Situational Leadership

The relationship, which exists between a manager and team member, may be
seen as a two way contract. If it is to work successfully for both parties then a
dialogue must exist. Without dialogue the working out of this contract
becomes based on guesswork and assumption.
The Situational Leadership model expresses this contract as a number of
management styles, provided as a response to different levels of commitment
and confidence of the team member in relation to a particular task.
There are three key components:
1. Diagnosing the development level of an individual or a team.
2. Adapting your personal leadership style to meet the needs of the team.
3. Reaching the agreement with the individual or team to agree the style
needed.
Diagnosing the development level of an individual or team
Situational leadership recognises that people can, and want to, develop and
that the leader has a key role in developing people. To help people develop it
requires the leader to understand where that person is right now - their
development level.
Diagnosis
Development level is task or goal specific and
is a combination of:Knowledge
Competence
Skills (transferable)
Motivation
Commitment
Confidence

Four development levels

The development level of the individual or team can be diagnosed by
analysing the his/her, or the team's, level of competence and commitment.
Diagnosis is task or goal specific, for example, a person may very competent
and committed in the technical parts of their job but might lack skills in a new
task such as budgeting.
There are four development levels (D1 - D4).
competence and commitment:
D1
D2
D3
D4

Each is a combination of

Low competence
High commitment

Enthusiastic beginner

Some competence
Low commitment

Disillusioned learner

Increasing competence
Variable commitment

Capable but cautious

High competence
High commitment

Self reliant achiever

Adapting your personal leadership style to meet the needs of the team
The leaders role is to build both competence and commitment. Building
competence develops knowledge and skills and requires the leader to give
direction. Building commitment develops motivation and confidence and
requires the leader to give support.
As a leader this requires you to demonstrate flexibility. On any given goal or
task, for one individual, you may need to give a variety of both support and
direction.

Four leadership styles

Style (1) Directing
The leader provides specific instructions and closely supervises task
accomplishment. The leader takes decisions.
Style (2) Coaching
The leader continues to direct and closely supervise task accomplishment.
He/she also takes and explains decisions, asks for suggestions and supports
progress.
Style (3) Supporting
The leader facilitates and supports efforts towards task accomplishments.
Responsibility for decision-making is shared.
Style (4) Delegating
Leader hands over responsibility for decision making and problem solving and
provides minimal support as required.
What do we mean by direction and support?
Providing direction
In providing direction the leader tells the person what to do and when and how
to do it. He/she clarifies the roles of the leader and the team member/s and
closely supervises performance. Directive leadership is more push than pull.
It includes:

Training and instructing - ensuring people know how to do a specific

task.

Organising - setting goals and objectives, planning and providing

resources.

Structuring - establishing priorities and setting timelines.

Supervising - observing and reviewing and progress and giving feedback.

Providing support
In providing support the leader encourages the person to become more selfreliant by listening and encouraging. Supportive leadership is more pull than
push. It includes:

Asking questions - to involve the person in decision making and problem

solving.
Explaining - why a certain course of action has been taken
Listening - to people's ideas and problems.
Encouraging - encouraging, re-assuring and giving feedback.

The four styles of leadership may be seen as a product of combining these

two behaviours, 'direction' and 'support'. The vertical axis may be seen as
management support, whilst the horizontal axis can be seen as directive
behaviour on behalf of the manager, high to begin with but diminishing as
development increases.

High
Coaching

Support

Supporting

Delegating

Directing

Low
Low

Direction

High

The ideal manager is one who can modify his or her behaviour across the four
principal leadership styles to fit the job-related development of his or her staff
member. However, we all have a preferred style of managing and may find it
difficult to behave in a role which is alien to our own values, beliefs and

attitudes. If a style is used inappropriately it can lead to frustration for the

person on the receiving end. A directing style used at the wrong time can feel
like 'dictatorship', a coaching style used at the wrong time can feel like 'backseat driving', supporting can feel like 'suffocation' and delegating can feel like
'abdication'. Flexibility between the styles is important, but knowing which
style is right on which occasion is just as vital.
Leadership is something you do with people not to people. Diagnosing the
right style for the right situation is not easy but, if your diagnosis of
competence or commitment is wrong you risk providing the wrong leadership
style and creating frustration and disharmony. Experience plays a great part
but all too often a single 'comfortable' style is used to address all situations or,
if flexibility is practised, then the choice of response is made by guesswork. A
useful guide to the right style is to ask 'which of the following outcomes is
appropriate at this point in time?'
"I DECIDE"
use Directing Style
"WE TALK - I DECIDE"
use Coaching Style
"WE TALK - WE DECIDE"
use Supporting Style
"YOU DECIDE - I ENDORSE"
use Delegating Style

Ultimately, the right style is determined by the needs of the person being
managed - their level of confidence and commitment to the task in-hand. This
is where dialogue is so necessary. If the Leadership Styles concept can be
used as a language for both parties in the 'contract' to discuss and agree on
an appropriate style then the contract can be made to work more effectively
and to the greater satisfaction of both parties.
The experience of teaching my daughter to drive, recently provided a clear
example of the four stages of Situational Leadership and the use of dialogue
in moving me as 'manager' along the curve.
Directing Stage Sitting in a stationary car, I described how the car worked the purpose of the clutch and how to engage and disengage when changing
gear. At the end of this session Gemma had an intellectual appreciation of

