Situational leadership: description of the model, styles, levels of employee development

Many managers find themselves in situations where they have to work overtime, but at the same time achieving significant results does not work. Even huge experience, skills and knowledge does not help. Why does this happen? The answer lies in the manager’s obsession with a certain leadership style, which is often ineffective and destructive. A solution to the problem may be situational leadership.

The concept of situational leadership

Situational leadership, or, as it is often called, situational leadership, is a set of tactical methods for managing subordinates, in which the manager selects a leadership style depending on the specific situation. In this case, “situation” means the need to solve the problem with optimal labor costs.

Situational leadership allows you to answer the main questions facing each leader. How to manage staff? How to motivate employees?

Goals and objectives of situational leadership

The main goal of situational leadership is to choose the optimal leadership style for each employee. Any person has a character, a certain mindset, experience and skill set. For the operational solution of emerging problems, it is required not only to attract the right employee to the solution, but also to competently manage it.

Tasks of situational leadership:

• analysis of the situation depending on the requirements of the organization presented in the current situation;
• the choice of the optimal management approach, which more and better meets the requirements put forward by the company in this situation;
• creating a flexible leadership style appropriate to the situation in the organization;
• making the necessary changes to manage people and the situation effectively.

Leadership styles and their effectiveness

The situational leadership style presupposes effective mastery of the 4 main management styles that the manager uses to manage personnel, combining or sharing them in relation to different employees.

Management styles:

1. Directive (authoritarian). This style of leadership, characterized by a high level of control of the boss over subordinates, a clear statement of orders, a high level of punishment of an employee for a mistake. This style is effective in solving crisis problems requiring quick and unambiguous actions, it is well applicable to non-caring employees.
2. Mentoring style involves giving employees the opportunity to take the initiative and express their thoughts. The leader holds constant meetings with employees, helps and instructs in solving complex problems. The level of control is high. The style is good for initiative young employees who are ready to develop in the profession.
3. Friendly (supportive) leadership style is aimed at helping the employee, the degree of control is minimal. Effective as a situational approach to leadership in combination with other styles. “The carrot and stick method” is a combination of friendly and authoritarian styles.
4. The delegating (reference) style implies complete freedom of solving tasks for the employee, all responsibility for the implementation also lies with the subordinate. This leadership style applies only to highly qualified staff with a high degree of motivation.

A competent combination of styles is situational leadership, which provides a high level of personnel management efficiency.

Models of situational leadership

The success of an enterprise cannot be determined solely by the personality of the leader and his leadership style. At the moment, leading economics theorists and top managers have developed several models of situational leadership, adhering to which the leader will be able to better understand the working situation and choose the most suitable management style.

There are 3 main models:

• Blancher-Hersey Life Cycle Concept;
• behavior model of the head F. Fidler;
• Tannenbaum – Schmidt continuum of leadership behavior.

Blancher - Hersey Life Cycle Concept

The main idea of ​​the concept is the mutual interaction of employees and the leader. The employee must desire professional growth, and the leader must use the situational approaches to effective leadership correctly.

In their concept, Blancher and Hersey believe that the choice of one of the 4 leadership styles (authoritarian, mentoring, friendly, and delegating) directly depends on the level of development of the subordinate.

In their theory, Blancher and Hersey use two criteria to determine the level of an employee - this is enthusiasm (motivation) and professionalism. For the first time, employee development levels were presented in Ken Blancher's book, One-Minute Manager and Situation Management.

Employee Development Levels:

1. Motivated, but not professional. As a rule, this category includes young employees who have recently started work. Their level of enthusiasm is great, but at the same time they lack some knowledge and experience. For such an employee, a directive management style should be used.
2. Lack of motivation and professionalism. Most often, this is the second stage of novice workers, which begins after several unsuccessful attempts or errors in work. In this case, it is necessary to use the mentoring style, help the employee and take into account his opinion.
3. There is no motivation in the presence of sufficient skills. Employees experiencing professional burnout or problems outside of work fall into a state of apathy towards work. In this case, a friendly leadership style, support and attention to the employee, the opportunity for him to feel his need at work are suitable.
4. High motivation and professionalism. Such employees are a godsend for any leader, as they can not only perform their work efficiently, but are also able to help other lagging colleagues. In this case, the delegation of authority style is appropriate.

The behavior model of the head F. Fidler

Fiedler suggested that situational leadership is the relationship between leadership style and characteristics of the situation. He was the first to propose to present situational variables as a point system, of which there are only three:

• relationship manager - subordinate (level of trust of employees to the boss);
• task structure (degree of clarity of the tasks assigned by the manager);
• official powers of the head (reflects the degree of formal authority granted to the manager).

The maximum score is 8, the minimum is 1. Depending on the points put on schedule, you can determine the appropriate leader for the task.

Tannenbaum - Schmidt Leadership Continuum

In their concept, Tannenbaum and Schmidt suggest using the criteria scale to determine the necessary leadership style:

1. The leader gives subordinates the opportunity to act independently within their powers.
2. The leader delegates the decision to the group to some extent.
3. The leader identifies a range of issues, suggests introducing options for consideration and makes a final decision on their basis.
4. The leader independently puts forward decisions and suggests improving them to subordinates.
5. The leader submits ideas and offers them for discussion.
6. The leader convinces subordinates of the correctness of their decisions.
7. The leader makes decisions and communicates them to employees.

Depending on the degree of influence of the criterion, one should choose a leadership style.