The situational approach to leadership has four leadership styles. These styles include directing style (S1), coaching approach (S2), supporting approach (S3), and delegating approach (S4). Of these four styles, I utilize directing style, coaching style, and supporting approach on a daily basis. Northouse (2016) suggests, “the premise and the logical application of the theory is that different situations demand different kinds of leadership” (p.93). Situational leadership has a prescriptive approach to leadership that suggests how leaders can become effective in many different types of organizational settings involving a wide variety of organizational goals (Northouse, P.G. 2016). It provides the leader with the “flexibility to assess the situation and adopt a leadership style that best fits the needs of the follower” (Rabarison, K., Ingram, R. C., & Holsinger, J. W., 2013).
The directing style approach is “the leader focuses communication on goal achievement, and spends a smaller amount of time using supportive behaviors” (Northouse, P.G. 2016). As a certified occupational therapy assistant, I continue to manage the occupational therapy volunteer team since 2009 at a pediatric facility in southern California. Our occupational therapy department is a small team of nine individuals; so one can imagine that there are many personalities and goals to blend together on behalf of each contributor on a continuous basis and with various situations. For these reasons I interview, direct, influence, supervise and educate occupational therapy volunteers and interns from various California undergraduate programs, and help them explore occupational therapy as a profession and passion. Virtually all leadership has a common denominator, which shares the view that leadership involves the process of influence. “Fundamentally, leadership means influence, or the ability to influence others” (Sims, H. P., Faraj, S., & Yun, S. (2009). As the volunteer coordinator at my facility, orientation and management of these volunteers/interns involves a great deal of my time and focus. For example, I make it a daily practice to communicate instructions, make necessary efforts to achieve the goals for the team, show support of my volunteers and the decisions they make, while also strengthening my leadership skills. In turn, I am honing my own skills to make our occupational therapy department run more smoothly, efficiently, and improve competency in this particular area.
The coaching approach “places an emphasis on communication on both achieving the goals and meeting the followers’ social and emotional needs” (Northouse, P.G. 2016). The coaching approach is the best fit in this situation due to the high supportive and high directive style. My application of the coaching approach supports the framework in which I conduct several eight-week occupational therapy assistant students for their level two fieldwork rotation each semester. When providing direction and feedback to future students who have been accepted into the program, I must always consider their personalities, emotional needs and work behaviors. During their duration at our facility, it is imperative that thoughtful feedback, appropriate support, and inquiry about job performance be considered. Lastly “…similar kinds of people are likely to have similar kinds of personalities, are likely to choose to do similar kinds of things, and are likely to behave in similar kinds of ways” (Schnieder, 1987). Understanding a potential student is very important during a screening process to discover likeminded, energetic, and proactive people who are interested in pediatric occupational therapy to occupy our available intern positions.
The supporting approach “requires that the leader take a high supportive-low directive style” (Northouse, P.G. 2016). Utilizing the “supportive approach” as a certified occupational therapy assistant allows me to engage in a supportive role. I must remain engaged on a consistent basis due to the varying behaviors and personalities of each occupational therapist. I orchestrate support by maintaining their caseloads, listen to their direction and feedback, coordinate their various schedules, and remain in control of day-to –day decisions concerning patient care. Therefore, I must strive to be organized, understanding, and direct when receiving instructions so that each occupational therapist may successfully complete the task required so that they fulfill their obligations.
The delegating approach states “ the leader offers less goal input and social support, facilitating followers’ confidence and motivation in reference to the goal” (Northouse, P.G., 2016). The delegating approach enables me to evolve into the omniscient observer without input, but merely the role of a witness during occupational therapy meetings. The situational approach stresses that “leadership is composed of both a directive and a supportive dimension, and that each has to be applied appropriately to a given situation”. (Northouse, P.G., 2016). However, my particular criteria does not allow me to use the delegating approach.
