Understand Situational Leadership

The Situational Leadership Theory, is a leadership theory developed by Paul Hersey, professor and author of the book Situational Leader, and Ken Blanchard, leadership guru and author of The One Minute Manager, while working on the first edition of Management of Organizational Behavior. The theory was first introduced as "Life Cycle Theory of Leadership". During the mid 1970s, "Life Cycle Theory of Leadership" was renamed "Situational Leadership theory". Situational leadership is basically refers to leadership that’s contextual, formed as the result of a certain situation. On various occasions the situation represents some kind of crisis and unharmonious. The person that naturally emerges as leader in these situations is going to be the person that is best equipped to deal with that particular situation and that is situational leadership.

According to me, leadership inherently related with emotional intelligence in a relationship with social intelligence that bring a person as leader who know, how to deal the situations with mind and get desire result with intelligent decision making.

For example, imagine a person who suffers some sort of mental trauma during watching film in cinema, as we all know from best practices the thing to do next is to shout ‘is anyone here a doctor’. Then if there is a doctor present everyone will make way for them to their thing. Now the doctor is in a leadership position, and should he instruct someone to call an ambulance, bring them a knife or clear a table that’s what they’ll do. Similarly if a group of friends get lost and one of those friends happens to be from around the area - then that friend will emerge as leader and the others will turn to them to look for a way out. In other words in any scenario, the person most likely to be able to steer the group safely out of harm’s way is the person that will become leader. Of course however if someone has the knowledge but keeps it to themselves, or appears uncertain, then they still may not emerge as leader which is why confidence is equally important.

Situational leadership leads a natural response and has evolved to make sure we stand the best chance of survival in such dire situations - and in some extreme cases picking the correct leader for a group can mean the difference between life and death.

“The successful leader is one who is able to behave appropriately. … If direction is in order … able to direct; if considerable participative freedom is called for … able to provide such freedom.”
 
Situational leadership relates the following context directly or indirectly:

Task behavior is the extent to which a leader engages in one-way communication by explaining what each follower is to do, as well as when, where, and how tasks are to be accomplished.

Relationship behavior is the extent to which a leader engages in two-way communication by providing socio-emotional support, “psychological strokes”, and facilitating behaviors.

Readiness is the ability and willingness of a person to take responsibility for directing his own behavior in relation to a specific task to be performed.

Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation

Presently, there appears to be two mainstream theories describing situational leadership. The first model we'll discuss is based on Daniel Goleman's elements of emotional intelligence: self awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.

Posted in: Confidence,Emotional intelligence,Leadership,Psychology,Time management