Some lucky people are born with confidence, assertiveness, right judgment, charisma, and an alpha quality–they already have one foot set to becoming a leader. Others are given the right situation, connections, or affiliations that let them create their way into becoming leaders–they have the other foot into the ladder going up. How about the normal people who want to become leaders but are considered beta-level grinders or may not have the right connections to catch a break as easily?
One way to progress this discussion is to look at theories that go beyond innate traits and coincidental situations. The situational approach is a good way of exploring this–it considers both behaviors that can be improved and the situations involving one’s subordinates.
Situational approach deals with two levels of examining leadership: leadership style and development level of followers. Leadership style delves into directive behaviors and supportive behaviors; the former is involved with work tasks and how a leader directs subordinates to accomplishing them while the latter is involved with nurturing a two-way communication approach with members so they will feel that they are a member of the team. Combinations of these two faces make up the four categories: directing style (high directive, low supporting), coaching (high directive, high supporting), supporting (low directive, high supporting), and delegating (low directive, low supporting).
These four categories are, in turn, matched with the developmental level of the subordinates. These four levels depict just how developed or developing the subordinates are as they are on their way to potentially becoming leaders themselves. D1 is the lowest with the least competence but high commitment to D4 where followers have high competence and high commitment.
What’s interesting about situational approach is that it does not only consider leaders but also the followers, and potentially their own competence when it comes to achieving their own level of leadership. Subordinates don’t have the same level of competence, hence they would need different styles of leadership from the boss.
This is the very experience I had at my old job. My team comprised of four members and our boss. Her style is very balanced; she is directive when it comes to the technical skills of writing about interior design, but she is also very open to two-way communication and respective of the team’s ideas. However, what I admired about her is how she was able to exercise these behaviors in a team that had members with different developmental levels.
One team member is a fresh graduate so she needed a lot of guidance as to how things operate in the industry. My boss used the directing style because my teammate still needed to learn the ropes and did not have too much on the ideas side of her own to contribute. The second teammate is on her second job, but she is still very meek and dependent on instructions. However, her experience led to her having a few ideas, especially in graphic design, an area my boss does not specialize. For her, my boss used coaching; she would direct the teammate in some aspects and be supportive of some ideas in others. The third teammate is already on her fourth job in the team. She knows more or less what to do and just needs some direction, but since she can be emotional at times, she does require ample amount of facilitation and encouragement, all the soft skills from my boss. I was the D4 subordinate because it was already my fifth job. My boss considered me as her second-in-command, so she would delegate tasks to me, which I would, in turn, delegate to the team.
What I appreciate in how she executed this is that, even in delegation, there was a certain sense of building up for myself. She knew that I could execute the tasks properly and did not need too much support, but this also means she trusted my own judgment. I see this as a kind of training ground in developing leaders in the followers, especially as they rise up the development levels.
One thing that I would take away from this is that the situational approach may develop both the leader and subordinate. Becoming flexible in one’s leadership based on the situation of the subordinates allows the latter to develop their own talents as the specific leadership style develops their own competence in the company.
Caitlin Martin says
I think you did a fantastic job of explaining the situational approach, and I was impressed by your real world application of the theory. I also like how you slightly addressed both the trait and skills approach in your introduction. While the skills approach provides a “map” for leadership (Northouse, 2016, pg. 57), the situational approach also delves a little deeper into the follower aspect of leadership than the skills or trait approach does.
The thing I found most frustrating about situational approach is the fact that there are only four options for commitment and competence. It strikes me that in the situation you provide, that your coworkers were all fairly motivated, but at times lacked competence. The D2 and D3 segments of the SLII model both provide for a lack of motivation and varying levels of competence (Northhouse, 2016, pg. 96). It does not provide an option to lead followers who have intermittent competency, but high levels of commitment. It also does not provide for followers with high competency and low commitment.
Your boss seemed to have a great grip on situational leadership and its impact on your team. Having an experience like this makes it so much easier to understand the course material as a whole. Though the situational approach has its weaknesses, it is “prescriptive value” (Northouse, 2016, pg. 99). This prescriptive value gives several options for leadership and allows the leader to meet the follower at their level of competency, rather than a singular level. I enjoyed reading your post very much, thanks for the overview!
