The term 'situational' refers to 'taking the situation into account' and
that can only make leadership more effective. Right! But the question is how that concept is
interpreted. That is, what determines the situation, and what influence it has
on the appropriate management method.
With that crucial question in mind, there are 3 interpretations of Situational leadership:
1- Reddin (the original version ) (1) makes the focus on task and / or
relationship dependent on the situation that requires it. Useful side note is to realize that we
have to be in integration between task and relationship in 98% of the time , and the rest can be accounted for
exceptionally. It is a useful approach, but different than intended. It is not sufficient to know your
preference for task or relationship, and to be sufficiently flexible to apply
the right style in the right situation. Only
crisis situations justify a purely task-oriented leader, and only human crises call for a purely
relationship-oriented, and a separation style can only be justified in the
context of self-managing teams (more on this elsewhere). The usefulness of the model is primarily
to make leaders realize that, due to their frequent one-sided talent, they
usually have task or relationship as their dominant style preference, and
therefore have to strive for integration.
2- Hersey & Blanchard (2) : make the four styles dependent on the level of development of the
employee and fall into the trap of cognitive dissonance: steering is not the
solution if someone lacks skills! Transactionele Analyses (discussed elsewhere) makes it clear what the consequences
are, but these authors (Americans) apparently do not care. They want the boss’ idea followed. Period. So a bad model, that teaches people to be passive and to put responsibility on
the management. They apparently expect employees to grow by being obedient. That is a
questionable vision of the learning mechanism of people (more about that
elsewhere) and that does not tie in with the insights from developmental
psychology.
3- The "dynamic role model" (3) places " the situational aspect" on the level of the partial roles that you have as a leader. As elaborated on elsewhere, a leader has a
number of sub-roles to fulfill. A leader must focus more on the sub-role that
the employee or team needs (people manager, coaching mentor, transformer or
culture supporter). That is an interpretation of servant leadership, giving
people what they need to function well, on the basis of their natural strength,
talent and limitations. That is a good approach because it uses the available possibilities of
people by supplementing, not by replacing what people do not naturally have .
It is advisable to explain the term “steering” in this context. It is not the same as "focus on
content". Someone (the leader or coach, for example) can concentrate on content by
asking critical questions, submitting arguments, asking the ‘why’ behind a
statement, etc. In this way the leader (coach) does not
take over, but helps the employee (coachee) to view and / or elaborate the
content aspects better and more accurately.
You can steer a bicycle or a car; in other words, a system that does not
have its own intelligence. Steering means that you take the necessary actions to get the system to
be steered to the place or in the direction where you yourself have decided
that it should go.
This means that a guiding style of leadership is based on obedience, on
the separation of 'thinking' and 'doing'. We can hope that this interpretation of
leadership at least in our endeavor belongs to the past.
(1) Reddin W., Manager Effectiveness , Samson - Nive , Alphen a / d Rijn, 1978
(2) Hersey P., Blanchard K., Management of Organizational Behavior, Prentive Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1982
(3) A self-developed view, described in an
unpublished book, a data ls pdf is made selectively available.
Hugo Der Kinderen
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