The four important Situational Leadership styles that were created by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard are those of Delegating, Participating, Selling and Telling. (Chapter 8, Leadership)
This model is significant and important because of the fact that it is basically a contingency theory that has as its primary focus the followers of the instructions that the situational leader gives them. The reality is that the effectiveness of the leader can only be judges by the willingness and ability of the followers to follow the instructions. (Effective Leadership in the 21st Century - Part. 1) the four concepts of Delegating, Participating, Selling and Telling in fact form the basis of the 'maturity curve' that is laid over the 'four box model' that has as its vertical axis the 'Supportive Behavior', and as its horizontal axis the 'Directive Behavior' that must be followed by the situational leader in order to achieve the maximum effort out of his various followers. (Kenneth Blanchard)
Is it possible to match a manager's leadership style to his employees' readiness levels, and how can this be achieved? It is a fact that most organizations have employees with different levels of abilities, capabilities, skills, willingness to learn and to adapt, and the person who is in charge or is the leader os the group of employees must remember this. Situational leadership is a concept that helps these leaders to match the appropriate and exact management style of leadership with the capabilities and skills of their employees. This means that when the leaders use those management styles that would best suit their followers, as would suit each and every individual follower, in fact, a more efficient and an ultimately more productive team would be built. How can the readiness levels of each employee be determined? There are several easy to follow steps recommended for the purpose, and the first one is that the leader must at the outset determine the specific job tasks for each job title that he is in charge of managing, and after this, he must limit the number of tasks for each title to a maximum of three or four very important ones, and then go about assessing and analyzing the readiness levels of each and every employee within the organization.
Since the leader would be already aware of the fact that the readiness of the employee may be assessed by the two most important features of 'willingness' and 'skill' of the employee, he would be able to learn whether the employee has the ability as well as the desire to do the job to the best of his ability. Four specific areas must be evaluated for the purpose of determining whether the employee's skill levels are at the levels that are actually required by the organization. These are: has the employee had sufficient training with which to perform the job well, does he comprehend the job that he is supposed to perform, would he be able to apply the tasks as he is required to, does he have the experience needed to finish the job well, and so on.
The employee's will can also be determined by a set of conditions, and these are: does the employee have...
Leadership theory is a complex and engaging field. Indeed, people have been studying the concept of leadership and organization for many years now. The purpose is to understand two factors. First, there is a need to understand how a group works. What are it's dynamics and how does a leader develop. Second, to refine the organization of a given group so that its leadership will be able to guide it
Leadership Technical, interpersonal, and conceptual skills Interpersonal skills entail knowing how to interact with others. No employee desires to have a boss who is inconsiderate or rude or one who has poor human skills. All these could reduce productivity and employee morale. Managers with effective human skills tend to have subordinates who have positive attitudes and strong desires to increase productivity. Managers are always expected in any organization to have harmonious relationships
Leadership is defined as the procedures that individuals use as authority over others to achieve an objective. The action also provides direction in a manner that makes an organization more coherent and cohesive. Three-Skill Approach This approach refers to three skills including human, technical, and conceptual, which form the fundamental personal skills required in leadership. Technical skills involve proficiency in and knowledge about some defined activities or work. It includes analytical ability,
E. leadership (Pruyne, 2001, p. 6), but also that "determining how to abstract a set of leadership concepts that apply across contexts without sacrificing an understanding of how the conditions and qualities involved in leadership vary among those same contexts" remained elusive (Pruyne, 2001, p. 7). Experts provided extended series of examples, mostly from the 20th century, demonstrating how leadership characteristics change over time and vary with context. Therefore future,
Leadership Models LITERATURE REVIEW OF SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP Situational leadership is a leadership paradigm proposed by Hersey and Blanchard as an alternative to the simplistic trait theories of leadership in vogue at the time. The main feature of the situational leadership theory of Hersey and Blanchard is that leaders are able to adapt their leadership styles to the level of readiness of the followers (Bovee et al. 1993). Employee readiness is a function
Most conclusions on this approach were vague or indecisive in terms of social, psychological or mental significance (Rice, 1978, 1981; Graen et al., 1972; Ashour, 1973). Furthermore, over the years, many scholars have come to the realization that leadership is situational and hence there are many realistic settings like the environment, the employees, the resources, etc. that determine the characteristics needed in a leader as well as his/her business approach
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