Situational Leadership Theory

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Situational Leadership Every organization, environment, situation, and individual has one thing in common, they are all different. Leaders and managers need to remember each situation is different and one single leadership style may not be the best fit for every condition. According to Situational Leadership, there is no one best way to influence people. The leadership style a person should use with individuals or groups depends on the readiness level of the people the leader is attempting to influence (Blanchard, Hersey, 1988). The Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) focuses on the interaction of the leader’s behavior and the follower’s readiness and then measures it to determine leader effectiveness (Cairns, Hollenback, Preziosi, Snow,…show more content…
For example, if a subordinate has a low readiness level (R1) and is unable or insecure with a task, the leader should use the highest task behavior, Telling (S1) style, to lead their subordinate. Situational Leadership can be used, even if leaders are already using an appropriate style for the readiness level. Leaders can use performance measures to help indicate if they need to shift their style. If performance is decreasing, leaders may need to shift their style to the right. On the other hand, leaders would want to shift to the left if performance is increasing (Blanchard,…show more content…
He used the framework from the SLT and found among 10 managers, they showed educational leadership and teamwork as themes from qualitative methods. His research illustrated the effectiveness of the SLT in quick-service restaurants and demonstrated the usefulness for future leadership experiences in other industries (Perna, 2016). Although, Perna’s SLT research is positive, there are studies that have shown vagueness in its methods. Geir Thompson and Lars Glaso, from the Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway, found obscurity surrounding “follower competence and commitment”. Thompson and Glaso address this in their journal article, Situational leadership theory: a test from three perspectives. They provide different viewpoints for defining the subordinate development level and applied these perspectives for challenging the validity of SLT (Thompson, Glaso,

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