The Situational Leader
by Ray Jutkins, Rockingham Jutkins Marketing
How can the Situational Leadership program
be one of the most relevant concepts you could adopt today?....
in life as well as business. Here’s my report from when
I went through this course with an eye to how it can benefit you.
A few weeks ago I enjoyed the opportunity to be a part of a
week long class of professional HR managers and consultants taking
the seminar version of this course. I’d already read the
book by Dr. Paul Hersey, so I knew just enough to be dangerous.
The class helped me truly understand the model ... I learned
a ton.
Let’s back up. The program was developed by The Center
for Leadership Studies. And three others, too ... Situational
Parenting (that’s another interesting story), Situational
Selling and Situational Service. My first interest
is Leadership.
The Center was established in the mid 1960's by Hersey for
research purposes. Out of his findings fell the Situational Leadership
model. Today thousands of organizations have used Situational
Leadership training programs to help grow performance among leaders
and leaders-to-be. And to enhance work environment development.
This program can be implemented at your site by Quest Consulting & Training
Corporation; they are my client. Back to the program…
SitLead skills are about leadership, not management. They make
a clear definition between these two disciplines:
“Leadership is any attempt
to influence the behavior of another individual or group.”
The sub-definition is that effective leaders make things happen.
Effectiveness has to do with people’s attitude about performing
their work. Emotion and feeling play a major part.
Management is different. Here is the SitLead
definition:
“Management is working with
and through others to accomplish organizational goals.”
This has more to do with success, accomplishment, achievement
... how well the job gets done. It’s a much more rational
measurement.
Since the turn of the new century leadership has been on both
a high ... and a low. High with Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of
New York City, Louis “Lou” Gerstner. Jr., retired
Chief Executive Officer of IBM, and Jack Welsh of GE. And low
from Enron, WorldCom and the like. In both collections those
at the top made a huge difference. Some good ... some bad.
Yet, Situational Leadership has a far greater reach
than just the top dog. The concept applies equally to managers
of a convenience store chain, a manufacturing facility, an insurance
headquarters office.
Here is a mini-summary of each (S = style):
S1 = Telling: Means giving specific instructions
with close supervision. This is a high task low relationship
style. Being directive! Who, What, When, Where and How are shared.
Communication is mostly one-way. Leader makes the decisions.
With instructions as you go. KISS applies.
S2 = Selling: Equals explaining your decisions,
providing clarification ... and letting go. This is a high task
/ high relationship style. Who, What, When, Where, How and Why
(this is key) are your responsibility. Two-way dialogue is in,
yet the leader makes the decisions. You ask questions to clarify
understanding ... and reinforce small improvement.
S3 = Participating: Here you share ideas and
facilitate decision-making, then implementation. This is high
relationship and low task style. You encourage input, and then
listen. Two-way communication and involvement are key. You support
risk-taking and compliment the result. Participating means praising
and confidence building.
S4 = Delegating: Here you turn over decision-making
and implementation ... you fully delegate. This is low task /
low relationship style. You give the big picture, offer light
supervision, if required - or asked. And are always accessible.
Sure, you monitor the activity. Afterwards you reinforce the
results.
Why is it important to know the difference between styles of
leadership? Because people are different. Tasks are different.
The combination of what needs to happen and those charged with
making it happen means different strokes for different folks.
The situation is different.
As I’m writing this a member of my family is experiencing
her first 40-hour work week. She’s 18, a straight “A” university
sophomore, and needs a lot of S1. That’s
just the way it is. My guess is before she returns to school
in the fall she’ll experience a few S2 opportunities,
and probably S3, too. It’s highly unlikely S4 will
ever cross the mind of her supervisor. Hey, the kid’s 18
... and this is her first real job.
Learning Situational Leadership is easy. And hard.
It takes time and practice to learn how to do it right. Just
like anything else worthwhile. One of the teaching methods is
the use of cases and stories. That happens in the seminar training,
as well as the book. Some are “real,” some made-up.
They give examples of situations where leadership is needed.
The idea is to work through these to learn what approach is best
to accomplish the task.
This paragraph from the Center’s literature summarizes
the ideals rather well:
“Today's work place is characterized by
constantly changing dynamics. Now, more than ever, responsive
leadership is a critical factor in organizational success. To
be effective, leaders need to adapt their styles to fit a broad
range of individual and team situations.”
Sounds like a winning approach!
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