Introduction
Leadership is defined as the social process under which a person can utilize the support of others to achieve a common goal and forms one of the most relevant and important aspect of organizations. Leadership style refers to “the manner and approach in which directions, motivation, planning and implementation of projects are executed” (Shallow, 2007).
The concept of situational leadership as advanced by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey insists that the effectiveness of leadership styles employed by managers depend on the situations under consideration (Shallow, 2007). It involves the analysis of the situation and the application of an appropriate leadership style. This implies that “the variation of leadership style from one person to another should primarily depend on employee’s area of competency and commitment to the tasks” (Blanchard, Zigarmi & Zigarmi, 1985).
Successful Application of Situational Leadership
One example in which situational leadership was effectively used was in my organization where business seemed to be drifting aimlessly.
Situation
As a member of sales department at Alameri Group of Fast Food Hotels, our responsibilities within this department was to ensure that the levels of sales recorded upward trend through innovative sales approaches. Through the support of the sales and marketing manager, we were fully equipped with the necessary resources we needed for the best performance of our duties. However, the performance within the sales department was at its lowest levels. The team members within the sales department were unwilling to attend to the training sessions, motivation was very low despite the fact that this was the best paid department in the entire company.
Lessons learned
This situation called for a situational approach to leadership that could eventually tilt the table and reverse the trend. The sales and marketing manager applied the authoritative approach of leadership to deal with this situation. This resulted to the dismissal and some sales staff and recruitment of a fresh blood into the sales team. The retained members of the sales team underwent a rigorous training on performance. This solved the problem of drifting business and led to the success within this department. Within just a period of one month after the process, the department was the best perfuming in the entire company and generating high volumes of sales. The lesson learnt was that every situation demands a specific form of situational leadership strategy.
The future learning objective within the successful application of situational leadership will encompass the analysis of the degree of success.
Need for Improvement
As a soccer player during my high school days, teamwork was the parameter for success. In my 12 grade, our senior coach resigned his position as a result of health complications. This paved way for the assistant coach who lacked experience in team management.
Situation
The performance of team began to decline and team members lost morale. There was the need to inject a particular leader who had the capacity to motivate but also cooperate with the soccer team. Instead of adopting a collaborative approach to deal with the dwindling performance, the new coach adopted a coercive approach to deal with this situation. The result was disastrous in that we lost all our summer games to very junior teams.
Conclusion
The ability to understand the history of a group in effecting situational leadership is important.
The future learning objective in thus case will involve the understanding of group dynamics before instituting a particular situational leadership method.
References
Blanchard, K.H., Zigarmi, P. and Zigarmi, D. 1985. Leadership and the one minute manager: increasing effectiveness through situational leadership. London: Morrow.
Shallow, B. 2007. Situational Leadership.