadership means early investment in the concept and trust that even short duration training on Situational Leadership will yield results. This is one of the reasons that human resource experts as well as many successful organizations have embraced Situational
It is suggested that leadership is a kind of ability or activity which a leader could straight affect and guide their followers to achieve certain objectives in the specific situation (John Calvin Maxwell,2011). The shifting internal elements and increasing external competitions have posed growing demanding to managers’ leadership approaches. However, managers are provided with various personalities or perspectives, accordingly, managers are not accomplishing their aims by using similar styles. The leadership style, according to Newstrom and Davis (1993), is the ways and approaches of offering targets, fulfilling plans as well as inspiring subordinates. Based on the types of individuals the leader works with and various personality traits hold by the leader, the leadership style differs. There are several leadership styles suggested by different researchers such as autocratic, democratic, laissez-fair, transactional and transformational. Some of leadership styles are no longer suit for current marketplaces especially for those organizations which want to attract talent person from all over the world and exploit global markets. Therefore, this essay aims to focus on transactional and transformational styles, then take Baidu and Google as examples to make a comparison and contrast between these two styles as well as illustrate which one may generate better outcomes than another.
What is leadership? Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines leadership as “the power or ability to lead other people”. Although this is simply put, it is also correct. But leadership is much more than the ability to lead. The ability is one piece of the puzzle. Other pieces to consider in leadership are education, attributes, and style, just to name a few. In this assignment, I will focus on leadership style. Specifically, I will discuss my style according to the assessment developed by The University of Kent in the UK.
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) asserts that a leader’s effectiveness is dependent upon the readiness, or ability and willingness, of the leader’s followers to complete a task. This leadership style is an amalgamation of task-oriented and relationship-oriented characteristics that are employed depending upon the situation and the followers involved. According to the SLT, as followers increase in readiness the leader’s style is to adapt accordingly (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009).
Situational leadership does not adopt the “one size fits all” approach to leadership; instead it depends on the situation and states that varying levels of leadership and management are necessary (Blanchard, 1996). There are three different things we must identify when using this leadership style; we must identify the most important task or priority, consider the readiness level of followers by analyzing their willingness and ability, and finally decide the matching leadership style. The leadership styles are as follows, Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating (Blanchard, 1996).
There are many different styles of leadership and ways to be a good leader depending on who the leader is and what they are leading. After interviewing Kelly Von Lehmden, a family-friend, I discovered that being a good leader is about much more than having good relationships with people and being encouraging, but also putting others first, having a strong team to help you get the job done, giving credit where credit is due and having patience as you see the vision unfold.
Leadership is a concept most people feel informed enough to discuss, but that few are truly educated sufficiently to comment on. Therefore, it is instructive to consider the leadership styles of people with very different approaches both to better understand the diversity underlying leadership, as well as to appreciate the effective and less effective strategies that underlie different leadership outcomes. For that reason, this essay will consider the styles of two leaders who are less visible in this highly contentious presidential election season: Jill Stein (the Green Party nominee) and Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. The leadership styles of both are very different, yet they are aligned in the sense that both are outsider candidates struggling to gain momentum from a disaffected electorate. This essay begins with a theoretical discussion of leadership more generally and then turns to the two leaders as case studies, comparing and contrasting them and drawing conclusions about how they both work within the same public sphere and for putatively similar ends (i.e., gaining votes).
Over the years, scholars and management theorists have cultivated several leadership styles that they have encouraged people to apply and try to implement. However, most of these theories have shown various short comings. Typically, none of these styles has proven to work best in diverse situations. In the late 1960’s, the Situational Leadership Model was developed. In this paper, I will discuss the details about the situational leadership model. In detail, the paper begins with a defined introduction of what the situational leadership model is about and an interpretation of its origination. An outline of the model will follow after which a discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of this model will shortly follow.
Situational leadership is a leadership style that has been developed and studied by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey. Situational leadership refers to when the leader or manager of an organization must adjust his style to fit the development level of the followers he is trying to influence. With situational leadership, it is up to the leader to change his style, not the follower to adapt to the leader’s style. In situational leadership, the style may change continually to meet the needs of others in the organization based on the situation.