It is frustrating to be a leader and feel like you’re not being effective with your team. You start a project and let your team take control, only to see the project languish in execution or miss the goals completely. What could you have done differently? Was it a problem with you, your team members, or both?
The reality is, nobody is probably “at fault” in the situation. As a leader, you may have just not assessed the situation fully. Different situations may require different kinds of leadership (Northouse, 2016) and your current situation may just need a new approach. There are many approaches to understanding leadership. For example, there is the idea that leaders are born and have certain characteristics that make them successful, known as the trait approach (Northouse, 2016). There is another approach that looks at the behaviors of the leader and how their actions positively or negatively affected the situation, called the behavioral approach (Northouse, 2016). And then there is the situational approach, which is a way to understand why the same leadership approach may work sometimes with your team and others it does not. By understanding this approach, leaders may be able to make adjustments that lead to teams delivering better results.
The situational approach is based on the idea that different situations require different leadership styles (Northouse, 2016). It was described by researchers Hersey and Blanchard in 1969 and was further refined over the years by additional researchers, leading to a model called Situational Leadership II, developed by Blanchard and other researchers (Northouse, 2016). One of the reasons the situational approach can be helpful is that it considers your followers and takes into account their competence and commitment, which can have an effect on your own leadership effectiveness (Northouse, 2016).
Other theories on leadership help describe why leaders are successful. One difference with the situational approach is that it can help give you a roadmap to be a better leader (Northouse, 2016). If you understand how the situational approach works, you can make adjustments to get a better result from your team.
How does it do this? It starts by identifying four types of leadership styles and four levels of follower development (Northouse, 2016). The four leadership styles describe the levels of directive and supportive behaviors (Northouse, 2016). Directive behaviors are those related to giving direction and achieving goals (Northouse, 2016). Supportive behaviors are relational type of behaviors that involve social and emotional support (Northouse, 2016). It is helpful to picture these styles as being four quadrants, with supportive behaviors being on one axis and directive on the other. Leaders can then place themselves into one of four quadrants: low directive-low supportive; low directive-high supportive; high directive-high supportive; or high directive-low supportive.
High directive-low supportive is known as S1 or the directing style. In this style, the leader focuses on the goal and not supportive behaviors (Northouse, 2016). High directive-high supportive is known as S2 or the coaching approach. In this style, the leader focuses on both meeting goals and providing for the emotional needs of followers. High supportive-low directive is known as S3 or the supporting approach. In this style, the leader focuses on providing relational support to encourage the team members to use their skills to meet the goal. The low supportive-low directive is known as S4 or the delegating approach. In this style, the leader gives the followers control of how to meet the goal and is more hands off.
Before taking the followers into account, you can probably see the thinking behind this approach. There are times as leader that you might need to be more hands-on than other times. You wouldn’t use a delegating approach for a big initiative, like a company expansion, for example. Nor would you want to be fully directing on small matters like a new internal office process. Using the same approach to each situation would lead to ineffectiveness and inefficiency.
But as stated above, the situational approach also considers your followers and their levels of development. Four levels of competence and commitment are identified and are somewhat obvious: low competence-high commitment (D1); some competence-low commitment (D2); moderate-to-high competence-variable commitment (D3); and high competence-high commitment (D4) (Northouse, 2016).
If your team members are lacking the competence to meet your goal, using a delegating approach will be ineffective. Likewise, if your team members are lacking commitment, the coaching style will not necessarily get the results you expect because your team is not engaged. The situational approach, then, works to align your leadership style with the development level of your followers. A team that is lacking in commitment will need more supportive behaviors while one that is lacking in competency will need more directive behaviors. If a leader understands what development level his or her followers are at, the leader can adjust his or her leadership style to be more effective (Northouse, 2016).
What this means for you as a leader is that you have to assess your team and adjust your style in response. While the actual Situational Leadership II program includes a formal program with standard questionnaires, the overall principles can be applied in your leadership.
Here’s an illustration. Early in my career, I became the editor of a newspaper. Walking into the office, I wanted to make a good impression on the staff, so my style was very much the supporting approach. I concentrated on the relational aspects of the job and tried to encourage the changes I wanted to make with, essentially, pep talks to the staff. While I had a good relationship with my new staff, the newspaper was not moving in the direction that I expected and wanted. The staff was, of course, knowledgeable and bright, but I forgot one important piece: they worked under another editor and had expectations set through that editor. What I thought the staff should know was different than what they did know; they didn’t have the competence I expected. The situation dictated that my leadership style change. For the staff to meet the goals I set for the newspaper, I had to take on a more directing style and give very specific direction while sharing a very developed goal. This meant giving very direct instruction of how a story should be written and how to best cover a story. Overtime, the staff learned how I wanted stories written to improve the quality of the newspaper overall. But this process did have an effect on their commitment – several staff members became frustrated as I had to micromanage to a certain extent. At this point, with those staff members I had to move into a more coaching style so that relational behaviors helped address their frustration. In time, the staff became more in tune with my goals and delivered what was expected of them – but it was a long process that included regularly assessing the development level of the team members and adjusting my leadership style as we progressed.
As you assess your situation, some questions you can ask yourself are: What goal do I want I want my team to achieve? Is this goal complex? Does my team have the skills needed to achieve this goal? Does my team want to finish this job? (Northouse, 2016). Your team will not stay at the same development level; the answers to these questions may change over time. Only by understanding the development level of the team members can adjustments in leadership be made.
Reference:
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.).Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Rebecca Guest says
Matthew,
I value your assessment and interpretation of the Situational Approach. I similarly address this approach, but from the perspective of a follower rather than a leader. What I found important was the notion that the developmental levels were on a continuum, and that a staff member could be considered a D1 in relation to a specific task and a D4 in another. I’d find it interesting to know what kind of clarity or feedback was given when you determined that a leadership style requiring more directive behavior was needed. I also appreciated that you acknowledged when it was necessary to adjust your supportive behavior.
I personally find it motivating when a leader provides as much clarifying information as possible, from the get go. Although I’d consider myself to generally fall into the D4 developmental level at my current job, there are tasks that require additional information in order to reach goal achievement. Leaving the guess work out of the picture allows me to efficiently perform my duties without wasting time trying to figure out what the goal actually is.
This approach truly considers the leader, follower, and the situation. In your example, the developmental levels assessed may have been in regards to a particular task and relatively easy to assess over time after establishing your expectations. The particular project I work on as a government contractor, there’s no telling what’s going to be thrown your way from day to day. This is especially so since I support prosecution teams that all have different interpretations of case law. One day I could be creating a brief, the next representing our office at a meeting, and next reviewing documents for security concerns. If I were to be responsible for training someone how to do my job, I wouldn’t know where to start. I’ve found myself in this particular position a couple times now. What I was failing to do was assess their ability and willingness in order to adjust my leadership style. Most recently it became obvious that the person was lacking in both ability and confidence. In that instance, utilizing the situational approach, I now know that I should have engaged in a coaching leadership style that is high in both directive and supporting behavior in order to meet their needs. (Northouse, 2016)
In the future I think I’ll utilize the list of questions that you provided at the end of your post in order to properly assess what type of leadership approach I should use. There is no doubt that people are able to better perform if provided with the right tools, and sometimes those tools come in the form or supportive or directive behavior from a leader.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.).Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.