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The purpose of this resource is to outline and describe situational leadership.  Situational leadership indicates that leaders should vary their approach based on the people they are leading in order to support their development in a specific setting.  This theory stresses that no two individuals are the same and therefore each should be directed based on their needs within the setting.  Within this theory there are four leadership styles: directing, coaching, supporting and delegating (Wright, 2017).  The leader assesses the individual’s readiness for the setting and utilizes the appropriate leadership style to support further development, contributing to socio-emotional support and work efficacy (Wright, 2017).  Images and videos have been used to enhance the understanding of how situational leadership is used in various settings.

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Situational leadership is characterized by many different techniques which are dependent on the culture of the workplace as well as the attitudes, level of competence, and commitment of the followers. Situational leadership can be further defined using the Situational Leadership Model shown below (Hersey, Blanchard, & Natemeyer, 1979). This model is based upon the leadership style itself as well as the development of the follower. Within the leadership style matrix, there are four styles ranging from S1 to S4. Leaders must evaluate the situation and the characteristics of the followers to choose the style that is most appropriate, as indicated by the curve along the matrix. Directing leaders make up the “S1” group; these leaders display close supervision over others and offer guidance when needed. They create roles and objectives and expect followers to accept them without further consultation. This type of leadership is most useful in dire situations (such as a natural disaster).

Coaching, or selling, leaders designated by “S2” create roles and objectives for their followers but are open to other suggestions. They are termed “selling” leaders because they often sell their ideas in order for others to follow through with them. Supporting leaders, known as “S3,” do not tend to make decisions for others. They allow their followers to make their own decisions and are facilitators for the decision-making process when needed. Finally, “S4” leaders, or delegating leaders, provide limited guidance to their followers. The followers will work to solve their own problems and make their own decisions, leaders may help with decision-making once in a while.

The Situational Leadership Model also describes the development of the follower in relation to the leadership style being portrayed (Hersey, Blanchard, & Natemeyer, 1979). “D1” shows the follower in a stage of low competence and high commitment. Along this continuum, “D4” is characterized by a stage of high competence and high commitment. In between D1 and D4, “D2” shows the follower with some competence but low commitment, and “D3” as high competence and variable commitment. Maturity levels can also play a role into what leadership style is portrayed by the leader; for instance, those with a high maturity level may react and perform best with a delegating leadership style (Hersey, Blanchard, & Natemeyer, 1979). However, as a follower’s performance decreases, the leader must re-evaluate the maturity level and move backward along the curve on the matrix to re-adjust for leadership style. More socio-emotional support and direction may be needed for the follower to perform at his or her best (Hersey, Blanchard, & Natemeyer, 1979).

Image: ("The Situational Leadership Model," 2018)

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Summary of the Application of Situational Leadership 

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Summary of the Application of Situational Leadership 

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The situational leadership model was first developed in 1979 by researchers Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard (Wright, 2017). Situational leadership can be applied in various ways and in many different settings. As stated previously, the four styles of situational leadership (directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating) can be chosen based on the followers maturity level and stage of development. “By adopting the right style to suit the follower’s development level, work gets done, relationships are built up, and most importantly, the follower’s development level will rise to D4, to everyone’s benefit” (Farmer, 2005, p. 488).

Situational leadership is an effective leadership style to embody when leading a group of people with varying years of experience and educational backgrounds. Within healthcare settings, employees offer a broad spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, specialties, and level of professional development. Therefore, healthcare professionals who find themselves in a leadership position would benefit from understanding and applying the concepts of situational leadership.  Through a “partnering for performance” process, the leader can diagnose the follower’s current level of effectiveness in delivering person-centered care and can support the healthcare professional to further increase their efficacy and quality of care (Lynch, McCance, McCormack, & Brown, 2018) .

