Situational leadership
After getting past the usual pleasantries, it was probably ten more minutes before my telephone caller came up for air and took a break. Liz was highly exercised by an infuriating incident that happened that day. She is a very capable project manager with an IT company and her boss, Mike had just given her a new project to complete. With no respect for Liz’ experience, capabilities or commitment, Mike felt it was appropriate to micromanage the situation. Not only did he brief her on the project, but he also ‘helped’ her to construct a detailed plan. That caused enormous frustration and feelings of disrespect in Liz. What a pity.
By coincidence, in the same week I had coffee with Fred, an old friend that works in a company that has recently been acquired. George, the new CEO, is still getting to grips with the acquisition. With a hands-off style, he expects senior people to know what to do and to just get on with it. However, as the operations manager, Fred is now challenged with a new product stream and supply chain. He is struggling to get to grips with it and is deeply concerned about failing. What a pity.
Clearly, both leaders, Mike and George have got it wrong. But they’re not alone, as bosses the world over so often get it wrong. Leaders tend to have a primary or default style of management and fail to recognise that not all members of their teams are at the same stage of competence, confidence or development. This is probably not surprising given that many leadership theories promote particular leadership traits. Thankfully, the world has moved on from Taylorism of the early 1900s, that encouraged a leadership based on the organisation’s needs primarily.
Later theorists such as Kenneth Blanchard opened our eyes to the concept of ‘situational leadership’. In this model, Blanchard encourages leaders to adapt their leadership style based on the learner’s needs and development levels of competence and commitment. Liz, in my first example, needed to be left alone once briefed. Fred, on the other hand, needed more guidance on what is expected and how to deliver on those expectations in a new operation.
HOW TO ADAPT YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE TO ANY SITUATION
The initial thing here is for leaders to embrace the concept of ‘one-size does not fit all’. Both Mike and George will get it right some of the time, for sure. But the risk of getting it wrong is just too great.
As leaders, we have to treat each and every task we set for our people as being different. Fred is a very competent operations manager. However, he is now presented with some new complexity and that needs to be learned. But, it doesn’t mean that every other aspect of his job needs to be explained.
Hence, without over-complicating it, I’d like to encourage you as a leader to always consider the situation first.
Goals. Be very clear on the goals that you want your team member to deliver. Remember SMART goals? Here is a new version: S – Specific, measurable and timebound; M – Motivating; A – Achievable; R - Relevant; and T–Trackable. Take time to align both parties on what is expected. Diagnosis. Stand back, slow down a little and consider the learner’s stage of development. Is s/he competent and committed to this task? There are four possible scenarios; D-1: low competence/high commitment; D-2: low competence/low commitment; D-3: high competence/variable commitment; and D-4: high competence/high commitment. Matching. As a consequence of determining the learner’s level of development, we should therefore adapt our leadership style appropriately. A ‘tellingdirective’ style is appropriate for D-1 level of development. A ‘coaching’ style is right for a D-2. A ‘listening-supportive’ is appropriate for D-3 and a ‘delegating’ style works well for D-4. In other words, four different styles to match four different situations.
THE LAST WORD
You’ve heard it said that employees don’t leave organisations, they leave their bosses. I’ve seen this truth, having witnessed it first-hand in the countless employee engagement surveys we have administered over the years.
We’re living in the strangest of times and the ‘great resignation’ is real. Never before as much as now, do leaders have to selfreflect on their own leadership style.
Ask yourself: What’s your primary or default style? How effective is your ability to adapt your style to the situation and the individual that you’re leading?