Professional Documents
Culture Documents
There are four major follower maturity levels that determine the necessity for a
leadership style (Hersey & Blanchard, 1996).
As a Military Leader
According to Lau (1998), the concept of situational leadership became of
particular importance in the military following the formation of the continental
army. It is also based on the recent view that control, teamwork, discipline, and
organization are deficient within the forces (GEN Dennis, 1999). In this regard,
military psychology has been developing situational leadership frameworks for
the last 100 years to promote effective military behavior based on the view that
particular behavior among military individuals would inevitably facilitate better
outcomes. While using this model, it is necessary to make use of the studies and
facts about military figures and units encountered during my service to avoid
repetition of past mistakes over an over. This way, one would be able to learn
from these past histories and focus on key concerns that address soldiers
simultaneously in regards to mission accomplishment tasks. This would help in
focusing on the task and social aspects of duty as one adapts his/her leadership
style to match followers' needs and abilities. Studies reveal that this training has
had more emphasis on the managerial training rather than the tactical
approaches (COL Kent & LTC David, 2001); this would be a challenge and an
opportunity to apply the various leadership approaches within the constraints of
the situational model of leadership to get the best from the soldiers. Studies
have shown that difficulties associated with compromises on the gratification
level, solution seeking and perfectness due to autocratic rules can be effectively
solved through the situational leadership approach, whereby combat leaders
take advantage of the opportunity for adjusting communication flow through
adapting to leadership styles that are situationally appropriate (GEN Dennis,
1999).
Military leadership tasks revolve around being both a social specialist and a task
specialist, that is, ones primary goal is to accomplish the group's main challenge
of defeating enemies in combat. Such a role requires being more informed,
active and intelligent than the followers. As a social specialist, one's challenge
would encompass building and maintaining a close relationship with the group,
keeping the group together, and providing morale (Peter, et al. 2008). As a
military leader, being able to situationally adapt to the social needs of the
followers would help in mitigating issues concerned with low morale such as
desertion, crime, malingering and absenteeism. Thus, the social specialist role
helps one to be able to improve a team's cohesiveness. An ideal military,
situational-based leader is one who is able to excellently and concurrently apply
both the task of a specialist and an equal competency as a social leader (COL
Kent & LTC David, 2001). Social situational adaptability is especially important for
effective and successful leadership among leaders at the lower levels than it is
for the higher levels. It is imperative that one be conversant with the dynamics
of the rules in the army to achieve untried solutions and meet challenges with
this model.
For effectiveness, one has to continuously look for situations in which they can
apply new alternatives. More particularly lower ranks require that one be less
sensitive on rank differences and have more foresight and initiative regarding
what is right or who is right; this is an example of ideal situational adaptive
ability in which they would be dependent on information to tackle challenges
(Lau, 1998). Still on situations, using technical expertise while at the same time
focusing on the group's cohesiveness, especially because of the stressing nature
of the military environment, would be the perfect thing to do. This implies that
ones adaptability and flexibility has to be impressive as military work usually
involves surprises which would necessitate this. Therefore, a flexible leadership
model such as situational leadership is most applicable in the military situation
due to the necessity to successfully handle unanticipated events.
Most current military services derive from the situational leadership model.
Situation leadership training in the military began as early as the 1970s but only
limited studies have been on the same in the military context. Recent research
on the air assault battalion of US National Army Guard shows that this model
works effectively within the military (Mark, et al. 2009). A military leaders' major
accomplishment under this model would be to facilitate the development of the
job-related maturity of the soldiers.