When one spends enough time as a leader it becomes known that one of the keys to being successful is the ability for one to adapt to a situation. In the situational leadership II, there are four different supportive behaviors which are demonstrated by the leader and four corresponding development levels which are dependent on the follower (Northouse, 2016). The Supportive behaviors S1-S4 range from S1 being a directive leader who says how to do things step by step, to an S4 leader who delegates tasks to the follower (Lynch, 2015). An S2 type leader is more of a coach and offers their support based on how well the follower is doing, which can quickly move into an S3 leader based on the follower, where there is more support (Northouse, 2016).
The followers fall into a corresponding level of development which ranges from D1-D4, where they require a high level of direction, the need to be coached or supported, and very little direction at all (Northouse, 2016). My time as a leader and trainer has made me fully aware of the needs required by followers. My previous base in the Air Force didn’t get a lot of new people all of the time, and when it did, they were all brand new right out of basic training and their technical school. This would mean that a lot of time and effort went into on the job training with them to make sure that they could quickly get to a D4 development level (Northouse, 2016).
I would almost always ask the new guy I was training how well they knew the task that was to be accomplished. Some would be truthful and some would be overconfident in their abilities and say they could do it no problem. I would always humor the overconfident individuals to see how well they could complete the task. One of the tasks that we would have to know is what called mudding. This is what you do to drywall to fill the joint between the two sheets, so that when it’s painted over you don’t see a bunch of lines spaced out in four foot by eight foot rectangles. To help give a clearer picture, we would use five gallon buckets of mud to use. For myself, I may need to only use ¼ of this bucket for the job required, but for the overconfident individual they could end up using ½ to ¾ of this bucket. They would learn to be more truthful during the next step after they sanded all of the excess material off the wall.
Regardless of how this comes about, with either situation we get to the same necessary step, which is to train and be trained. I myself as a trainer/leader often took the S1 approach by first having the follower watch me carefully step by step with me explain how I was doing things and why (Lynch, 2015). This is important because I wanted them to see how things are done the proper way, that way they could see the technique I was using and why. I would then have them attempt to do this themselves and I would offer my input to them immediately on what they did wrong or right because at this point time is important and the faster I can have them build up their confidence the faster they can move up to the D2 level of development and I can then move on to the S2 method of doing more coaching (Northouse, 2016).
From my experience, when I would have to teach a necessary skill such as mudding, once one of my followers moved into the D2 level of development they would very quickly move up to a D4 style (Northouse, 2016). The reason I feel that things would move quickly is because of how directive I was in the initial steps of training. If I give them too much time doing things the wrong way, they will be too confident in doing things the wrong way without knowing it. This will in turn cause a major delay in the development of a follower. However when one can properly display the correct form and technique all that’s left to do is to coach the follower through success until you support their behavior. Before you know it, the follower you once had is not able to independently operate on their own and one day even able to train their own follower (Northouse, 2016).
References:
Lynch, B. (2015). Partnering for performance in situational leadership: A person-centred leadership approach. International Practice Development Journal, 5
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Graciella Maria De Souza says
It seems that your leadership coaching coaching style does work very well for you as your followers have the chance to have the task procedure done by you at first (Northouse, 2016, p. 94). As you have stated your followers end to move quicker from one development stage to the other. How does that work for you specifically? Since the leader is expected to be flexible enough to follow those situational changes? Clearly, your directive behavior as leader has improved your followers development (PSU, WC, Psych 485, lesson 5, 2016). What I also found very interesting is the way you assess your followers capabilities before the task is done, so you can adapt your coaching skills to their specific needs and personalities. This is a interesting leadership style that requires a lot of adaptability. You also seems to have an leadership style that involves two set goals: the concern for production and the concern for people (Northouse, 2016, p. 74), as you also stated that you want your followers to learn the task correctly. I can agree that sometimes, when people believe they have the right skills for the task they might keep a biased thought that they are doing the task correctly, when in fact, they may not have a real grasp of their skills (as in the muddling example) because their are inexperienced.
You also demonstrate the concern for production, which is a key for leadership style to achieve organizational goals. This characteristic will also influence the way you promote followers self-interest and well-being. When followers feel valued they definitely will strive to achieve higher levels in their development and tasks will be reached easily, contributing to the situation (Northouse, 2016). Thanks for sharing your interesting leadership experience, style and skills with us. We all understand that the focus in the leader is important, but consider the situation and adapt it to fit everyone needs can make the leadership style more effective.
Good luck with all,
Graciella Souza
jwc226 says
Your post drew me in when you mentioned the learning curve associated with mudding drywall installations. It is evident to me now that I must have had an individual in training working on the first floor of my house because you can clearly see the seams at certain angles. Too bad you were not there to train them!
Looking at your leadership/follower example from a situational perspective, it all makes sense. You were able to quickly slide your trainees through the development level of subordinates as outlined by Hershey & Blanchard (as cited by PSU WC, 2016) while simultaneously adjusting your leadership behaviors to meet their individual needs. However, the situational perspective does not take into account other influential factors that the contingency theory does.
According to Fiedler’s Contingency Model situational favorability is the amount of control a leader has over his people (PSU WC, 2016). The more control a leader has over his/her followers it will result in a promising leadership situation. Leader-member relations suggest that the relationship between leader and follower determine the overall atmosphere. If you have easy-going, eager subordinates the situation would have an advantage over subordinates who were “antagonistic and difficult” (PSU WC, 2016, L6. p7). Perhaps one of the trainees you were trying to train was challenging and hostile. Maybe your boss came in and out of the workplace, and she would continually undermine your leadership. In doing so, she would limit the amount of legitimate control you had over your subordinates. In your leadership example, the assessment of your leadership effectiveness could not be explained using the situational perspective alone as it fails to take in account the exact amount of control you had over your employees at any given time.
Contingency theory takes a closer look and the situation including leader-member relations, task structure and position power and how they all impact leadership (Northouse, 2016). Unlike the situational approach, contingency theory takes the leader/follower relationship into account when assessing leadership. Effective leadership is contingent upon a leader matching his/her style to the needs of the follower they are working with.
References:
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage
Retrieved from: https://reserve-libraries-psuedu.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/psy/532/
53201.pdf
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, California:
Sage.
Penn State World Campus (2016). PSYCH 485: Leadership in Work Settings. Lesson 6: Introduction to Contingency Theory and Path-Goal Theory. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1803831/modules/items/21139854
Lauren Wallace says
I think taking a directive approach in the beginning when you have a follower with high motivation but low competency is imperative to their success. In my experience as a follower when leaders neglects giving careful instructions and support while I am still highly motivated to learn the job I can quickly move on to the D2 level of development where I still am not competent in the task but I have lost my commitment and motivation to learn because I wasn’t given proper instructions and support in the first place. When a leader takes the time initially to really teach you what you need to know it is much easier to stay motivated and move on to being both competent and committed. In my experience it is within the first few weeks of a new job or learning a new task that followers become frustrated and are never able to advance. Even when leaders hire employees who are highly competent in their area of work and highly motivated it may be beneficial to start out using directive leadership initially so that they can learn exactly what is expected of them in their new position, and then quickly move on to being more delegating. One of the criticisms of the situational leadership approach “has to do with how the model matches leader style with follower development levels,” in my experience when beginning a new task or training a new employee even if they are highly motivated and already highly competent based on past experience they can still benefit from a directive leadership during their introductory period. (Northouse, 2016, p.101)
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016) Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th Ed.) Los Angeles: Sage Publications