One way to look at leadership is situational. The situational leadership model shifts the behavior of the leader as the employee's behavior or needs change. For a new employee, the manager's behavior is very directive. At this stage you are in training mode; we give the employee lots of information and direction. The goal is to move an employee to move through several stages to a point where we are the coach and mentor, and the amount of time and direction needed from us is minimal. The employee is able to do the job well without our direction. But, we can't just jump from directive to coach. To transition, there are stages. After directing, the manager is still telling the employee what to do, but the level of telling and direction has decreased. The employee is able to do the task with some direction and feedback, versus total direction and feedback.

In the third transition stage, the leader is supportive and motivating. The staff member can do the assignment with little intervention from the manager. The fourth stage is the objective, one in which the staff member is fully knowledgeable and empowered to do their job with the support and mentorship of the manager. In this stage the manager is the cheerleader, recognizing accomplishments and the motivator.

Even though, it would be easy to have linear maps of human behavior, this again is not the case. As the manager, you will need to shift with ease through the different phases and be able to step back if an employee needs more direction at some point. When a new task or responsibility appears the supervisor shifts back to directing At this point, a new cycle of training and mentoring is started. The manager's role is to give the direction needed to complete the cycle once again, to the final stage of empowered action, in which the employee is capable of doing high quality work.

This article is based upon Hershey and Blanchard's situational leadership model, from their book: Management of organizational behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. (1982, Prentice-Hall, Inc.)

Copyright: 2006

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