MN5004 Leading Innovation and Entrepreneurship

5.1 Situational Approach

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Hello and Welcome to the lesson on Situational Leadership.

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By the end of this lesson we will be able to

 Understand about Situational approach.

 Contrast between situational approach and other approach.
 Explore the different leadership styles.

Introduction to Situational Leadership

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Situational Leadership is one of the most widely recognized leadership approach. As implied by
the name, situational leadership focuses on having leadership depending on situations, as an
adaptive leadership style. Therefore, according to this theory, different situations demand
different types of leadership. So, to be most effective and successful, a leader must be able to
adapt his style and approach to diverse circumstances.

For example, some employees get motivated when the leaders allow more freedom and more
involvement, whereas, some employees work only when leaders are more autocratic. So,
depending on situations and people, leaders have to adapt different kinds of leadership style to be
successful.

Assumptions of the theory

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Situational Leadership is based upon the assumption that the effective style of leadership
changes from situation to situation. This contingency-based leadership stresses that the
leadership is composed of both a directive and supportive dimension and depending upon the
situation, each dimension has to be applied. So, the leader must be able to evaluate their
followers, about their preferences, motivating tools, circumstances, competence, etc. to
determine what kind of leadership style to follow. Moreover, people's motivation and skills
change from time to time, thus making leaders change their degree of leadership dimension to
meet the changing needs.

Hershey's and Blanchard Situational Model

The situational approach is illustrated in the model developed by author Paul Hershey and
leadership expert Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, in 1969, called Situational
Leadership II (SLII) model, which is the extended and refined version of previous situational
approach made by Blanchard in 1985. It is an adaptive, flexible style, whereby leaders are
courage to consider their followers-individually or teams- then consider the factors that impact
the work environment before choosing how they will lead (Kenton, 2020). The SLII model is
composed of two major dimension, leadership style and development level of followers.

Leadership Style

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Leadership styles consists of the behaviour pattern of a person who attempts to influence others.
It includes both the directive and supportive behaviours, or task related and relationship related
behaviours. Directive behaviours help group members accomplish goals by giving directions
such as what is to be done, how is it to be done and who is responsible for the job. Whereas,
supportive behaviours help the group members feel comfortable, providing social and emotional
support to other people such as asking input, listening, solving problems, etc.

The leadership style can be further classified into four distinct categories based on the task and
relationships of leaders at work.

 Directing style
The first style (S1) is high directive and low supportive style, known as directing style or
telling style. In this style, the leaders gives explicit direction on work and supervises the
 work closely. It is kind of authorative approach as the leader makes every decision on
itself and later informs other followers what, how, when the job is to be done. This style
of leadership is very top-down approach or simply, micro-managed as the leader is very
involved and the followers have to do what they are told to do.

 Coaching style
The second style (S2) is high directive and high supportive style, which is called
coaching style or selling style. In this style, the leader attempts to provide guidance to his
followers in a persuasive manner so that, it can also meet the follower's socio emotional
needs while achieving their own goals. Thus, in this style, while the leader provides
necessary encouragement and recognize the follower's enthusiasm and commitment of
learning and experience even to request input from the employees, the ultimate decision
maker is still the leader. So, in this style, the leader makes decision regarding what, when
and how the job is to be done, while answering why the job is to be done and where it
helps in future to the followers.

 Supporting approach
The third style (S3) is high supportive and low directive style, called supportive style or
participating style. In this style, the leader works with the team members or followers to
make decision. The leader with this style uses supportive behaviours bringing out the
skills of followers to accomplish the goal, rather than focusing on goal accomplishment.
So, emphasizing on sharing decisions and ideas, this democratic, participating style is
used by leaders to situations where the followers have ability to perform the questioned
task at sustained level but lacks either confidence or the motivation/ commitment to do so
(Leadership Studies, 2020). It includes activities such as listening, praising, giving
feedbacks, etc. Thus, the leader is only there to provide feedback and increase their
confidence through different motivational tools while providing directions sometimes,
but the ultimate decision maker is the follower.

 Delegating approach
 The fourth style (S4) is low supportive and low directive style, called delegating style or
monitoring style. In this approach, the leader assigns decision-making responsibility to
the followers but oversees their work (Lumen Learning, 2020). So, the leader facilitates
confidence and commitment to the followers to accomplish the given job, even without
providing any emotional and social support. The leader does not or barely involves itself
in planning or controlling. Thus, in this style, the leader lets the follower be responsible
for choosing the tasks as well as doing the tasks as they fit. So, the leader are least
involved in this leadership style compared to other, only involving in for direction or
giving feedback.

We have come to the end of the lesson.

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Let's quickly summarize what we have learn in this lesson:

 Situational leadership is an adaptive leadership style.

 The Hershey and Blanchard model suggests the leaders to adapt their leadership style to
directive and supportive behaviour.
 The SLII model shows how directive and supportive behaviours can combine for each
four different leadership styles.

That is all for today’s lesson. I hope you have understood the topic well.

References
Kenton, W., 2020. Investopedia. [Online]
Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hersey-and-blanchard-
model.asp#:~:text=The%20Hersey%2DBlanchard%20Model%20suggests,they%20lead%20and
%20their%20abilities.&text=The%20Hersey%2DBlanchard%20Model%20is,Situational
%20Leadership%20Model%20or%20Theory.
[Accessed January 2021].
Leadership Studies, 2020. The four leadership styles of Situational Leadership. [Online]
Available at: https://situational.com/blog/the-four-leadership-styles-of-situational-leadership/
[Accessed January 2021].

Lumen Learning, 2020. Situational Theories of Leadership. [Online]

Available at: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-principlesmanagement/chapter/situational-
theories-of-leadership/
[Accessed January 2021].