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Project managers and core team leaders can use the framework of situational leadership to guide their interactions with team members. By assessing the readiness of team members, the project manager or core team leader can interact with a leadership style likely to improve team performance.

Quick reference

Situational Leadership

Situational leadership is a leadership model that guides the interactions between members of the project leadership team and the other team members.  The leadership style should change based upon the readiness level of the follower for the task at hand.

When to use

Situation leadership is an inter-personal interaction model so whenever there are two or more people on the team it is appropriate to apply the model.

Instructions

Situational leadership is based upon the research conducted by Hersey and Blanchard on the characteristics of successful leaders.  They hypothesized four leadership styles based upon the focus of interactions between the leader and the follower.  In particular, was the interaction based upon providing task level direction or personal level relationship and support.  Their hypothesis was that successful leaders relied on or two leadership styles that worked well in all circumstances.  Leadership styles:

  • S1 – Directing: High Task/Low Relationship
  • S2 – Coaching: High Task/High Relationship
  • S3 – Supporting: Low Task/High Relationship
  • S4 – Delegating: Low Task/Low Relationship

The research showed that effective leaders used all four styles and varied their style based upon the readiness level of the follower to accomplish the work.  Readiness was categorized along two parameters: ability and motivation.  Ability was based upon education, training, certification, or higher-level thinking skills such as intelligence and common sense which would assist the follower in being able to do the work of the task.  The motivation parameter included internal personal motivation such as pride and work ethic along with external motivation such as rewards, recognition, or promotion. Four readiness levels were identified and these were matched with the leadership styles:

  • R1  -- Low in Ability & Low in Motivation
    S1  -- High Task/Low Relationship (Directing)
     
  • R2  -- Low in Ability & High in Motivation
    S2  --  High Task/High Relationship (Coaching)
     
  • R3  -- High in Ability & Low in Motivation
    S3  -- Low Task/High Relationship (Supporting)
     
  • R4  -- High in Ability & High in Motivation
    S4  -- Low Task/Low Relationship (Delegating)

It is important to note that an individual could be at one readiness for one project task and a very different level for another task.  So the model is applied at the task level,  not the project level.

The situational leadership model is applied to avoid under-leading and over-leading.  Under-leading is when an insufficient amount of task or relationship behavior is used as compared to what is needed.  People who are underled often feel lost, confused, and abandoned.  This further undermines their confidence and can lead to a further drop in readiness.  Whereas over-leading is when more task and relationship behavior is applied than the follower needs.  In this case, the follower feels untrusted, demeaned, constrained, and micro-managed. This too will undermine the readiness level of the follower.  That is why the project leader must be flexible to adapt their leadership style to the readiness level of the follower.

