Much research has been done in recent decades on the effectiveness of leadership behaviors. In practice, however, effective leaders were found to have few traits in common. Somewhat later, researchers shifted their attention from traits to leadership behaviors and styles. Research showed, among other things, that a particular style of leadership worked well in one situation and not in another.
This shifted attention to those situations and environmental factors that are apparently important in explaining effective leadership behavior. Situational theories thus made their appearance.
In almost all theories that focus on operational leadership behavior, 2 elements emerge, namely:
- The leader’s focus on the task
- The leader’s focus on the person or relationship
Task orientation here means: the extent to which the leader indicates what, when, where and how something should be done the relationship orientation indicates: the personal interest and attention, which the leader has for an employee.
Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard, 2 American scientists and management experts, have developed a situational leadership theory based on these 2 elements, which starts from the employee.
The premise of situation-oriented leadership is that an effective leader adapts his or her leadership style to the characteristics of the situation. Hersey & Blanchard’s description of leadership behavior is as follows: leadership behavior occurs when, in a given situation, a person wants to influence the behavior of another (or others) in his or her desired direction.
This behavior can be called successful when the leader’s behavior results in employees “obeying”. This behavior is effective when the influence of the other(s) is additionally accepted and positively appreciated.
Possible Topics
The 4 styles (combinations of varying measures of task and relationship orientation) are:
- RELATIONSHIP-ORIENTED
- TASKFUL
- Indicating what needs to be done
- Discuss employee problems
- Showing understanding for problems
- Let employee solve problems with support from supervisor
- Agree on solutions
- Control afterwards
- Point out what needs to be done or what went wrong
- Involve employees when mistakes are made
- Identify gaps in knowledge and skills
- Make adjustments and indicate why
- Make control agreements
- Control afterwards
- Indicating what needs to be done
- Discuss the quality and quantity of the result
- Discuss the conditions of implementation
- Discuss the role and contributions of the supervisor
- Express confidence
- Control afterwards
- State what is to be done
- Indicate who, what, where, when and how
- Give examples, demonstrate
- Ask test questions and let them practice
- Control before and after
- Praise progress
It’s clear from the figure that each style of leadership is typified by its own blending relationship between task and relationship orientation:
- S1: instructing style: much task, little relationship
- S2: guiding style: much task, much relationship
- S3: supporting style: little task, much relationship
- S4: delegating style: little task, little relationship
These styles describe the concrete behavior of the supervisor. Not what the manager has in his/her head, but what the manager does in the employee's perception determines the extent to which the employee is influenced.
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