Using the Situational Approach in Leadership Training

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Northouse’s (2013) book presents a case study of a training series at a pharmaceutical company. The training specialist realized his approach with attendees was not effective half through the series. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the training series using the Situational Approach. The attendees’ development level and Jim’s initial leadership style will be identified. Using the leadership perspective, weaknesses in Jim’s approach will be identified and potential changes recommended.

The Situational Approach to leadership focuses on the leader’s ability to assess and adapt to the demands of a situation. Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson (2009) stated no one leadership style is consistently effective given the diverse individuals and tasks making up each situation (as cited in Ramkissoon, 2013). Thus, the contexts requiring leadership must be assessed for their diversity and an appropriate leadership style selected.

Assessment of the Situation

The situation is a six-week training series on listening and communication skills. The series’ attendees are managers from the research and development department. The managers have some skills in listening and communication but have low levels of commitment for trainings in general. These aspects put the managers in a D3 level of development (Northouse, 2013). The lack of commitment to fully participate in the training shows limited readiness. Readiness is the ability or willingness to take responsibility to direct one’s behaviors (Hersey & Blanchard, 2009 as cited in Ramkissoon, 2013). The lack of readiness is seen in managers’ relaxing attendance over the four weeks.

Jim’s initial leadership is a supporting style. Northouse (2013) included social support and giving control to t...

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...ation and subordinates. Jim initially used a continuous supporting style which did not match the managers’ development level involving little commitment. The mismatch of style to the situation caused the leadership to be ineffective and the training series to be unsuccessful. Jim needs agility to use various and concurrent leadership styles as situations and subordinate’s readiness are complex and consistently changing. The Situational Approach calls leaders to assess, adapt and repeat.

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. (2013). Situationally speaking. Management Services, 57(2), 42-47.

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice. (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Ramkissoon, A. (2013). A preliminary investigation of the applicability of situational leadership in other cultures. International Journal of Business Strategy, 13(1), 43-48.

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