Hints & tips

  • A follower’s ability usually takes time and effort to change, but their motivation can change instantly based upon circumstances.
  • Readiness level must be assessed for the task at hand.  A person could be an expert in many things but do they have the ability to do the project task.
  • The task and relationship behavior for leadership does not need to be provided by the project leader. They could arrange for a mentor or other person to serve in that capacity.
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  • 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 There's another model that can be very useful when managing interpersonal
  • 00:09 relationships on a project and that's the model called situational leadership.
  • 00:14 I'll start with a quick description of this model.
  • 00:16 The model defines two primary means of leading a team.
  • 00:19 One is the autocratic leader.
  • 00:21 This person is in charge and they're telling others what to do.
  • 00:25 The interactions are focused around tasks and providing direction to others.
  • 00:30 The other leadership style is the participatory leader.
  • 00:33 Their focus is on building relationship with the people they're leading.
  • 00:37 They rely on the strength of the relationship to act as motivation for
  • 00:41 others to follow them.
  • 00:42 Then they lead by example, not telling people what to do,
  • 00:45 rather modeling behavior that they want them to emulate.
  • 00:49 And an age old question is,
  • 00:50 which style should an individual use within their project team?
  • 00:54 Do they choose one extreme or the other?
  • 00:56 Or do they try to find a happy medium between the two?
  • 01:00 Hersey and Blanchard have done extensive research and
  • 01:02 used it to develop this model.
  • 01:04 The research was based upon leaders from various locations,
  • 01:07 different settings such as political, military, business,
  • 01:11 religion, and even looking back throughout the ages.
  • 01:14 In their research, they categorize the way leaders interacted with others,
  • 01:18 their followers, in one of four styles.
  • 01:21 The first style was the autocratic leader, high task level interactions and
  • 01:25 very little relationship building.
  • 01:27 The second was the coaching style.
  • 01:30 Think of what the school sports coach do.
  • 01:32 They are teaching their players what to do, so high task behavior.
  • 01:36 But they're also developing the young people's characters.
  • 01:39 So there's often a great deal of relationship building also.
  • 01:42 Style 3 is the participatory leader.
  • 01:45 There's a great deal of relationship building and little or no task behavior.
  • 01:49 It is a supportive style of interacting, not directive.
  • 01:52 And finally, style 4 is delegating behavior.
  • 01:55 There is very little interaction of any type,
  • 01:58 no heavy handed task oversight or clinging relationship behavior.
  • 02:02 The leader just gives the individual the goal and gets out of their way.
  • 02:06 Now, Hersey who led the research had hypothesized that effective leaders
  • 02:11 use styles 2 and 3, the relationship styles.
  • 02:14 But the research showed that effective leaders didn't limit themselves to just
  • 02:18 one style, they used all four.
  • 02:20 So something else was at work.
  • 02:22 How do they know which one to use?
  • 02:25 And the answer for
  • 02:26 that was that they assess the readiness level of their followers.
  • 02:30 Readiness has two components, ability and motivation.
  • 02:33 Keep in mind when assessing these that it has to be in the context of
  • 02:37 the project tasks that have been assigned to the individual.
  • 02:41 Do they have the ability to do that work and are they motivated to do that work?
  • 02:46 When assessing the ability, you look at both the formal training and skills,
  • 02:51 such as education, experience, and certification.
  • 02:54 Ability also though, considers intangible elements, such as the individual's
  • 02:59 intelligence and common sense to figure out how to get the task done.
  • 03:03 The other component of readiness is motivation to do the work of the task.
  • 03:07 Motivation could be due to a desire to do that type of work because they find it fun
  • 03:12 or rewarding.
  • 03:13 Another element of motivation is the internal work ethic or
  • 03:16 personal discipline or pride that some have.
  • 03:19 And of course, in some cases, there's external motivation of rewards,
  • 03:24 recognition, or promotion.
  • 03:25 Hersey and Blanchard defined readiness level 1 people as those with low
  • 03:30 ability and low motivation.
  • 03:32 Hopefully, you don't have very many of these members on your team.
  • 03:35 They don't know what to do and they don't care.
  • 03:38 Readiness level 2, low in ability, but high in motivation.
  • 03:42 These are eager to do the work, but they don't know how to do it, at least not yet.
  • 03:47 Readiness level 3 is high in ability, but low in motivation.
  • 03:51 They know how to do the work, they may be an expert at it, but
  • 03:55 they don't want to do it, at least not on this project.
  • 03:58 And finally, readiness level 4, the individual who is capable and motivated.
  • 04:03 So let's see how we use this.
  • 04:05 We must recall that we are talking about the project environment.
  • 04:09 There is another variation of situational leadership for
  • 04:11 functional management that looks at personal development.
  • 04:14 But on a project, we have a temporary endeavor with a specific goal or
  • 04:18 objective.
  • 04:19 So we aren't taking the long-term development relationship approach.
  • 04:23 We're focused on getting the project work done on time and on budget.
  • 04:27 So you have probably already figured out that we match the leadership style with
  • 04:32 the followers readiness level.
  • 04:34 If you have individuals on your team who are low in ability and motivation,
  • 04:38 the best approach to get the work done is to use the authoritative style, high task,
  • 04:42 low relationship.
  • 04:43 Go directive.
  • 04:45 Next is the low ability and high task readiness level 2.
  • 04:48 In this case, coaching is appropriate.
  • 04:50 You need to provide the task behavior so that they learn what to do.
  • 04:55 But you want to maintain that motivation.
  • 04:57 So you invest some of your time in the relationship.
  • 05:00 Let me comment here for a moment.
  • 05:02 You may not be expert enough to provide the task direction needed.
  • 05:07 So when we say coaching style, we mean get them a coach.
  • 05:10 Doesn't have to be you, but whoever you get, make sure they're using
  • 05:14 the coaching approach to both task and relationship behaviors.
  • 05:18 If the readiness level is 3, they're able to do the work,
  • 05:21 they're just not motivated.
  • 05:23 Use the supportive style.
  • 05:25 Don't tell them what to do, they already know what to do.
  • 05:27 In fact, they probably are more expert at it than you are.
  • 05:30 Rather, let them know that they're important to the team.
  • 05:33 Recognize, reward them.
  • 05:35 Use your emotional intelligence to inspire them.
  • 05:38 And finally, for the people who are capable and motivated,
  • 05:41 get out of their way.
  • 05:42 Delegate the project work and let them take off.
  • 05:45 They're superheroes, let them lead the tall buildings and
  • 05:48 outrun the speeding bullets.
  • 05:50 Now, you may be saying to yourself, why bother with this?
  • 05:52 I'll just do what I do and what I'm comfortable with and
  • 05:56 they can learn how to adjust to me.
  • 05:58 Well, the answer is that we want to avoid overleading and underleading.
  • 06:03 To do that, we need to match the leadership style with the readiness level.
  • 06:06 Keep in mind that an individual may be at different readiness levels for
  • 06:10 different tasks.
  • 06:11 Your software developer may be readiness level 4, capable and motivated to
  • 06:15 code the software, but readiness level 1 for writing the software documentation.
  • 06:20 So you must match your leadership style task-by-task.
  • 06:24 Overleading is when you provide more tasks or relationship behavior than is needed.
  • 06:29 Your team member begins to feel like you're micromanaging them,
  • 06:32 that you don't trust them, you've put them on a tight leash and
  • 06:35 you're treating them as though they're a little child.
  • 06:38 But underleading is also a problem.
  • 06:41 In this case, not enough task or relationship behavior is provided.
  • 06:45 The individual is confused, they feel abandoned or
  • 06:47 wondering if they're being set up to fail.
  • 06:50 There's no hope for them.
  • 06:52 In either case, you get substandard performance and disgruntled team members.
  • 06:56 I want to highlight that using situational leadership is critically important with
  • 07:01 virtual teams.
  • 07:02 You have less ability to connect and interact with them on the project team.
  • 07:06 Using your best leadership style is an important part of project leadership in
  • 07:11 achieving the project goals.
  • 07:13 Situational leadership is an excellent model to assist project
  • 07:17 leaders as they plan and interact with their team members.

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