The situational leader supports the follower in moving from a complete focus on the “doing” perspective of a care process for the client, to a greater focus on “being” totally present in the moment with the person while carrying out the care process (Lynch, McCance, McCormack, & Brown, 2018).  Occupational therapists can use situational leadership in practice to remain effective, client-centered practitioners.  The four leadership styles within this model can be used not only with subordinates, but also with colleagues, mentees, fieldwork students, and clients. The occupational therapist must consider the person’s strengths, weaknesses, and context in order to best respond to the current need and enable the follower to complete the task at hand. Through observation and activity analysis, the occupational therapist can also analyze the follower’s needs, commitment, and level of development.  Occupational therapist are known to be creative, adaptable, and empathetic, which makes situational leadership a great fit when taking on any form of leadership role.  An effective situational leader in occupational therapy will remain flexible, attentive, and person-centered to approach each situation with an open mind. Occupational therapists will inherently uphold many of the profession’s core values and beliefs by adopting a situational leadership approach and remaining completely present with each individual they interact with.
Lastly, situational leadership can be easily applied to the classroom setting, as described in the text (Dunbar & Winston, 2015). When students first enter the program, they may lack both the skills and confidence required to perform well in the field of occupational therapy. At this stage, faculty may utilize the directing approach to instruct students on the fundamental skills with an informative and structured teaching style. As the curriculum continues, students gain more knowledge about the OT practice, and faculty members begin to add higher level content through a coaching approach to further develop skills and foster confidence. Then, as students enter Level 1 fieldwork sites, they possess the knowledge and skills necessary to engage with clients, yet they may have feelings of insecurity in their own abilities when taking on this new responsibility. At the point of Level II fieldwork placements, faculty are hopeful that students have reached a stage of both adequate confidence and competence (Dunbar & Winston, 2015). At this final stage, faculty members will delegate tasks to students and allow them to progress through the remainder of the curriculum with ample independence. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that not all students will progress through the readiness stages at the same rate, and faculty must continually reassess students’ behaviors to teach and lead accordingly.

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Situational leadership includes multiple leadership styles instead of one single solution.  This means in this type of leadership there are appropriate styles depending on the situation (Martin, 2016). Therefore a leader that uses this type of style must have the ability to adjust their style to the situation.  A real life example of this is John Wooden, who was one of the best basketball coaches in the history of college basketball.  His ability to adjust his leadership style was important because his basketball team was constantly changing with new team members coming and old team members graduating.  For example, Wooden would use the directing or telling style of leadership with his new freshman. This style includes the leader telling the subordinates (team members) what to do (Martin, 2016).  This style would be appropriate for this situation because the new team members are low in readiness.  Wooden would also have to use a different style with his older team members.  In this situation he would use the supporting style of leadership.  This style includes allowing the subordinates (team members) to help make decisions and get the job done (Martin, 2016).  For example, this may be allowing the older team members to help create the warm up routine for practice and giving them the responsibility to do it every day.  This would be appropriate for this situation because the older team members have a strong relationship with the leader (Wooden). Through this example, it can be seen that Wooden had the ability to adjust his style of leadership depending on the situation, and this lead to his success as a college basketball coach.

Image: (American Academy of Achievement, 2018)

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The theory of situational leadership was developed in 1979 by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard and is widely used in the workplace and other settings (Wright, 2017).  Situational leadership is comprised of four leadership styles that range from directing to delegating an individual or group and is based in a framework that allows leaders to fit a particular style with the specific needs of an individual or group (Thompson & Glasø, 2015; Wright, 2017).  Blanchard and Hersey did not believe that one leadership theory was more superior than another, but rather the attitudes of the leaders was more impactful (Wright, 2017).  Therefore, this theory focuses on the ability of the leader to assess the situation and provide the appropriate style of leadership at the appropriate time based on an individual’s performance readiness to obtain a common goal (Wright, 2017).  Within this theory, the leader would exhibit directive leadership style towards a new individual within the setting because he/she has low competence and confidence within the specific job.  As this individual continues to develop more competence and confidence within the setting the leader can exhibit supportive behaviors and delegate tasks based on the performance readiness of the individual.

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Situational Leadership in Popular Culture

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Situational Leadership in Popular Culture

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YouTube Video: “Situational Leadership Types: Examples from Film.”

This video portrays examples of situational leadership in the following movies: The Blind Side; Sister Act; Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.; School of Rock; McFarland, U.S.A; and Apollo 13.

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Situational Leadership Types: Examples from Film

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Lynch, B. M., McCance, T., McCormack, B., & Brown, D. (2018). The development of the Person‐Centred situational leadership framework: Revealing the being of person‐centredness in nursing homes. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(1-2), 427-440. doi:10.1111/jocn.13949

A model of leadership, called the Person-Centred Situational Leadership Framework, was presented to promote the contemporary concepts of the “person” and “personhood” for residential care.  This facilitative, enabling model was the first of its kind in nursing home care. In this study, the leaders included the director of nursing (DON), the care manager (CM), the clinical lead of each household, and the house lead.  Lynch, McCance, McCormack, and Brown (2018) emphasized the importance of the leader’s ability to diagnose the performance, competence, and commitment of the follower. The authors also described a developmental continuum in relation to the following five prerequisites: professional competence, commitment, interpersonal skills, clarity of values and beliefs, and knowledge of self.  Each follower, or employee of a nursing home, can be ranked on this developmental continuum. In addition, the Person-Centered Situational Leadership Framework highlighted seven core attributes of the situational leader to best facilitate person-centeredness in others. These seven attributes include: relating to the essence of being; harmonizing actions with the vision; balancing concern for compliance with concern for the person; connecting with the other person in the instant; intentionally enthusing the other person to act; listening to the other person with the heart; and unifying through collaboration, appreciation, and trust.  Overall, this study made a key contribution to the gap in knowledge about leadership in residential care facilities for olders adults around the world.  These findings also appear to be applicable among other care settings and contexts internationally.

