Situational Leadership

What are the three most useful ideas or concepts you have learned about Situational Leadership in this course?  What specifically will you do over the next 8 weeks to apply these learnings on the job?

Before embarking this journey throughout the past 8 weeks I believed I knew exactly what Situational Leadership was all about. My ideology was “this course will prepare you as a leader to manage different situations appropriately”. Instead, I gained much more. Collectively, there’s a plethora of ideas and concepts that I’ve gathered throughout this course, however the three that have resonated with me are as follows:

1.Follower Readiness

2.Leadership Behaviors & Styles

3. Cognitive Dissonance

According to Hersey & Campbell (2004), within the Situational Leadership Model, Step 1 Identifies the task or activity to be performed. Step 2 relates to the follower’s readiness to perform a task or activity.

Readiness Level 1: (Unable & Unwilling)- The follower is unable to complete a task and unwilling to do so

Readiness Level 2: (Unable but willing)- The follower lacks the ability to complete a task but willing and motivated to make an effort

Readiness Level 3: (Able but unwilling)- The follower has the ability to complete the task however they are unwilling to perform

Readiness Level 4: (Able & Willing)- The follower has the ability to complete the task and commits to doing it.

Understanding these readiness levels completely changed my mindset towards coaching individuals. In an effort to increase my adaptability as a leader, being aware of the readiness levels now helps me appropriately diagnose the traits in which some individuals within my organization may display. Since learning this information I’ve made it my duty to fully analyze each of my team members and see exactly how I can possibly change their readiness level. I’ve already found that creating a focus group geared towards the actual needs of my team members have changed the attitude of those that were able, but a bit insecure. I’ve noticed some of my members that were previously struggling to complete task are now willingly and thoroughly doing so.

Another concept that I found extremely useful throughout this course was the identification of Leadership Styles and Behaviors. Just the same as follower readiness, leader behaviors are broken up into four styles. Through the completion of the LEAD assessment (Center for Leadership Studies, 2016) I found my primary leadership style is S2 which is High Task/High Relationship (HT/HR) (Hersey & Campbell, 2004). According to Hersey & Campbell (2004), the leader provides guidance in addition to clarity. Leaders have adapted the style of “coaching” and “selling”. I was pleasantly surprised by the results of the assessment. Although I was quite aware of my leadership traits, I was extremely unaware of how I may come off to certain individuals. For example, an individual with a readiness level of R3, my leadership style perhaps comes off in a preaching manner. While my intentions are always good, R3 followers may regard the leadership style as unaffectionate and commanding. Learning this concept greatly helped me dig deep to see which areas I needed to reevaluate in order to become the effective leader that I strive to become. I made it a point of duty to become a better listener. Sometimes through delegation and making sure others are clear on the task at hand, small yet very important details can be overlooked which can make all of the difference throughout my organization.