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Situational Leadership Theory

arkym1109
Feb 27, 2016
2 min read

Situational Leadership Theory (a.k.a. Lide Cycle Theory of Leadership)

Developed by Paul Hercey and Ken Blachard in 1969
Defferent Situations demand different kinds of leadership.
Task behaviors = Directive
Relation behabior = Supportive

It refers to when a leader or manager of an organization must adjust his style to fit the development level of the followes he is tryin to influence. With situational leadership, it is upto the leader to change his style, not the follower to adapt to the leader's 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.

Telling and Directing: Effective for subordinates who lack the competence but committed to achieving his or her roles.

Selling and Coarching: More suited for less experienced subordinates who still need guidance and supervision by their supervisors. This leadership style also helps in developing subordinates who may have the experience yet still lacking self-esteem in the performance of their work.

Participating and Supporting: Best used when dealing with experienced subordinates who, for one reason or another, lack self-esteem and motivation.

Delegating: Most suited to experienced subordinates who have the competence to set their own processes required in accomplishing certain goals.

Based on this theory, if a follower has lower task maturity and high psychological maturity (D1 on the chart above), directing style leadership which telling him or her what and how to do, for example. It surely helps those followers like new employees when it come to getting work done because the leader literally gives you clear instructions of things the employees need to do and how they should perform them in order to fulfill the requirements. On the other hand, if a follower has high task and psychological maturity, the theory says that a leader should have delegating style which is low directive and low supportive. Those people who has a lot of experience and high commitment most likely do not need much supervision. If I see each style by itself it seems it makes sense but as a whole theory, there are some parts that are hard to agree. First of all, in a real life, leading people is not that simple. There are more things to consider besides levels of competency and commitment such as motivation. According to the theory, development level of the an individual will go from low competence and high commitment to low to some competence and low commitment as a first step. In this case, the theory assume directing leadership style helps to develop one's competence by telling the one what and how to do. The one's competence of one thing can be developed as he repeats the same thing over and over; however, they will not be able to deal with unusual situation. If the tasks required change, their competence will go down to low and they need directing leadership forever instead of moving development level to the right.