People Management - Situational Leadership

This workshop was on how to lead a group of people.
 

The framework developed by Hershey & Blanchard covers all aspects of a follower mentality and suggest the respective style of leadership to be followed. Though this concept was taught as part of the OB course during my MBA, but it was better understood in the workshop conducted by Mr.Prem Kumar. For more practical understanding he chose the movie Chak De India, where each of the aspects of the framework were discussed.

For the benefit of my readers below is the framework of Hershey & Blanchard

 

If you see the followers(sub-ordinates/team members) are of 4 types. It is classified based on 2 factors and hence the 4 combinations.

 

The 2 factors are Ability and Willingness

R1 - Unable & Unwilling(No confidence/Insecure etc)

R2 - Unable but Willing

R3 - Able but Unwilling (May be due to personal problems/ego problems/lack of confidence etc)

R4 - Able & Willing

 

Now Leadership styles are also 4 types which are formed based on 2 factors.

The 2 factors are Task Behaviour/Regulation and Relationship behavior/Nurturing

S1 - High Regulation & Low Nurturing or High Task & Low Relation

This is more like directive type, where there will be only one way communication and the followers will be micromanaged. This applies to R1 type of followers

 

S2 - High Regulation & High Nurturing/High Task and High Relation

This is more like coaching type where the leader has to discuss with the followers and plan the works for them and motivate them by rewarding etc. This applies to R2 type of followers. Though the followers are unable they have the passion/interest to take up the work So by being high task oriented the leader will teach them on how to become capable.

 

S3 - Low Regulation & High Nurturing/Low Task & High Relation

This is more like counselling type, where the leader has to discuss with the followers and motivate them to resolve the problems. This applies to R3 kind of followers who lack only in motivation but not skill. These people dont like to be micromanaged on tasks. They need the socio-emtional support.

 

S4 - Low Regulation & Low Nurturing/Low Task & Low Relation

This is more a delegating type, where the leader just defines the boundary and lets the followers own up their areas and peform. This applies to R4 kind of followers, who are self sufficient in terms of skill and willingness. They dont like at all to be micromanaged. They like to work with freedom.

 

The most important point to be noted here is a leader has to be flexible enough to shift from S1 to S4 depending on the type of followers. Also the same set of followers might shift from R4 to R1 depending on various scenarios so nothing is hard and fast. But having an idea of this framework can aid a leader in understanding what type of style might work well for that situation.

That is why the framework is called situational leadership framework.

The following is a vote of thanks by me to our facilitator Mr.Prem Kumar, who is a very good orator and a sensible trainer who connects very well with his participants. I have attended 3 workshops of his so far and I rate him high on his facilitation.