Reference no: EM133777616
Question: Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard's Situational Leadership model has been a big hit in the business world, and these two academics have a well-known business training and consulting program for corporate executives.
Situational leadership involves four types of leadership styles: directing (also called "telling"), coaching (also called "selling"), supporting, and delegating. The style a Situation Leader will use depends on the maturity level of themselves and their employees. A leader with the wrong level of maturity may make mistakes when attempting to resolve workplace situations. In addition, an employee with a low level of maturity may not implement the solution as intended by the leader. The two mistakes that come to mind that a Situational Leader could make are misdiagnosing a situation or not allowing subordinates to take accountability for their actions in implementing the planned solutions. Let's look at one of these two challenges that Situational Leaders face every day, diagnostic inaccuracy.
Diagnostic Inaccuracy
Two stages of situational leadership model involve (1) diagnosing a problem and then (2) allowing subordinates to take responsibility for its implementation. Diagnostic competency is based upon the leader's ability to ask the right questions and then paying attention and listening to answers while also remaining objective. Diagnostic inaccuracies occur when a leader lets distractors into their decision-making process, such as gut feelings and intuition, rather than sticking to the exact science of objectively asking the right questions. If a Situational Leader gets off track, the problem may take the leader down the proverbial rabbit hole, never to be seen again. Asking the right questions and listening closely to the answers should elicit a reasonable interpretation of the problem under scrutiny.
Your First Post:
Think back to a time when a business leader you know was either unsuccessful or successful in recognizing a problem, asking questions, determining a solution, and assigning a follower to implement the solution.
Analyze the whole situation and consider these questions in your discussion response:
What was the outcome of the situation? Why do you think it went the way it did? Was the situation misdiagnosed? Was the leader or appointed follower mature enough for this level of problem?