Investing in a situational leadership program can be vital for a company that’s struggling to grow and achieve a firm competitive position in a dynamic industry.
Every company needs leaders to guide the business and help your company grow effectively. Growth is a necessary attribute to help your company succeed against your competition. It also provides the foundation that enables a company to branch out and explore other profitable avenues within their industry.
But ineffective leadership leads to companies struggling to grow. It can sometimes cause companies to expand in the wrong direction. This can be more dangerous to a company’s health and well-being than just staying static in the marketplace.
Definition of Situational Leadership
The situational leadership model has categorized all leadership into four styles of leadership. The model also makes the overall point that no one style is optimal in every situation. Leaders must be flexible and adapt their leadership styles to a specific situation.
The styles include Telling, in which the manager must instruct the employees, who are willing to do the task but lack the necessary skills.
Selling, in which the manager needs to motivate unwilling employees to get the task performed to a specific standard of performance.
Participating, in which the manager tries to invest the employees into taking responsibility for a task, but they lack the confidence to assume responsibility beyond a certain point.
And Delegating. In this style of leadership, the manager is working with employees who are experienced, motivated and able to perform the task. They are also willing to take responsibility for their work.
The right leadership style depends on the employee’s level of motivation, skills, and confidence. The model teaches managers to recognize the different levels of the employees and employ the correct leadership style in accomplishing the task at hand.
Benefits of a Situational Leadership Program
This type of leadership program is aimed at C-suite level business executives. They are most often dealing on a day-to-day basis with other managers. They are also the leaders who decide the company’s business strategy and make high-level decisions that can affect the company’s success in the marketplace.
For this level of executives, having them be able to assess their employees’ level of motivation, skills, and confidence whenever a problematic situation develops is crucial. Applying the right style of leadership to the situation is also vital in being able to resolve the situation with the least difficulty for everyone concerned.
Failure to recognize the correct type of leadership to use can result in lingering resentment, a worsening of demotivated circumstances, and, at worse, a failure to resolve the situation to the point that it affects the company’s performance.
These programs are gaining in popularity as companies become more objective in measuring a manager’s effectiveness. They are much more beneficial to a company’s retention capabilities as well. Having a constantly changing roster of leaders hurts a company’s ability to maintain a constant and stable hierarchy of leadership and direction.
Invest in your company’s future by investing in a situational leadership program. It will give your company the stability and continuing direction it needs to succeed.