Situational Leadership

Matching Styles and Development

From the SLII model representation we can see how leadership styles match with the development of the followers. Basically it’s a one to one relationship, a S1 style matches a D1 development level, a S2 style matches a D2 development level and so on.

With the last paragraph in mind, we can say that this kind of leadership needs 2 actions to work its way.

• Identify the Development Level of Subordinates: The leader has to be clear about the competences and motivation level of the subordinates for a particular task or job. The leader must be able to classify if the subordinate as a D1, D2,D3 or D4 type of person.
• Set his/her style to the appropiate development level of the subordinate. It turns out that this is the central point of the situational leadership approach, leaders have to be flexible enough to adapt their style to the situation. We have to take into account that the development level of subordinates can change in a short period of time, the same then for the leadership style.

Ups and Downs of Situational Leadership

The Up Side

• It’s a well known approach,organizations find it well suited to train future leaders.
• It’s easy to understand and easily applicable in variable settings.
• It’s prescriptive. It tells you what or what not to do in different situations. If an employee is low on motivation you simply can not be highly directive, instead you should be highly supportive.
• Emphasizes the leader’s flexibility. The key concept behind situational leadership is the leader’s flexibility, an effective leader should be flexible enough to adapt himself or herself to the different situations in which is involved.

The Down Side

• Ambiguos conceptualization of Development Level.It’s not clear in the model how commitment and competence are mixed to set a level in the “development scale”. Even further, it’s not even clear how commitment is conceptualized.
• The model doesn’t take into account demographic variables. It has been found that demographic variables (e.g. gender, age, experience, and education) are relevant to the preferred style to be used. For instance, older employees desire more structure (task oriented) behavior in their leaders.
• A not too broad theory. The theory is not broad enough to explain the relationship of the leader with the group. How does a leader matches his style to a group? He matches the mean development of the group? This question has no response with these model.

Summary to the Situational Leadership Approach

Being developed in the late 1960′s by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, this model has stood the past of time, and for the most part of it, it has served as the reference for many organizational leadership courses.

From the leader’s point of view the model conceptualizes the leadership style as four different possible styles, S1, S2, S3 and S4. From the follower’s point of view, the conceptualization takes into account the development level (i.e. a relationship between competence and motivation).

Its great strength is in the leader’s flexibility factor. It stresses out that the leader has to match his or her leadership style to the followers development level.

Although is criticized by the ambigous conceptualization of the development level of subordinates, and how competence is considered inside of that level, the model is widely used.

Further Investigation and References

Northouse, P.G. (2004) “Leadership Theory and Practice” (3rd Ed)
Sage Publications

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