Situational leadership - Hersey and Blanchard

Abstract

The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership is a theory designed to help leaders finding the most effective leadership style from different circumstances they find themselves in. The theory was developed by author Paul Hersey and leadership expert Ken Blanchard, first introduced in late 1960s as Life Cycle Theory of Leadership but renamed in the mid-1970 as Situational Leadership Model . The theory was inspired by the changing leadership needed by parents as a child grows up from infancy to adulthood. An infant needs a different leadership style than as a young adult, so Hersey and Blanchard felt as the same logic held true for managing new, developing and experienced workers.

In 1980s Blanchard made a number of changes to the original model which is now called Situational Leadership II or SLII . (This article will focus on this new and improved Situational Leadership model, the SLII. ) The theory contains a flexible style, whereas the manager adapts their management style to situational factors in the workplace. By understanding, recognizing, and adapting to these situational factors, the leaders will be able to influence their surroundings and followers much more successfully than if these factors are ignored. The fundamental foundation of the theory is that there is no single best style of leadership and the most effective leadership varies on the project and the employees working on the project .

Big Idea

SLII proposes that there are four primary leadership styles that are suitable for four different followers’ directive behavior, often called the four development levels. The leadership styles are Directing, Coaching, Supporting and Delegating. SLII helps the leader answer the questions on what the right form of leadership for this person is, in a specific context. The context is the task, and a task can be defined as a project from a project management perspective. Further on, this article will relate the SLII to project managers and why this technique is effective and important in project management. .

Leadership Styles

The model that Hersey and Blanchard developed contains four leadership styles. The updated model from SLII in figure 1 shows how the different leadership styles is placed depending on its behavior. X-axis shows the degree of Directive Behavior that the leader must exhibit with each style of leadership, while the Y-axis shows the degree of Supportive Behavior.

The theory suggests that effective leadership is dependent on two behaviors: supporting and directing. Directing behaviors give directions, instructions and control the behavior of team members while supporting behavior include actions like encouraging, listening, and giving attention and feedback .

Description of the leadership styles

S1 Directing	Managers are high on directive behavior but low on supportive behavior. The manager tells the person what the goal is and what a good job looks like, but he also lays out a step-by-step plan about how the project is to be completed.
S2 - Coaching	Coaching combines both direction and support. The manager provides a lot of support, listens well and encourages. This type of leadership teaches the follower how to evaluate their own work.
S3 - Supporting	Opposite of directing, managers are high on supportive behavior but low on directive behavior. The manager supports the employees’ efforts, listen to suggestions and builds up their confidence in their competence.
S4 - Delegating	The manager turns the responsibility over to the employee. He provides low supportive and low directive behavior as the employee has gained confidence and competence in the task

Development Levels

Description of the development levels

D1 - Enthusiastic Beginner	An enthusiastic beginner is an employee that has low competence and high commitment. Eager to learn, curios and fairly confident that learning won’t be difficult.
D2 - Disillusioned Learner	This type of an employee has low to some competence and confidence, meaning that he knows what he is supposed to be doing, but still lacks the confidence. [one-minute] Now the enthusiastic beginner is a disillusioned learner where he has gained more skills and knowledge about the project, but still want to know all about the whats, hows, and whys.
D3 - Capable but Cautious	The capable but cautious contributor has demonstrated some competence and experience, but lack confidence in doing that project alone.
D4 - Self-Reliant Achiever	A self-reliant achiever has high competence, high confidence and need little to no direction from their manager. This best describes an employee who has a lot of experience and has been performing a job for a while.

Application

How to identify a suitable leadership style

When determining what style to use with what development level, leaders need to do what the people they are leading can’t do for themselves at the present moment.

When making an assessment of the situation, the project leader should combine task behavior and relationship behavior. Task behavior provides clear directions and guidance while relationship behavior builds an interpersonal bond between the project leader and the team member. [PM síðan]

A directing style is an appropriate match when a decision has to be made quickly and the stakes are high. It is also suitable for when an employee has little work experience for a specific project, but you as a manager see a lot of potential in. Directing is therefore also suitable for inexperienced employees that the manager thinks have the potential to be self-directed. Therefore, S1 applies well with D1 since D1 has commitment but lacks competence and therefore the leader needs to provide direction.

Developing people as a leader

Once the leader has figured out where the employee stands, he can start to think about how to develop that person from being an enthusiastic beginner to a self-reliant achiever.

Limitations & Reflections

Limitations

Annotated Bibliography

Zuest, Project Management Institute. Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2017. Project Management Institute.

Blanchard, K., Zigrami, P., & Zigrami, D. (2013). Leadership and the One Minute Manager. William Morrow & Company.

See also

Hersey, P. & Blanchard, K. H. (1969). "Life cycle theory of leadership". Training and Development Journal.

Hersey and Blanchard original thoughts on the Situational Leadership written in 1969. This book was not used in the making of this article but is however very relevant to the subject.