Practical Situational Leadership Examples

Welcome to the Situational Leadership forum of 12manage.

Here we exchange knowledge and experiences in the field of Situational Leadership.

❗Sign up now to gain access to 12manage. Completely free.

Continue for free

Please sign up and login to continue reading.

Here we exchange knowledge and experiences in the field of Situational Leadership.

❗Sign up now to gain access to 12manage. Completely free.

Comments by date▼

Comments by rating

Rating

Rohana Kahaduwa Kankanamge
Manager

Examples of Use of Situational Leadership Styles

Can anyone describe a simple situation experienced as a leader or a follower where situational leadership styles were used? Many thanks...

Anonymous

Examples of Situational Leadership

Here are a few simple examples of adjusting your style as a leader:

A toddler (very young infant) is learning to walk. At first, the parent will guide the toddler and even help him. However, as he grows, the parent has to just monitor, and let him choose his path. As he makes further progress, the infant learns to walk on his own, and the parent will not need to either direct or monitor him.
Likewise, with training and motivation, a subordinate will improve, and according to the changing situation, the leader has to change his style―being less directive over time.
An emergency room in a hospital. The leader of such room has to be quite authoritative. In situations of acute emergency, there is no time for extensive debates and the leader has to direct his subordinates clearly and firmly, using all her/his skills and expertise. Similarly in a war situation, the military commander might have to direct the troops to follow a particular strategy, in case the situation demands it.
A manager has a particular assignment to complete. However, another important task arises that requires him/her to be present. She/he may choose to assign that task to a competent associate. In this case, he/she needs to 'delegate' the work, and show complete trust, without interfering in the style of working of the associate.

❗Editor: as explained below by Anonymous and @Jaap de Jonge, only example #1 is a pure example of Situational Leadership as per Blanchard/Hersey.

Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands

Practicing Situational Leadership

@Halima el ghrari: Is a classroom with that many students suitable for practicing situational leadership? Not really. You might try splitting up the classroom in small groups while appointing 1 person as the "Manager", another one as Monitor (responsible for observing how the manager is doing) and 2-4 others as persons to be managed. Each of those person could play a role of S1-4. After an hour or so you can rotate the people.
Normally a coaching environment and a lot of practicing with feedback will provide better and lasting results than a classroom.
See also the discussion: Use of Situational Leadership by Teachers

Anonymous

The Examples 2+3 are not that Great

Example 2. Goes no further than decision making these leaders tell only what to do when - not how. It's their job to prioritize; this is not the directing style of SL.
Example 3. The question is: is the colleague competent for this specific task? Generalising someone's competence could mean you are delegating a task to someone that has never done the specific task.

Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands

Examples 1, 2 and 3 of 'Situational Leadership'

@Anonymous: I agree. We have to be extremely careful here with how we use the term "situational leadership".
All 3 examples ARE in examples of adjusting one's management style to a particular situation - something that is generally advisable.
However, only example #1 is an example of adjusting one's management style to a person & job to be done in the way described in the Situational Leadership model by Blanchard and Hersey. According to that model, leaders should adapt their style to the follower's maturity, based on how ready and willing the follower is to perform required tasks (that is, their competence and motivation).

vijay kumar jain
Consultant, India

Examples of Situational Leadership by Parents

Situational leadership also can be understood the way parents relate to their children as they grow up;
1 Style S1 Directing. High when the child is infant i.e up to the age 6 / , when the child's competence skills are low. The parents are often in a directing mode by telling what to do, what not to do. What is good what is bad and so on. Thus parenting in these years is highly directing.
2 Style S2 Coaching. When the child is in the age of 8 to 16 years, the parents' behavior becomes more coaching because now the child has some skills but they need to be fine-tuned with experience. For example when buying shoes for a child, they may ask the child to choose but help in making the final decision. Thus by coaching in different situations they help to learn skills by coaching and the directing behavior is only occasional.
3 Style S3 Supportive. When the child is studying for graduation, the children's focus is on their studies and preparing themselves for the future. The parents' behavior is supportive both emotionally and financially. For example, when the child wants to pursue higher studies they extend all possible support, if the child is in a relationship with a girl they may support them but also make the child aware of the consequences on his life and family etc. Here the parents are supportive by preparing the child to enter the world (i.e work, life and organization) on his own.
4 Style S4 Delegating. This style of the parents towards their "child" is used when they are 25 years or more and are married and maybe have a child (a grand son or grand daughter). Now the parents generally say to the child: "Now you are in the flow of life in the world, go ahead and make your decisions for the betterment of family". In this stage, parents do not interfere with the lifestyle and decisions their child makes as they believe now the child has adequate competence and commitment to deal with challenges in their life.