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Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory
Strengths and weaknesses of leadership styles
Leadership styles and their application
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Recommended: Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory
You assign a new employee a task as you run off to a meeting, do your work or to take that precious lunch break. When you get back, you learn that this person has not completed what you have asked of him/her, not because they did not want to, but because they did not know how and did not ask for help. Because of this, time is wasted and now you have to actually do some work yourself. What would be a good way to minimize the likelihood of things like this happening in the future?
For many years, people in positions to lead others have been struggling to find that one leading style that would work the best, but study after study fail to find this miracle style. To be a great and efficient leader, we must utilize multiple styles and adapt to others needs in different situations.
Paul Hersey is a behavioral scientist that is best known for coming up with Situational Leadership. Ken Blanchard is an author and expert in the management field. They are both management experts and argue that situations like this happen due to the fact that those placed in leadership positions do not always match their personal leading styles with the needs of the people they are to lead. Blanchard is best known for his book “The One Minute Manager”, which has sold more than 13 million copies. Together Paul and Ken published “Management of Organization Behavior” currently in its ninth edition. Hersey also wrote “The Ethical Executive” and “Avoiding the Traps of the Unethical Workplace”. In this paper we will discuss the Hersey-Blanchard Leadership Theory and how to utilize it to create the best leadership style for different people and situations.
This theory of leadership was created by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. Both of whom are author...
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... succeed and will guide and build their followers to acceptable levels while striving to improve and achieve the highest quality of workers to maximize work productivity.
Works Cited
Blanchard, P. H. (1988). Management of Organization Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hersey, P. A. (1969). "Life cycle theory of leadership: is there a best style of leadership?". Training and Development, pp. 26-34.
Kets de Vries, M. L. (1994). "The leadership mystique". Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 8 No.3, pp. 73-92.
Norris, W. a. (1992). "Situatiojal leadership theory". Group and Organization Management, Vol. 7 No.3, pp. 331-42.
Vecchio, R. (1987). "Situational leadership theory: an examination of a prescriptive theory". Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 72 No. 3, pp. 444-451. http://situational.com/ http://www.kenblanchard.com/
Pierce, Jon L. and John W. Newstrom (2011) 6th edition. Leaders and the Leadership Process.
Clawson, J.G. (2009). Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. (p.85)
Situational leadership is a theory which was designed in 1969 by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. The “contingency theories of leadership” states that a leader’s effectiveness is dependent on their behaviours in relation to different situational factors. Thus, situational leadership theory, relates to how a leader 's effectiveness is depend on their ability to adjust their leadership behaviour to the required level of the “followers” capability or if the situation is modified.
Hersey, P. & Blanchard, K. (n.d.) Situational Leadership. In Wren, J.T. (Ed.). (1995). The Leader’s Companion (pp. 207-211). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Fiedler, F. E., & Chemers, M. M. (1974). Leadership and effective management. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
Lord, R. (2000). Leadership. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology, vol. 4. (pp. 499-505). Doi:10.1037/10519-216
Northouse, P. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) asserts that a leader’s effectiveness is dependent upon the readiness, or ability and willingness, of the leader’s followers to complete a task. This leadership style is an amalgamation of task-oriented and relationship-oriented characteristics that are employed depending upon the situation and the followers involved. According to the SLT, as followers increase in readiness the leader’s style is to adapt accordingly (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009).
Willis, Gary. Certain Trumpets: The Nature Of Leadership. New York , New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills and best practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
John A., 2009. Not Bosses but leaders, How to lead the way to success.3rd ed. London: kogan page.
John Terrill, an experienced professional with a unique approach to managing, was brought into to DGL International to correct the productivity issues evident in the technical services division. As a leader, his approach would require professionalism, as well as an alternative method of management to restore the lacking work ethic of the engineers. Through investigative research into well-defined leadership styles, behaviours and power types, the following case study questions are discussed below. Using Paul Hershey and Ken Blanchard’s situational leadership theory, I compare the autocratic with the democratic approaches to leadership, as well as discuss the four styles of leading: telling, selling, participative or delegating. I also address the type of power Terrill appears to possess over his followers and compare multiple options. Though Terrill proved to be a successful development to the company’s management team, the repercussions and advantages of alternative approaches are also addressed in conjunction with Robert House’s path-goal theory.
Leadership Theories and Studies. (2009). In Encyclopedia of Management. Retrieved July 20, 2011 from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3273100155.html
Lussier, R.N. & Achua, C.F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, application, skill development (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western.
The Situational Theories of leadership explain how leadership style must be tailored to the demands of the task and the qualities of subordinates.