In conclusion, each volunteer whom I have encountered requires varying support to assist him or her with their responsibilities and interactions when implementing consistent daily tasks. The significant ideas that really influence my leadership habits are consistent routine and follow through from the volunteers, students, and therapists. By incorporating these routine directive strategies, our volunteers, students, and therapists have more success when performing occupational therapy duties and will feel more confident while participating in the intervention process.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Posner, B. (2015) “An investigation into the leadership practices of volunteer leaders”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 36 Issue: 7, pp.885-898, https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-03-2014-0061
Rabarison, K., Ingram, R. C., & Holsinger, J. W. (2013). Application of Situational Leadership to the National Voluntary Public Health Accreditation Process. Frontiers in Public Health, 1, 26. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2013.00026
Pennsylvania State University (2017). PSYCH485, Lesson 5, Part 2: Situational approach. Retrieved September 20, 2017 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1867456/modules/items/22975684
Schnieder, B. (1987), The people make the place. Personnel Psychology, 40: 437–453. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1987.tb00609.x
Sims, H. P., Faraj, S., & Yun, S. (2009). When should a leader be directive or empowering? How to develop your own situational theory of leadership. Business Horizons, 52(2), 149-158.
Guy Hughes says
When I look at my leadership style I also feel that I leverage S1 through S4 depending on the situation. I can also see where the coaching approach within S2 is an extension of S1 because the leader still decides what and how the goal will be accomplished. Thinking about S4, it seems to be a bit more common in my personal life. The S4 / delegating approach does not involve much social support or goal input (Northouse, 2016, pp. 94-95). For example, my 8-year-old son wanted me to buy him an iPad with a wireless plan. I agreed, but he must empty the garbage cans every morning before using the iPad. The only question he had when we made the arrangement was how long would he have to empty the cans. My response, “until you move out.” As I am sure you guessed, the iPad is in hand almost every day before the garbage cans are emptied. And every day I tell him to put it down until he fulfills his end of the agreement. I do not oversee the activity or provide positive reinforcement when the task has been completed.
I must admit that your blog has me thinking. Professionally, I have managed many teams over the years and most of the time my leadership style is S2 or S3. I am an advocate for high supportive behavior. Solving challenges that team members encounter, providing positive reinforcement, and having open dialogue is extremely important in my mind if you want a highly engaged team (Northouse, 2016, p. 94). Where I have failed is recognizing that supportive behavior can play a significant role outside of the workplace. Do not get me wrong, my supportive behavior does not stop when I get home; however, maybe I should be taking a different approach with the iPad situation I explained above. Realistically, what makes it any different than a team member that does not want to perform a specific task at work? All of us need to be motivated and different situations require different approaches. Delegating may get the task done, but I am not positive that it will motivate future actions.
Referenced
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
kim5358 says
Hi Kerrie Ann,
As a certified occupational therapy assistant, it sounds like you have a lot of opportunities to practice several of the styles within the situational approach to leadership. You stated that you don’t really get to utilize the low supportive-low directive style, or delegating approach, due to the nature of your position. Have you gotten to practice the delegating approach in other positions you’ve held in the past, or in other areas of your life? Also, were you informed of the idea of the situational approach to leadership in your training for this position so that you knew how to take on these different styles of leadership with your volunteers and students or did you just naturally develop these styles of leadership on your own or through training from your superiors?
The textbook notes that situational leadership is well-known for its usefulness in training programs (Northouse, 2016), but I wonder how many people actually practice some form of the situational approach without having any idea that they are doing it. For instance, I can think back on several instances as both a leader and a follower where I utilized these different styles or was led by others using these styles and yet I had no idea that we were using the situational approach to leadership! However, the textbook also explains that another strength of this approach is that it is practical and intuitively sensible (Northouse, 2016), which I think adds to the ease of use and lack of awareness people face with this approach. It makes sense to lead like this, so people do it without realizing why they are leading this way.
To take this subject a step further, Northouse discusses several limitations to this form of leadership, including how demographics might affect the leader-follower dynamic and how leaders might approach larger groups as opposed to smaller ones (2016). Have you ever had any trouble with a volunteer who was older or more experienced than you? Or do you try to assess each individual’s capabilities from the beginning to see which style you should use to lead each person? I would imagine that the students would likely be younger and less experienced, but I’m curious if you ever had to deal with a person who didn’t want to listen to your instructions. Finally, have you ever had to make the choice to lead an entire group with one type of leadership instead of assessing each individual’s capabilities? Based on your post, it seems that you don’t have to worry about leading too many people at one time, but I’d like to know if leading a large group affected your abilities as a leader or if it affected your followers’ ability to follow you effectively.
Thanks for an interesting post!
Katie
Reference
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.