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
sna5223 says
Although the situational approach is a great way to examine both a leaders style and the developmental level of followers because it allows the leader to base their style off of each individuals level of competence, I think it would also be beneficial to look at your boss through a behavioral standpoint. The behavioral approach looks at what leaders do and how they act towards followers in various contexts (Northouse, 2016, p. 71). Being that the followers in which your boss leads have a wide range of knowledge, it could be useful to assess their leadership as behavior with a task and relationship dimension (Northouse, 2016, p. 78). We are also able to apply models like the Leadership Grid and The University of Michigan Studies in order to show other ways in which your boss can have an impact on their subordinate’s performance.
Researchers at Michigan identified two types of leadership behaviors: employee orientation and production orientation. Leaders who show behaviors that are more employee oriented, approach followers with strong human relation’s emphasis, they give special attention to their personal needs, and they value their individuality (Northouse, 2016, p. 73). In your example, some subordinates that would maybe benefit from behaviors as such are are the third teammate and maybe even the first teammate. The third teammate you mention can be emotional at times and also requires encouragement. The first teammate just graduated and needs a lot of guidance as this is her first time in the industry. Both of these teammates would benefit from behaviors from your boss that steer more towards employee orientation. The first teammate would benefit from this because in being new to the industry, I think it would be good for them to be able to get comfortable and get to know your boss on a personal level just to make the transition easier. As for the third teammate, it seems as though they need that constant human relationship and need a leader who offers special attention to their needs.
Production orientation on the other hand, is behaviors that the leader exhibit that stress technical and production aspects of a job (Northouse, 2016, p. 73). With these behaviors, workers are viewed as a means of getting work accomplished (Northouse, 2016, p. 73). Some instances at your work in which your boss would benefit from these types of behaviors in their leadership style would be in teammates 2, 3, and yourself. Teammate two would benefit greatly because you mentioned that she is very dependent on instructions. Teammate 3 I mentioned earlier would benefit from employee orientation, but the nice thing about the behavioral approach is that a leader is able to take aspects of both types of behaviors and implement them. That being said, I think teammate 3 is a perfect example of how your boss could apply both employee oriented and production oriented behaviors in order for both the follower and themselves to be most effective. As for yourself, you seem to have a tight grasp on what you’re doing at work. You mention that you have a lot of experience and it seems that your boss is applying behaviors that are production oriented and this seems to be working for both of you.
Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid lays out five major leadership styles based on a leader’s concern for production and their concern for people. Concern for people refers to how a leader attends to their followers by providing good working conditions. Promoting their personal worth, and promoting social relations (Northouse, 2016, p. 74). Concern for production means that as a leader, they put their focus on organizational tasks such as policy decisions, new product development, workload, and process issues (Northouse, 2016, p. 74). From the information you provided, I would place your boss under team management. This style has an equal and high amount of both production concern and people concern in which I think your boss caries both of. A leader with this style promotes a high level of participation, in which employees are involved and committed to their work (Northouse, 2016, p. 76). At the same time, there make priorities clear and focus on the task at hand.
“The behavioral approach works not by telling leaders how to behave, but by describing the major components of their behavior” (Northouse, 2016, p. 78). In some situations a leader may need to be task oriented, whereas other times they may need to be relationship oriented. In a workplace where your coworkers have differing needs, I think this is another great approach in which we can apply to your boss. I think that one way in which the situational approach and the behavioral approach complement each other are that they both allow the leader to be flexible in their style and they allow both the leader and the follower to develop and become more effective in their work.
References
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Georgette Jutta Kuzmenko says
It sounds like your boss was successful at knowing her strengths and identifying the strengths of her team in order to produce successful outcomes. By being able to place oneself in successful positions and keenly aware of one’s strengths, one is able to adapt to and create situations in order to be successful (Drucker, 2005). In essence being able to capture how one performs is their key to success (Drucker, 2005). It sounds like your boss is able to align herself in an environment best suited towards her strengths. It sounds as though she is able to incorporation relationship behaviors into leadership style. This may help with running a successful team as relationship behaviors aid in the comfort of the followers with the work being done, themselves, and the other team members (Penn State WC, 2019). With an overall emphasis that sounds like team management it makes sense that the team would be successful. Team management incorporates both relationships and tasks (Penn State WC, 2019). Leaders who follow team management tend to enjoy working (Penn State WC, 2019). In addition, they also set priorities, are determined, and are able to inspire and keep participation with their employees (Penn State WC, 2019). With the correct dedication, skills, and style one can see how some leaders seem to be born to be leaders.