Situational Leadership Model Analysis

The situational approach stresses that leadership is composed of both a directive and a supportive dimension, and that each has to be applied appropriately in a given situation (Northouse, 2016). I recently retired from the Army after doing 20 years of active federal service. I was a sergeant after three years, made staff sergeant after six, and at my 11 year mark I decided to put in a warrant officer packet, in which I got accepted to become Warrant Officer 1. The young men and women that I had the privilege of leading all came from different walks of life, were different age, and had different levels of experience. This is why I identify more with the situational approach.

All situations are different and a leadership style applied in one situation will not always work in another. A leader must use judgement to decide the most appropriate style needed for each situation. The ‘Situational Approach’ to leadership identifies four leadership styles which are;

By referring to Hersey’s model of situational leadership model – adapted by JE Chamberlain from Mullins (2007:302) and Hersey et al (2000) followed on from a number of previous writes to develop the model of situational leadership.

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard first introduced the situational leadership model in the 1970s. 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

circumstances and or the individuals you are dealing with. The process flows from a directive

As the Situational Leadership Model suggests, different leadership strategies are appropriate for different situations and depending on those who are being led. To be a successful leader, Wooden understood how his players handle instruction, criticism, and praise; as well as how the team learns best, what level of independence will harbor the most success, and the dynamics of the team with regard to chemistry, diversity, etc. As a famous situational leader, the ability to adapt his coaching style to changing players and circumstances attributed to much of his success. The result of his situational analysis became the foundation in planning the course of action. He believed that it was necessary to change plans to fit the unexpected “call”

The first academic journal that I viewed was Leadership Styles of Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams by Melissa DuBois, John Hanlon, Jodi Koch, Betty Nyatuga, and Nathan Kerr. A summary of the article, the authors analyze the important qualities of leadership and determine their positive impact, which can benefit project managers in any industry and, therefore, increase project success. They identified two leadership styles: Situational leadership and Transactional leadership. A few of these leadership traits include: team building, setting clear relations and roles between project members, openness, self-confidence, organization, and clearly defining project successes, revaluating when necessary. The traits of organization, managerial competence, emotional competence, openness to experiences, communication, inspiration, investigative, enterprising and entrepreneurialism, demonstrated the highest correlation with project success. These leadership styles and traits were examined and analyzed to determine the extent they contribute to the construction, execution, and closure of the project. The methods for locating and identifying resources, for this project, involved accessing electronic databases provided by the libraries at Drexel University. Each team member conducted a literature

This situational leadership theory is a great assessment to evaluate how people respond to working and being led in groups. The four situational leadership theory are telling, selling, participating, and delegating (Northouse, 2013).

The four leadership styles within the situational leadership model are: Directing style: Leaders at this stage increases the motivation in each team member. Whenever there comes a point when a team member thinks that they can’t get a job done the leader come through and direct them in the right direction. They are able to point the team member on the right path to accomplish their task.

Situational leadership may be the case when there are several different situations to handle under one position. There might not be specific tasks given since the roles could be dispersed to every other member. A leader in situations could be dealt with emotions, academics, work, and support with another student. At orientation, when leaders meet up with students, just to chat and to see how they are doing would be considered situational leadership because you are having a bonding relationship. Also, setting up for orientation team takes a lot, and more than one person. This type of leadership may benefit me because I am good at multitasking and communication skills. When there is a task that I need help with, I would ask for guidance how to

The four styles within the situational leadership mode are directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating. Once a leader has put together the most qualified team for the goals, directing comes in to learn how each member will be the most productive in the task assigned. A leader has to make sure that a task is assigned to the person who will enjoy achieving the task. If not, this could lead to low motivation and low morale, with a chance of failing the task at hand (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). Being a leader means having knowledge in all aspects of the tasks that needs to be done to reach the end goal successful. The leader has to coach each individual to make sure each task is being done correctly. The leader needs to be involved in all

Leadership is a vast topic with a variety of profound explanations and theories, but overall, leadership gives people a standard to aspire for. Leaders have a vision, and thrive on inspiring those around them to participate along the road to achieving their vision. Leaders can promote success by motivation, empathy, and positive direction. Though there is no clear winner when it comes to theories of defining leadership, some approaches have greater appeal than others. My goal for the future is to utilize several approaches in an effort to consistently improve my leadership performance. The situational leadership model will be helpful for me to improve my training skills, and accommodate unexpected situations with ease. Situational leadership is where I want to go in the future, but it is not where I am yet. In the past, I have attempted to provide strong leadership by learning from my mistakes and changing my approach based on my experiences. This is why I believe that currently, I identify most with the skills approach to leadership.

The situational leadership model was developed by two authors, Ken Blanchard, and Paul Hersey in the year 1969. These authors based this model on the concept that leadership should adapt to different management practices and approaches to fit different situations and surpass any diversity of their encounters (Lussier & Achua, 2010). In particular, this model provides guidance on how to analyze a situation, choose effaceable strategies and adopt the most appropriate leadership style. Apparently, the two developers of the model researched and found that, given some case, leadership may fail to accomplish some goals due to adopting single

The most popular and extensively researched situational theory of leadership was first proposed by Fred Piedler during the 1960s. Fiedler's model claims that group performance depends on the interaction of the leader style and the favorableness of the situation. Fiedlers major contributions consist of(l) iden-tifying the leadership orientation of the leader and developing a way to measure it, and (2) identifying three situational factors influencing leadership and developing a method of measuring them

It has been a main factor in development and training programs (Hersey et al., 2001). Situational leadership theory is based on how people respond to working and being led in groups.