Situational Leadership

Abstract

One of the four perspectives that comprise a project according [1] is people. People are a valuable resource inside the project and an external factor that can influence a smooth and successful management. Leadership can extract the most value of this resource and steer how the team will work together. Furthermore, being a leader, it is a broad concept and can be exercised by many functions, not only by management, although good leadership in management positions will cause a positive and more noticeably impact in the organization. Situational Leadership is a process that can enhance the impact that leaders have on others. It is based on a flexible style of leadership in function of the person development. Thus, this methodology will provide guidelines about approaches for different types of team members. Inside a project, having a good leadership can be essential for a healthy environment and the success of the endeavor. The classical organizations and hierarchical chains created a centralized way for decision-making which further influenced how superiors would leader their team, with top-bottom approaches that often would be exercised through micro-management and lack of trust in the employee. With the development of organizational studies and with the companies realizing the importance of creating a safe environment for the team to prosper and succeed in projects, a methodology of leading the team was needed. Thus, the so-called Situational Leadership was then developed by Hersey and Blanchard. Furthermore, this methodology was concerned about the amount of the development of the employee, considering its personality, behavior and past experiences.

leadership which is the tool that will make empowerment work, and make the most out of it . For that self leadership needs to be developed [2]. Situational Leadership is a tool that uses different types of leadership styles to be able to match the employee stage of development. This matching will produce a more natural and safe environment for the employee to produce and to grow. There are 4 styles of leaderships and 4 stages of development, each one of them can be seen below.

Application

Here how to apply the methodology will be explained. The idea is to explain how to: identify the development process of the employee, match with the leadership style and adapt (use mixed styles) if needed. The development history will be presented including the findings of recent studies such as [3]

Situational Leadership I

The Situational Leadership is a methodology that was born in the Management of Organizational Behavior field, and it was first introduced as “life cycle theory of leadership” in 1969 by Hersey and Blanchard. This methodology is based on a two-variable methodology on leadership, that relies on task behavior and relationship behavior. This approach considers how that specific person will react to performing tasks and how it will react with the task handover. So, the theory explains leadership styles combining the task behavior and relationship behavior and then link this style to a maturity level (development stage) that represent level of knowledge, skill and confidence of the person being lead. The leadership styles and development stages on the first work of situational leadership can be seen in Figure X and Figure X respectively. In the theory Hersey and Blanchard suggest that no leadership style is an optimum style to be used at all times but are guidelines that the leader can base on its leadership style and adapt depending on the situation and its own experience. The methodology then recommends a leadership style for each maturity level which highly correlates to the type of task that is being performed, meaning that if a task is highly complex but that has been done before, a more experienced skilled person would feel more comfortable doing it, and it would fell more comfortable with more freedom, while a person with less experience would need more guidance a management.

Situational Leadership II

Situational Leadership applied to Project Management

Project Management Insitute defines leadership as one of the core skills of a successful project manager [5]. One of the project management pillars explained by [1] is people. Motivation inside the project team and also stakeholders management is areas that will steer the management of a project and sometimes increase the likelihood of success. Here the author is to connect how applying situational leadership in a project, program or portfolio can increase the likelihood of success and create a better management overall. One way is motivating the team to work in towards a single goal and for them to be sympathetic with other employee's problems, since any problem can jeopardize the project success, acting as one organism is a key to success, having the team members being led by a approach that match their development will make them work in a more comfortable environment and enable this type of behavior. Another approach to use situational leadership to increase the likelihood of success is to use it when communicating with stakeholders, since trying to understand their stage in life, their goals and a bit of the context in which they are can give substantial information to steer the project and to communicate clearly with them.

Finally one will mention teams that can be influenced by this technique in a project.

• Project team
• Consultant team (participating in the project)
• Internal Stakeholders (higher management and different departments)

Limitations

Having such a static methodology can sometimes be a limitation, specially when people management is involved. Here the main discussion will go around the fact that different stages of development do not summarize the intricacies of one person and that employee. Its personality, family history and other social and psychological characteristics can influence the productivity and the style of leadership needed.

Annotated Bibliography

[1] Doing Projects. A Nordic Flavour to Managing Projects : DS-handbook 185:2017. / Geraldi, Joana; Thuesen, Christian; Oehmen, Josef et al.

[2] Blanchard, K., Zigrami, P., & Zigrami, D. (2013). Leadership and the One Minute Manager (pp. 38-41). William Morrow & Company.

[3] Avery, G. C., & Ryan, J. (2002). Applying situational leadership in Australia. Journal of Management Development, 21(4), 242-262.

[4] Nicholls, J. R. (1985). A new approach to situational leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.

[5] PMI, P. (2017). Project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® guide). Project Management Institute, Inc.: Newtown Square, PA, USA.