As we learn about leaders and what makes them successful or not, I can’t help but think about my 4th grade teacher. I was an average student but somehow she managed to bring out the best in me and I made the honor roll that year. Looking at the different aspects that make leaders, teachers have to adapt to their different students. Every student is different – some are smarter and grasp things easier while others may struggle and need a bit more help, there are those that can’t sit still or stop talking and others so shy they don’t speak up at all. Each student requires a different approach to help him or her learn. Situational leadership looks at leadership in different situations and each situation that presents itself needs to be addressed differently, and for a leader to be effective, they must change his or her style to fit those situations (PSU WC, 2016). It can be divided into two parts: Leadership Style and Developmental Level of Subordinates (Blanchard, 2008).
Leadership styles are broken down into four different categories of behaviors that are either high or low in either directive or supportive styles: Directing, coaching, supporting and delegating (PSU WC, 2016). Each one determines what style needs to be used based on the situation that is presented and the four different developmental level of the follower.
Teachers are leaders to their students and need to be able to change their behaviors to fit the different situations they are presented with. Each one of their students may fall into a different level of readiness and teachers need to be able to adjust accordingly. The students (followers) can fall in to one of four different development levels: two that are follower directed and two that are leader directed and are organized along a continuum of developmental opportunity of the follower ranging form high to low.
In the case of the teacher, if one student is able to complete their assignment then this would be follower directed and the teacher would only have to intervene minimally to give instructions on what needs to be done; this would be characterized as a level four or D4. On the other hand, the shy student in the corner may need a bit more coaxing so the teacher would have to switch behavior and become more of a coach to the student. This would be a leader directed situation, similar to a D2. Seeing as how many classrooms today consist of at lease 25-30 students – that is a lot of behavior switching!
The successful teacher is one that gets to know his or her students and figure out what works and what doesn’t. The same can be true of leaders – get to know your followers and find out what works and what doesn’t. I came across an article that looked at managers of Walgreen’s and how they got to know their employee’s and used it to their advantage to increase their profits. If interested it can be found at: https://hbr.org/2005/03/what-great-managers-do.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016). Psych485 – Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved from: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp16/psych485/002/content/05_lesson/04_topic/03_page.html
This is a really good example of the situational approach. Although I don’t think that all teachers do this, there is always those few teachers that seem to have a way of motivating everyone. The key to the situational approach is adapting ones leadership. According to Northouse (2016) in order for leaders to be effective, they must determine where their followers are on the developmental continuum and adapt their leadership style to match whatever development level that is (p. 97). Teachers are definitely in a very challenging situation. They typically will have 20 to 30 students in their class at a time and must adapt their style accordingly. And remember that the developmental levels can fluctuate depending on the situation. A student who is normally an A student, focused in class, can become distracted and fall behind. The good teacher will adapt understanding that he/she needs to become more supportive or directive. This seems challenging with 6 direct reports. I can’t imagine doing this with 30. And this is why I have so much respect for teachers.
The situational approach truly is practical. This was identified as one of its strengths. Northouse (2016) states, “Situational Leadership is easy to understand, intuitively sensible, and easily applied in a variety of settings” (p. 99). Your post provides some decent evidence to back up this statement. I enjoyed it!
Reference:
Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th Ed.). SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA. Print.