What is situational leadership
Situational leadership: Beyond the conventional fit
Great organizations know how to find a place for every kind of brain. They typically achieve this by cultivating talent, but they can also do it by finding ways to inspire people who don’t fit the traditional mold of expert or leader.
This takes creativity. What do you do with someone whose work style and personality don’t fit in? Isn’t it easier to swap them out for somebody better? Situational leadership says no.
In this blog, we’re talking about how situational leaders adapt to the unique needs of people on their teams. While it may sound like a formula, it’s anything but formulaic.
What is situational leadership?
Managers, like their team members, come in all varieties. Some managers like to take a hands-off approach to their teams, while others want to provide close monitoring and support. Some keep a professional distance while others defy dichotomies between being a good friend or a good boss.
If there’s a right way to manage, it has to be hidden between those extremes, right?
In 1969, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard investigated the “right way to manage” concept and arrived at a much different conclusion: team members are much better at meeting their managers’ needs when managers adapt to theirs.
Let’s break it down.
Some team members need lots of coaching and support, while others don’t. Therefore, a manager who only delegates while letting people “figure it out” will ultimately struggle to support drowning team members.
Meanwhile, managers who hold those employees’ hands may find their top performers bored and uninspired. Neither outcome is ideal, so situational leadership embodies a varied approach.
The Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership model starts by evaluating each team member’s development level—how their competence and commitment relate to the task at hand:
- Competence: This comprises the knowledge and skills that let someone get started quickly and proceed with a high chance of success. Do they know what they’re doing? Can they find answers to their questions? Are they able to show others how to do it?
- Commitment: This is the motivation and confidence to stay focused and keep improving. Do they ask lots of questions about how to do it right? Are they avoiding distractions at work? Do they communicate regularly?
Note: Situational leadership theory works under the assumption that your employees are somewhat committed to their work. If they can’t make themselves care about it at all, you may need to find someone else who does.
Assess each team member’s development levels by measuring high/low competence and high/low commitment. Are they excited but unfamiliar? That combination falls under low competence with high commitment. Experienced but jaded? High competence but low commitment.
From there, you can sort team members into more nuanced categories:
- D1: Low Competence, High Commitment: New hires often fall into the “enthusiastic beginner” category. They know they want to contribute but need much more guidance. Their primary need is training from the ground up.
- D2: Some Competence, Some Commitment: Frustration is an everyday hurdle to mastery. Employees who understand their jobs but aren’t experts may struggle to stay focused and optimistic. These people need confidence to keep learning and, above all else, time spent building good habits.
- D3: High Competence, Low Commitment: Just because someone does something well doesn’t mean they’re committed to an employer, especially in today’s job market, where sparse raises cause more job hopping than ever. These competent people need motivation to buy into their company’s vision.
- D4: High Competence, High Commitment: These are your leaders. Experienced and self-reliant, they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. They are likely to succeed in the assignments you give them.
These categories offer a helpful starting point for deciding how to lead different team members. Some people need more training; others need more independence.
So, how does this apply to effective leadership?
Exploring leadership styles
It’s easy to manage those D4 employees. They already know what to do and are happy to do it. The challenge is effectively managing everyone else.
The situational approach offers four different leadership styles that adapt to corresponding development styles:
S1: Telling
For D1 employees excited to contribute, the “Telling” approach offers a heavy helping of task-focused upfront support. Start with a holistic, ground-zero tutorial that assumes nothing about what they already know. Ask questions to check for understanding, and move slowly until you establish common ground.
S1 leadership uses directive behavior to outline expectations for a job well done. Provide close supervision over specific tasks, and avoid exclusionary questions like, “Everybody understands that, right?” Help them clarify their role.
This is your chance to provide an example of excellent work and show your new hires exactly how to get there.
S2: Selling
D2 employees need a chance to be heard, making dialogue the key for S2 leadership. Managers need to track down and clear up misunderstandings so disillusioned learners can gain more confidence to keep trying.
Good leaders can open up dialogue through the following:
- Mentorship programs with experienced employees
- Regularly scheduled one-on-ones and follow-ups
- The occasional Slack message asking how things are going
- Work shadowing to ask about and observe their task behavior
Mainly, S2 leadership seeks to establish good habits by allowing employees to understand what’s being asked of them. The better they know their role in a given situation, the more motivated they’ll be to contribute.
S3: Participating
Most managers work in the S3 quadrant—doing the usual daily tasks and building relationships with their more skilled D3 team members.
D3 employees are good at what they do. However, they are less committed to actually doing it, and since they don’t need task-focused instruction, managing them can be challenging.
What helps these folks is an opportunity to lead and participate more. They should have input on strategic decisions and problem-solving. They may even need a chance to oversee other team members.
Carve out a unique role for D3 employees. Help them become self-reliant achievers by facilitating chances for them to feel needed and valued at work.
S4: Delegating
There’s not much to say about D4 employees. They are skilled, motivated, and easy to manage. The biggest advice for managers is not to overdo it.
D4 employees lock in quickly and don’t stop until their work is done. They know how to manage time unless their managers keep pinging them about inconsequential details or scheduling unnecessary meetings, which will frustrate D4s.
S4 management is hands-off. Give these folks clear instructions about what to do, and then let them do it. Check-in as needed to maintain good working relations, but beyond that, leave them to their work.
Transitioning between different styles
Situational leadership seeks to accommodate each individual’s work style. However, it’s a system that treats certain employees differently than others—sometimes with more trust and freedom—and not everyone likes that.
The value of a philosophy like situational leadership is that it provides a rationale for adapting to different employees. You’ll have a clear answer if asked to explain your decisions. Still, knowing how to move gracefully between leadership styles is good.
First and foremost, continue building relationships with your teams. When asked, be open to questions about your leadership approach and sympathetic to any concerns.
Also, consider that each task may call for a different arrangement of leadership styles. Someone who excels at coding may not be great at talking to clients, so be prepared to reevaluate each team member’s development level as needed.
Finally, communicate what’s going on. Your frankness is your power here. The more people feel included in your thought process, the more support they’ll give you.
Challenges to Situational Leadership
Adapting to individuals’ needs requires more thought than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. However, the more you practice actively assessing your team members’ needs, the easier it will be to find ways to support them.
There are some other challenges with situational leadership, too, such as:
- Achieving long-term goals: Switching management styles on the fly can bump specific tasks to the front of the priority queue. Suddenly, you’re stuck arranging a mentorship instead of delivering what the client paid for. Being organized is a key skill when it comes to situational leadership.
- Lots of assessments: Planning how to manage someone means first understanding their strengths and weaknesses. You may spend more time than you like determining someone’s level of commitment or competence. One way to simplify things is using an assessment template rather than winging it every time.
- Dependence on managers: Some managers may need more training on adapting to different work styles. As time passes, this philosophy becomes more ingrained in your company culture, but early on, it can take extra effort and programming.
Situational leadership offers an unparalleled method for giving employees what they need to thrive. It’s a philosophy that is flexible, trusting, and insightful for individuals, helping to provide many pathways to develop hard and soft skills.
Meet employees where they are
This blog started by saying that, like employees, there are no perfect management styles, but that’s not true. There is a perfect management style: the one that adjusts to all different varieties of employee work styles.
Learning to lead by situation maximizes each team member’s strengths while minimizing the liability of their weaknesses. Along with high work outputs, you’ll have more satisfied employees, higher retention, and a united workplace culture.
More resources:
10 best practices in change management
6 management best practices you can implement now
Digital age workplace: Why soft skills matter more than ever
Want more insights like these? Visit Dallin Nelson’s author page to explore his other articles and expertise in business management.