Wright, E. S. (2017). Dialogic development in the situational leadership style. Performance Improvement, 56(9), 27-31. doi:10.1002/pfi.21733

While there are many leadership theories and styles, the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model is one of the most commonly used in businesses today.  Despite its growing use, it is difficult to study situational leadership because the individual needs and traits are so broad and variable. Several methods including age, years of experience, and education level have been used to assess a follower’s readiness level, but there have been few findings that these are true predictors and overall study results have been mixed.  Still, many researchers have recognized that situational leadership is quite relevant for human resource development (HRD) fields and performance improvement (PI) professionals. An effective situational leader must be able to judge the response needed based on the ability and willingness of the follower to complete the given task. Secondly, adaptability is critical to appropriately handle the variety of situations that may arise for the leader.  It is best to alter one’s leadership style to fit the follower’s needs. Four areas of development relating to situational leadership have also been identified, including acquisitive, autonomous, networked, and dialogic. The dialogic developmental style incorporates co-participation, mutual constitution, sense making, mentoring skills, cultivation of feedback, and the development of social skills.  Through the dialogic approach, each situation is viewed non-symmetrically while focusing on equality in the relationship more than on the authority of the leader.  This process is also described as relational leading, or emphasizing dialogue over monologe and allowing for more communication among the leader-follower dyad.  Overall, situational leaders should create an environment where communication is open, concerns and thoughts are expressed freely, and mutual understanding becomes the norm within an organization.

Farmer, L. A. (2005). Situational leadership: A model for leading telecommuters. Journal of Nursing Management, 13(6), 483-489. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2934.2005.00573.x

Situational leadership has been used in traditional work settings for decades and is now becoming more popular among leaders of telecommunication staff.  However, the traditional leadership styles must be modified to respond to the needs of telecommunicators and must focus on increasing communication. This study defined telecommunication as working from one’s home or another location while using computers and communication technology to communicate with the main office, supervisors, co-workers, and customers. Despite the many advantages offered by the flexibility of telecommuting, it can be challenging to lead an employee virtually.  Situational leadership helps to make telecommuters feel comfortable and connected, which is linked to job satisfaction and retention. The situational leadership model is based on the three core competencies of diagnosis, flexibility, and partnering for performance.  Also, this model is based on the following principles: there is not one leadership style that works in all situations, the appropriate style is based on the sub-ordinate and the task, and the leadership styles all have varying levels of directive and supportive behavior.  In order for the leader to choose the appropriate leadership style, he/she must know how to diagnose the performance, competence, and commitment of each follower.  Diagnosing is much more difficult over a virtual context rather than in person.  Therefore, it is important to set clear goals and expectations to maintain consistency and keep open communication. The leader must always be attentive to vocal inflections over e-mail or telephone and may want to keep notes about the telecommuter’s personal life to maintain a valued relationship. The most successful virtual leaders recognize the need to eliminate obstacles and provide adequate resources.  In conclusion, a basic understanding of situational leadership allows the leader to interact more efficiently and effectively with the telecommuter and allows leaders to be successful in both traditional and virtual work settings.

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American Academy of Achievement. (2018). John wooden image. Retrieved from http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-wooden/

Dunbar, S.B., & Winston, K. (2015).  An occupational perspective on leadership: Theoretical and practical dimensions (2nd Ed). Thorofare, NJ: SLACK, Inc.

Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H., & Natemeyer, W. E. (1979). Situational leadership, perception, and the impact of power. Group & Organization Studies, 4(4), 418-428.

Lynch, B. M., McCance, T., McCormack, B., & Brown, D. (2018). The development of the Person‐Centred situational leadership framework: Revealing the being of person‐centredness in nursing homes. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(1-2), 427-440. doi:10.1111/jocn.13949

Farmer, L. A. (2005). Situational leadership: A model for leading telecommuters. Journal of Nursing Management, 13(6), 483-489. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2934.2005.00573.x

Martin. (2016, July). In Cleverism. Retrieved from

https://www.cleverism.com/situational-leadership-guide/

The situational leadership model. (2018). The Ken Blanchard Companies. Retrieved from https://www.kenblanchard.com/Products-Services/Situational-Leadership-II

Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2015). Situational leadership theory: A test from three perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 527-544. doi:10.1108/LODJ-10-2013-0130

Vara, C. (2015, Oct. 23.) Situational leadership types: Examples from film. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-YXqlTq7IE

Wright, E. S. (2017). Dialogic development in the situational leadership style. Performance Improvement, 56(9), 27-31. doi:10.1002/pfi.21733