Leadership Approach Paper Essay

Organizational behavior comes into play to aid management in enhancing their understanding of human behavior within organizations to better communicate, allocate resources, delegate tasks, plan, organize, direct, and control work activities. The main purpose of understanding organizational behavior is to increase leadership effectiveness, motivate workers, and inspire them to work toward a common objective. Although there are many leadership approaches, we will focus on the situational leadership approach. We will analyze the purpose, strengths and weaknesses of the situational leadership approach, and provide an example of how it can be applied to real situations. Situational Leadership Approach As it name suggests, the situational leadership approach states that leaders should use different approaches as situations change. In short, leaders should be flexible, embrace change as it comes, and be capable of adapting to it. The situational leadership approach is a model that was developed by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey in 1972. The theory states that leaders should match their leadership style to the maturity of followers and to the specific tasks on hand (Lerstrom, 2008). As people within organizations acquire more experience and become more knowledgeable about their job, leaders will need to adapt new leadership styles to keep these people motivated. According to May (2013) the core concept of the situational leadership approach is that â€Å"one size does not fit all†. The best leaders are not only those who have a vision, but â€Å"the most successful leaders are the ones who are able to adapt their leadership styles across a broad range of varying maturity levels readily present within the average organization (May, 2013). † Moreover, using the situational leadership approach suggests that leaders use a mix of other leadership approaches to be effective. According to Phatak (2012), â€Å"The philosophy of a leader should be flexible enough to adapt to situations and changing times. We need a mixture of transactional and transformational leadership techniques to get the job done. The basic idea behind this theory is that one must adapt strategy with changing conditions. † Strengths As mentioned earlier, situational leadership allows for more flexibility. As the world evolves, organizations have to make adjustments to survive. Tomasco (2013) states that with the situational leadership approach, leaders get the opportunity to adapt their leadership style to their followers’ needs. Consequently, as leaders effectively match their leadership style to situations and followers’ needs, work activities will run smoothly, interactions will be more successful, relationships will be built up, and followers will achieve optimum performance. Weaknesses Although the situational leadership approach appears to be the best course of action due to its flexibility, it has weaknesses that one cannot ignore. Phatak (2012) explains that constantly changing strategies with time, a leader will find it difficult to implement new strategies on the go. A long term vision may elude him due to constant changes. † Further, Wile (2013) identifies four weaknesses of the situational leadership approach which are confusion, leadership or management, outside factors, and perception. Indeed, followers may become confused as leaders change a newly implemented leadership strategy as a result of changing conditions. The situational leadership approach is often misconstrued with a management strategy to lead employees to achieve better outcomes. One cannot downplay the impact external factors have on organizations and organizational behavior. Leaders should demonstrate their ability to understand the organization’s external environment and to assess followers’ behavior to implement a leadership approach that will work. Finally, people within organizations have different perceptions and react differently in similar situations. Hence, the situational leadership approach may not give accurate predictions of followers’ behavior. Situational Leadership Approach in Real Life Alan Lerstrom from Luther College did a case study using the situational leadership approach in which he demonstrated how academic advisors can alter their leadership style based on students’ maturity as they advance higher in their studies. Lerstrom applied the Hersey and Blanchard’s model of situational leadership in the case study. The model suggests that effective leaders will adjust their leadership styles in accordance with changing situations and followers’ maturity. According to Lerstrom (2008), Jay, the student in the case study began showing signs of maturity as he better understood the major he wanted to pursue and classes he needed to enroll in. Also, Jay became more confident about his abilities, understood the requirements associated with his major, and was more willing to communicate with the advisor. â€Å"Situational leadership provide theoretical and practical tools that help advisors in understanding changes in the readiness levels of their students, and it suggests patterns for relating to students (Lerstrom, 2008, p. 7). † Conclusion Situational leadership is the approach that states that leaders must be flexible enough to adapt their leadership styles to changing situations, to specific tasks, and to organizational behavior. This study showed that although the situational leadership approach yields positive outcomes it has weaknesses. Thus, it is important to leverage the strengths of the approach to alleviate its weaknesses. For increased effectiveness, leaders will need to use organizational behavior research methods to better understand the situations at hand, their followers’ perceptions, and the organization’s internal and external environments. This method will provide guidance in applying the appropriate leadership style. References Lerstrom, A. C. Advising Jay: A Case Study Using a Situational Leadership Approach. NACADA Journal; Fall2008, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p21-27, 7p May, R. (2013). Basics of the Situational Leadership Model. Retrieved from http://www. businessdictionary. com/article/724/basics-of-the-situational-leade rship-model/ Phatak, O. (June 20, 2012). Pros and Cons of Leadership Theories.