Situational Leadership

Several situations must be managed in different ways, different people should be treated in different ways as well. The situational leadership theory asserts that a leader should not take into account all the circumstances are similar and apply the same methodology to deal with each of them.

In reality, different styles are recommended to deal with new situations, in order to achieve the desired results.

Hersey and Blanchard gave a model of situational leadership, which is highly acclaimed. They believed that leaders should be very flexible and should be able to adapt to new circumstances and new situations very quickly. Leadership style and level of development are the two concepts on which their model.

The style of leadership states that there are four categories namely leaders. Directed by leading, coaching leaders, media leaders and finally Delegation Leaders.

Directing leaders are those who lead from the front, but the task of communicating his subordinates and closely examine the performance of the activity. These leaders rarely discuss ideas with their followers that are contrary to Coaching Leaders.

The leaders of coaching is very open to suggestions and ideas from their subordinates and in fact they also implement the ideas. This type of two-way communication helps leaders to develop a good relationship with their followers and is highly regarded by their followers.

Although this type of animals may seem very attractive, but may not be applicable in all situations. There are moments in which the leader must be tough, in fact, different situations warrant different styles.

If leaders are supporting the subordinates who have control over decisions and the leaders just become a facilitator throughout the process.

On the other hand, the delegation leaders assign work to their employees, even if leaders are part of decision making, but it is the prerogative of subordinate leaders to help in decision-making or not.

The followers of the leader who also leads them have different characteristics and different levels of development. These levels of development are: Low competence, Low commitment, competence, commitment, Low, High Competence, Variable Commitment, High Competence, High Commitment.

Followers have different levels of expertise and their commitment to a particular task varies too. Some followers may be highly qualified, but can not show a great commitment to their work while others may be very committed but may not have the necessary skills.

Some may fall between that is to say, likely to be moderate amount of effort and of moderate amount of skill.

A leader must know when to adapt and how to adapt because they are the leaders who need to become, as the demand of the situation and not the followers.

Depending on the stage of development of the followers of a leader should make his move, before taking any step a leader needs to understand the nature of the psycho-physical follower. Overall, the situational leadership requires the leader to be pretty versatile, if you want to get the desired results .......