Theories of Leadership and Management

You assign a new employee a task as you run off to a meeting, do your work or to take that precious lunch break. When you get back, you learn that this person has not completed what you have asked of him/her, not because they did not want to, but because they did not know how and did not ask for help. Because of this, time is wasted and now you have to actually do some work yourself. What would be a good way to minimize the likelihood of things like this happening in the future?

For many years, people in positions to lead others have been struggling to find that one leading style that would work the best, but study after study fail to find this miracle style. To be a great and efficient leader, we must utilize multiple styles and adapt to others needs in different situations.

Paul Hersey is a behavioral scientist that is best known for coming up with Situational Leadership. Ken Blanchard is an author and expert in the management field. They are both management experts and argue that situations like this happen due to the fact that those placed in leadership positions do not always match their personal leading styles with the needs of the people they are to lead. Blanchard is best known for his book “The One Minute Manager”, which has sold more than 13 million copies. Together Paul and Ken published “Management of Organization Behavior” currently in its ninth edition. Hersey also wrote “The Ethical Executive” and “Avoiding the Traps of the Unethical Workplace”. In this paper we will discuss the Hersey-Blanchard Leadership Theory and how to utilize it to create the best leadership style for different people and situations.

This theory of leadership was created by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. Both of whom are author...

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... succeed and will guide and build their followers to acceptable levels while striving to improve and achieve the highest quality of workers to maximize work productivity.

Works Cited

Blanchard, P. H. (1988). Management of Organization Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Hersey, P. A. (1969). "Life cycle theory of leadership: is there a best style of leadership?". Training and Development, pp. 26-34.

Kets de Vries, M. L. (1994). "The leadership mystique". Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 8 No.3, pp. 73-92.

Norris, W. a. (1992). "Situatiojal leadership theory". Group and Organization Management, Vol. 7 No.3, pp. 331-42.

Vecchio, R. (1987). "Situational leadership theory: an examination of a prescriptive theory". Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 72 No. 3, pp. 444-451. http://situational.com/ http://www.kenblanchard.com/