There have been
some recent studies on why some leaders are effective, while others
aren’t. To get a better picture of why this was happening,
the environment and the context of the leadership was taken into
account.
Situational Leadership holds the theory that leadership should
concentrate on the situation instead of the personality or character of
the leader. Situational leadership is based on the idea that each
situation will need a different type of leader.
Situational Leadership tries to match the
environment to the right style of leadership. Situational Leadership
isn’t considered a theory, but a model.
This type of
leadership is considered a model because it relies on a pattern of
existing events instead of why things happen.
Situational Leadership focuses on describing
and analyzing leadership styles. It combines the ideas of directive and
supportive behaviors.
Directive behaviors include instructing people
what to do, how to do it, when to do it, etc. Supportive behaviors, on
the other hand, incorporate listening to people, encouraging and
supporting efforts made.
Hersey and Blanchard are some of the best
know developers of this leadership model. They wanted to find a way to
combine task behavior and relationship behavior (directive and
supportive). Depending on the maturity of the followers, either more
direct or supportive measures were implemented.
Fred Fiedler also developed a situational
leadership theory called Contingency Theory. He tried to measure the
leader’s orientation toward the task at hand or the
followers.
He then tried to determine the best leadership style that
should be used using three situations: the relationship between the
leader and followers, the type of task, and if the leader had a lot or
little power.
A couple of other situational leadership
models include the Path Goal model and the Normative Decision-Making
model. The Path Goal model focuses on developing goals and helping
followers achieve them.
The Normative Decision-Making model focuses on
with the appropriate leadership styles that should be used for various
types of decisions. For example, the three types of decision-making
have a different type of leadership style: autocratic decision making,
consultative decision making, and group decision making.
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