Management 101: Situational Leadership

Becoming an effective manager can be accomplished in three simple steps. Step one was discussed in a previous article (Management 101: How to Manage Employees). Step two is to understand situational leadership.

Why Situational Leadership
Trying to treat every employee the same is mistake.

Your goal as a manager should be to treat everyone "fairly" not according to some predetermined idea of "sameness." Situational leadership involves changing your leadership style to suit the person you are leading.

Why can't you treat everyone the same?
Obviously, everyone is not the same, so you can't treat everyone the same. This is a "simple" concept but actually requires much more effort on the manager's part (simple does not equal "easy"). As a manager you need consider the unique characteristics of each person you are managing. For example, a group of new recruits will be managed differently than a group of experienced employees.

Ken Blanchard (of "One Minute Manager" fame) and Paul Hersey's model of "situational leadership" provides a framework that allows a manager to analyze a situation and then choose the correct leadership style. The situational leadership "model" itself is not as important as understanding the concept.

Situational Leadership Concepts
By definition "leading" requires "followers." Followers have different skill levels and motivation that, when combined, determine "readiness level." It is always the responsibility of the leader to determine the followers "readiness level."

Follower readiness consists of two factors: competence and commitment. Competence consists of specific skills required to perform the task at hand (i.e. do they know "how" to do the job). Commitment refers to the followers desire to perform the task (i.e. do they "want" to do the job). Competence and commitment can be high, low, or variable. The follower's competence and commitment levels determine the best way to "manage" them.

As a manager you must first constantly evaluate how much your people know, and how motivated they are to do the job.