Situational Leadership

Friends,

Today I would like to share few of thoughts about how to be a good manager. Many times it has been a question from most of managers saying they are having hard time to get work done from people as hard as they used to do themselves.

Lets begin with a one of famous quote :
“Don't work hard.. work smarter...”

As a Manager, One need to learn to delegate the tasks...Manager should work for their staff and should not happen other way round.. One need to provide a resources and working condition to its staff in order to accomplish the goals you've agreed to.. At last, You need to roll up your sleeves and help your subordinates to win rather than wait to "catch them doing something wrong".

Note, If your subordinates win you win. And for that you need to work closely with those who need help, thus treat different people differently, just like saying "different strokes for different folks".

One minute Manager should assign tasks and should work closely with the person. Involve in his job if he lacks in experience or is new on job.

Listen to the person and work participative with the person who is doing well. Never tell him what to do, but together arrive at the direction you want.

One minute manager should be Situational Manager which means he should be able to change his style depending on conditions and peoples.

To Be a Situational Leader Learn 3 Things :

1. Flexibility : Use Variety of leadership style flexibly.

2. Diagnosis : Diagnose the need of people you supervise

3. Contracting : Come to some agreement with them, to contract with them for leadership style they need from you.

Four Basic Leadership styles are :

1. Directing : Leader provides specific instructions and closely supervise tasks accomplishments.

2. Coaching : Along with directing style, it also explains decisions, solicits suggestions and support progress.

3. Supporting : Leader facilitates and support sub-ordinates efforts and share responsibility for decisions making with team.

4. Delegating : Leader turns over responsibility for decision making and problem solving to sub-ordinates.

These 4 styles consist of different combination of 2 Basic Leadership Behaviors :

1. Directive Behavior : STRUCTURE, CONTROL & SUPERVISE

2. Supportive Behavior :PRAISE, LISTEN & FACILITATE

Directive Behavior is one way communication where you tell people when, where, why n how about the task. And monitor the task closely. You tell person what is goal and what a good job look like. You layout step by step plan to accomplish task and prob. is solved. You make decision and your sub-ordinate carries out your ideas

whereas

Supportive Behavior is where you support subordinates efforts, listen to their suggestions and facilitate their interaction with others. You encourage and praise to built their motivation and confidence.

There Is Nothing So Un-Equal As The Equal Treatments of Un-Equals.

Directing style leadership is better for enthusiastic beginners whereas coaching is the right style for disillusioned learners. Experienced people like a more participative management.

Delegating is Appropriate for people who are peak performers. If you are feeling very much loaded with work, if it goes beyond your head - Delegate it.

When I Slow Down, I Go Faster : So think before acting.....

Before using any leadership style, you need to diagnose the person's past performance. And competence and commitment are two important ingredients to determine person's
performance / achievement.

So Problem in either competence OR commitment OR Both determine that person is not doing well.

There is a slight difference between Competence and Ability. Many of you think, and do directly relate competence with ability of person.

Competence is a function of knowledge and skills which can be gained from education, training and/or experience.

Ability is 'natural' potential to acquire certain skill so easily whereas, Competence is something which can be developed with appropriate direction and support. It is not something you are born with. It's Learned.

Commitment is a combination of confidence and motivation.

We can define Confidence and Motivation as :

Confidence – Measure of self assuredness.

Motivation – Interest and enthusiasm to do task well.

People can have different combination of competence and commitment. And so it make up 'Development Level' for the person.

There are total 4 Development Levels. These are :

Thus, Everyone has Peak Performance Potential - You just need to find it.

Leader needs to do what people they supervise can't do for themselves at the present moment.

1. D1 has commitment but lacks competence, leader needs to provide Direction ( S1 ).

2. D2 lacks both competence & commitment, leader needs to provide both direction & Support ( S2 ).

3. D3 has competence but variable commitment, leader has to provide support ( S3 ).

4. D4 has both competence & commitment, leader does not need to provide either direction or support ( S4 ).

As the development level moves, manager should change and move leadership style.

Five Steps to develop persons Competence & Commitment :

(In other words steps to change person's development level)

1. Tell them what to do

2. Show them what to do

3. Let them try (But don't turn over too much responsibility, risk has to be reasonable)

4. Observe the performance ( You can Expect more, If you inspect more )

   But it means catch people doing right, Not wrong.

5. Praise the progress.

Remember to save Reprimands for D4, D3 and occasionally D2. If you use reprimand for D1 they might loose interest and stop trying. It's not a tool for training. Nor is it to teach skills. It's mostly a way to deal with Motivation and Attitude Problem.

Do not forget to have all facts and see theres no extenuating circumstances before Reprimand.

Decline in Performance, may caused by drop in confidence - You need to provide support and encouragement rather than Reprimand.

“Contracting” is a third skill of being Situational Leader :

As per most famous saying, “Situational Leadership is Not something you Do to People, But something you do With People”.

Most of managers may think as a manager, they had to figure out all by themselves but contracting eliminates all that worry. In Contracting, you come to mutual agreement with people you supervise.

By this time, when I have mentioned so much about Situational Managerial skills and Leadership of One minute manager, you must have comfortable enough to handle the situations and tackle the problems smartly. If you're nodding your head vertically... Voila.. you are almost Situational Leader.. Congratulations !! This was just first step and we have long run to go … Will keep posting further about it...

Courtesy :

Book : Leadership and the One Minute Manager

by Kenneth H. Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi
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