Recently, a family that used to belong to my church was in a car accident, resulting in a traumatic brain injury in their son. Eric recently was able to return home after over 100 days at three different hospitals, but is unable to walk, talk, play, and do most things that most eight-year-olds and their families take for granted. Even with health insurance, many things that Eric needs are not covered, or the items provided are the lowest quality available, such as his hospital bed. Many community members, and people all over the state have donated money, and fundraisers are being held to help support the healing and needs of his family. My sister Janice recently led the planning and execution of one such fundraiser. An Italian dinner was held at our church, along with a basket raffle, bake sale, and craft sale. This fundraiser raised over $6000 for Eric’s family. The average fundraiser dinner for our church over the past few years pulls in around $2000. What made Janice’s fundraiser so successful? There is little doubt that the success can be attributed to her effective leadership skills, particularly her ability to use different leadership styles in various situations.
The Path-Goal theory of leadership emphasizes the relationship between leadership style and both the characteristics of the followers and the task at hand (Northouse, 2016). Essentially, it postulates that leaders are responsible for assisting their followers along a path to reach their goals; and leaders do that most successfully by using a leadership style best suited for both the situation and their followers’ needs (Northouse, 2016). Four types of leadership behaviors are described by Northouse: directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented. Depending on the followers and the situation characteristics, one or more of these styles of behavior may be needed or displayed in a situation. Depending on the characteristics of the followers and the situation, certain styles are better in certain situations. Janice displayed two these styles at various times in the planning and execution of this fundraiser, each of which was appropriate for the tasks at hand.
Janice was presented with the idea of having this fundraiser dinner by my 16-year-old niece Kayla. In the beginning, the task was very ambiguous: hold a dinner to raise money for Eric’s family. The followers, Kayla, her friends, and some family and church members, needed control and clarity. Although Kayla was highly ambitious, she is young and needed structure and guidance. Northouse explains that the best leadership style in a situation where the task is ambiguous and the followers need control and clarity is participative leadership (2016, p. 121). Janice used this style in the planning process. She had Kayla and the other volunteers participate in the planning. She consulted with others and helped integrate their suggestions and ideas into actual decisions regarding what the dinner would entail, fleshing out the activities, menu, price, etc.
When the actual event day came around, although there were some clear elements to the tasks at hand (people need to get their food, plates need to be cleaned, etc), the situation in general was kind of ambiguous as to how each of these things needed to happen. It was also a complex situation, as different events were happening upstairs and downstairs in the church, and many different things needed to be happening simultaneously. In the hours leading up to the dinner, Janice continued to use participative leadership style, getting volunteers’ input on how things should flow and where different events, such as the basket raffle, should be set up. Closer to event execution, Janice became more of a directive leader, which can also be effective in ambiguous situations (Northouse, 2016). She gave specific people clear tasks, divvying up the areas and responsibilities to the various volunteers. For example, certain people were specifically assigned to make pasta, clean tables, guide guests, etc. This was the best leadership style as without clear direction, volunteers would not know what to do. As many of the volunteers were teenagers, the structure was needed.
There are so many ways that Janice helped lead her volunteers along the path to successful goal completion, outdoing the previous fundraisers held before. Northouse defines four things that leaders are responsible to do to help their followers towards their goal: defining the goals, clarifying the path, removing obstacles along the path, and providing support. Janice defined clear goals and clarified to the volunteers how to reach them on the day of the event. When situations arose during the event, such as when we almost ran out of butter, Janice was on top of the situation and delegated someone to get more. Support was provided to volunteers on many levels. Janice was encouraging and kind, but also clear and unwavering when she gave tasks to do. Overall, the profound success of this fundraiser can be attributed to Janice’s ability to use the characteristics of her followers and the tasks at hand to help guide her styles of leadership she used.
References:
Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE Publications, Inc.
Robin D Yost says
I really enjoyed reading about how your community came together to help a family in need. Janice clearly displayed the path- goal leadership behaviors needed to have a successful fundraiser and to keep the focus on why everyone was coming together in the first place. You showed examples of how she used the directive, supportive, and participative behaviors throughout this fundraiser very well. She also displayed achievement oriented behaviors that interacted with the task and follower characteristics. It was mentioned that in the beginning this task was ambiguous, and gathering all of these volunteers together can prove to be complex and challenging. Unlike a paid position these volunteers don’t have any additional commitment to the task besides their high expectations and need to excel in order to provide for this family. You mentioned that this fundraiser brought in well above the average fundraiser for your church, which is an example of how Janice established “a high standard of excellence for followers and seeks continuous improvement” (Northouse, 2016, p. 218). Without her expectation of have an extremely successful fundraiser it likely would not have raised the amount of funds that it did. Achievement oriented leadership is most effective in a situation that is more ambiguous because it allows the leader to set high expectations and encourage their followers that they can achieve these ambitious goals (Northouse, 2016, p.122).
If Janice didn’t continuously evolve her leadership behavior the volunteers may have become frustrated and gave their minimal effort or removed themselves from the project all together. Janice was able to utilize the leadership behaviors needed based on her volunteers characteristics and the task characteristics to provide a very successful outcome for the family that ultimately needed just that. Northouse (2016, p. 122) expressed a criticism of this theory with how it can be “a daunting task to incorporate all of these factors simultaneously into one’s selection of a preferred leadership style” and I would imagine if Janice would have thought about all of the different styles of leadership she used during the planning and execution of this event, it may have felt overwhelming to her in the moment. She may not have preferred all of the styles she used but she clearly used them effectively to “motivate followers to accomplish designated goals” which is what the path goal theory is about (Northouse, 2016, p. 115).
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.