what we were about to do, but no amount of talking would have turned her
into a competent driver. She had to try it for herself.
Coaching Stage This is the 'white knuckle' stage! At this stage it will always
be 'quicker to do it myself' - and not just quicker, I would actually do a much
better job if I did it myself - but I must resist. Gemma must learn by doing it
on her own. I am there, hand hovering next to the hand brake, but she is
driving. Before we set out on this stage, Gemma's confidence had been very
high, 'this looks straight forward - I think I'm going to get the hang of this
quickly' - tremendous enthusiasm. By the end of this stage, however, her
confidence has collapsed as she comes face to face with the reality of the
task. In the directing stage she had 'high confidence' and 'low ability' - I
needed to respond with 'high direction' and 'moderate support'. During the
coaching stage I needed to respond with continued 'high direction' but also
now with 'high support' to meet her dwindling self confidence.
Supporting Stage As Gemma became more and more used to the task of
driving her ability increased in leaps and bounds. I become confident in her
ability but she did not share this confidence. At this stage she had moderately
high ability but variable self confidence. I needed to respond with continued
'high support' but to ease off on 'directive behaviour'. I was told this in no
uncertain terms when approaching a difficult junction I said "you can go after
the red car". Gemma's response was, "don't tell me when to go, I'll make my
own assessment and just ask you to confirm the decision". I was being
moved firmly from the Coaching box into Supporting (We Talk - We Decide)!
Delegating Stage Finally we arrived at the time of the test - empowerment!
Gemma now had both ability and self confidence, but this was no time for
'abdication', there still have to be controls. After all, I am still ultimately
responsible for her. "Call us when you get there", "Be back by 10pm", were
indications of the low level 'direction' and 'support' being applied.
One month later, Gemma needed to do some motorway driving and came to
me asking if I would sit with her on her first journey, since she had not driven
on anything other than dual carriageway until this point in time. I was being
asked to travel down the Situational Leadership curve, out of 'delegating' and
back into 'supporting' - a style appropriate to the new 'task' being undertaken.

Organisational Influence
Managers are influenced in the way in which they behave as leaders not only
by the maturity of their subordinates and the job situation, but also by the
constraints imposed upon them by, and the very nature of the organisation its dominant culture and climate. In an organisation in which top management
is very concerned with short-term results, managers are pressured to behave
in a task-orientated, controlling and directing style - they either perform or are
fired. In the short term they may achieve better results, but continuous
application of this behaviour may result in worker alienation, leading to
absenteeism, high labour turnover, deteriorating employee relations, strikes,
etc. In an organisation characterised by participation and democratic forms of
management, continuous high controlling and directing leadership behaviour
is again likely to be counter productive. The culture of the organisation limits
the range of management styles available to the manager. If the culture of
the organisation demands continuous leadership behaviour which is counter
to the manager's own preferred style, there is little person-environment fit, and
stress may well be caused.
Linking Team Development with Situational Leadership
The focus during this section has been more on the behaviour of the team
leader than on the team itself. It is now time to link the two subjects of team
development and leadership using the four stages of team development and
Blanchard's model of Situational Leadership.
*
EFFECTIVE
TEAM LEADERS
ADJUST THEIR STYLE
TO PROVIDE
WHAT THE GROUP
CAN'T PROVIDE
FOR ITSELF
*
In Stage One, the Orientation Stage, group members bring enthusiasm and
commitment to meetings, but little knowledge, so they need direction. In
Stage Two, the Dissatisfaction Stage, group members are not high on either
competence or commitment. They are struggling with the task as well as how

to work together so they need both direction and support (coaching). In Stage
Three, the Resolution Stage, group members have the skills to perform well
but still need to build their confidence or morale so they need support and
encouragement (supporting). And finally, when a group reaches Stage Four,
the Production Stage, they have high skills and morale so the leader can
stand aside or join in and let them work with minimal interference (delegating).

High
Coaching

Delegating

Directing

Support

Supporting

Low
Low
Stage
4

Direction
Stage
3

Stage
2

High
Stage
1

Do Groups Regress?
Once groups are in the Production Stage, do they ever regress? The simple
answer is 'yes'. When groups gain, lose or change members, when the task
changes or if a major event occurs which disrupts group functioning, the
group will move back to Stage 3 and even into Stage 2.
When it happens the leader needs to adjust his or her style accordingly.
When dealing with a high-performing team, which involves delegating, the
leader cannot go from Delegating (Style 4), back to Directing (Style 1). That
would be the ultimate derailment. Instead the manager must back track to
Supporting (Style 3) and try to find out what's going wrong. Having done this
he will be able to determine whether it is necessary to move back to Coaching
(Style 2) and either redirect or reprimand to get the group back to proper
functioning.

It is important, however, to keep on the 'railroad tracks' and to move back one
leadership style at a time until you can get the group to deal with the problem.
Be careful not to get derailed by jumping the track and skipping a style
forward to reinforce growth in group development or backward to handle a
regression.
Self Managing Teams
The final stage of the team development cycle, Performance, is characterised
by the ability of the team to 'self manage' and the greatest need of the team at
that stage is the freedom to do so. With this as a goal, one may consider the
role of team leader to be a temporary support function - providing the
structure which enables the team to operate effectively until such time as it
can support itself.
Co-ordination or structure is still necessary at Stage Four, although the
provision of this in a team is a role which may be passed around, indeed one
might argue that it should be passed around if it is to avoid attracting the
unnecessary and unhelpful attributes of 'status'.
The status of 'team leader' is a product of our own unconsciousness,
reinforced by the corporate structures of the past. Abolishing the role of team
leader (a person) and replacing that role with a co-ordinator or facilitator (a
function) will not automatically prevent our inherited mental models about topdown management and leadership from influencing behaviour. The key issue
for self managed teams, therefore, is to recognise the need for co-ordination
and to see this as a necessary, all-be-it temporary, service function which
should not be confused with the role of team leadership as it is traditionally
understood. Unless this point is fully appreciated then a self managing team
may run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water, i.e. providing no
internal structure in case it is perceived as leadership.