Watch me explaining the concept of situational leadership styles in the video above.
What gives anyone the right to be a leader? Winning elections or being popular (not the same thing since the US election of 2016), having the right knowledge, skills and expertise or claiming the role with power? I gave it a serious thought and I believe that different situations require different skills, and therefore, different leaders and leadership styles, from authoritarian to democratic and permissive.
By spending time actually observing the behavior of leaders in a wide variety of situations, the Ohio State staff found that they would classify most of the activities of leaders into two distinct and different behavioral categories or dimensions. They named these two dimensions “Initiating Structure” (task behavior) and “Consideration” (relationship behavior).
How much engagement or management a leader must display/provide to the people they lead depends directly on the difficulty of tasks that are set before the team - that we all understand and have experienced on our lives. But it also depends on a different dimension - the relationship that a manager or leader has with the team. These two elements are complementary, not mutually exclusive as it was believed previously (Hersey and Blanchard).
The two dimensions are represented below in the Situational Leadership Model.
Situational Leadership Model
Situational Leadership is based on an interplay among (1) the amount of direction (task behavior) a leader gives, (2) the amount of socioemotional support (relationship behavior) a leader provides, and (3) the “readiness” level that followers exhibit on a specific task, function, activity or objective that the leader is attempting to accomplish through the individual or group (followers).
High-task/low-relationship leader behavior (S1) is referred to as “telling” [or 'delegating'] because this style is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of followers and tells them what, how, when, and where to do various tasks.
High-task/high-relationship behavior (S2) is referred to as “selling” [or 'supporting'] because with this style most of the direction is still provided by the leader. The leader also attempts through two-way communication and socioemotional support to get the followers psychologically to “buy into” decisions that have to be made.
High-relationship/low-task behavior (S3) is called “participating” [or 'coaching'] because with this style the leader and followers now share in decision making through two-way communication and much facilitating behavior from the leader, since the followers have the ability and knowledge to do the task.
Low-relationship/low-task behavior (S4) is labeled “delegating” [or 'directing'] because the style involves letting followers “run their own show.” The leader delegates since the followers are high in readiness, have the ability, and are both willing and able to take responsibility for directing their own behavior.
As I mention at the beginning of this article, different situations will require different balance of direction (task behavior) and support (relationship behavior). Determining the type of leadership one must take on depends on the level of readiness (or competence) of the team.
Team members (followers) readiness levels to follow a leader's directions
[...] in working with people who are low in readiness (R1) in terms of accomplishing a specific task, a high-task/low-relationship style (S1) has the highest probability of success; in dealing with people who are of low to moderate readiness (R2), a moderate structure and socioemotional style (S2) appears to be most appropriate. In working with people who are of moderate to high readiness (R3), a high-relationship/tow-task style (S3) has the highest probability of success; and finally, a low-relationship/low-task style (S4) has the highest probability of success in working with people of high task-relevant readiness (R4).
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