The Situational Leadership Theory, is a leadership theory developed by Paul Hersey, professor and author of the book Situational

Leader, and Ken Blanchard, leadership guru and author of The One Minute Manager, while working on the first edition of Management of Organizational Behavior (now in its 9th edition)

S1: Telling - is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of the individual or group and provides the what, how, why,when, and where to do the task. This style is applied when the maturity is quite low called M1 where the task force lack the specific skills required for the job in hand and are unable and unwilling to do or to take responsibility for this job or task. S2: Selling - while the leader is still providing the direction, he or she is now using two-way communication and providing the socio emotional support that will allow the individual or group being influenced to buy into the process. They have better maturity shown by M2 but they are still unable to take on responsibility for the task being done; however, they are willing to work at the task. S3: Participating - this is now shared decision making about aspects of how the task is accomplished and the leader is providing less task behaviors while maintaining high relationship behavior. It can be assigned to M3 level followers as they are experienced and able to do the task but lack the confidence to take on responsibility) S4: Delegating - the leader is still involved in decisions; however, the process and responsibility has been passed to the individual or group. The leader stays involved to monitor progress. The people have higher maturity (M4) and they need less support

and innovative. They are experienced at the task, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. They are able and willing to not only do the task, but to take responsibility for the task. Of these, no one style is considered optimal for all leaders to use all the time. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation.

Steps in Situational Leadership. Process 1. Make an overview per employee of his/her tasks 2. Assess the employee on each task (D1...D4) 3. Decide on the leadership (management) style per task (S1...S4) 4. Discuss the situation with the employee 5. Make a joint plan 6. Follow-up, check and correct

Strengths of the Situational Leadership model. Benefits * Easy to understand * Easy to use

Limitations of the Situational Leadership model. Disadvantages

Model fails to distinguish between leadership and management. What is called leadership style is really management style. Leadership is not primarily about making decisions anyway - it is about inspiring people to change direction. Leaders may indeed vary the way they inspire people to change. But this is when they have already decided on the need to change. Hence leadership style does not reduce to decision making style. Focuses too exclusively on what the person in charge does. Of course both leaders and managers have to behave differently in different situations. But that is just a trivial fact of life, rather than anything profound in terms of our basic understanding of what it means to lead or manage.

Assumptions of Situational Leadership. Conditions

Leaders should adapt their style to follower 'maturity', based on how ready and willing the follower is to perform required tasks (that is, their competence and motivation). There are four leadership styles that match the four combinations of high/low readiness and willingness. The four styles suggest that leaders should put greater or less focus on the task in question and/or the relationship between the leader and the follower. Presumes that leadership is about how the boss makes decisions.

Situational Leadership: On the basis of this theory there is no best style of leadership but its suggests due to changing business environment it is imperative for the leaders to gauge the maturity levels (experience, education, confidence, motivation etc.) before they work on the task. The leader has to decide what type of leadership he is going to use, if the team is quite competent and take responsibility then his can adopt the Delegating style where he just have to monitor the progress. While on the other extreme he has to adopt telling leadership when the task force lack skill and dont want to take responsibility or even do the job. So S1,

S2 are leader driven while the S3 and S4 are follower driven. When the workforce have less skills they are mostly reticent about their competencies and so require more support from their leaders. So a good leader can't be transactional or Transformational in nature but require a mix of both qualities. This theory helps to dissect the skills of the workforce before assigning the task to them. It is quite important that the skill should be developed when required as this will help the company to gain competitive advantage. Also this theory reflects that the employees need recognition and motivation at work at some stage, so this theory has a mix of transactional and Transformational theory. But this theory says that there is less relationship at the telling/Directing level which can be challenged. Scientific Management Theory The theory of Scientific Management was developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor and the main focus was the application of scientific methods in management. His theory is quite helpful as it tries to simplify the jobs at hand and improves efficiency by training the employees who can do their jobs easily. He has proposed 4 principles for this. 1. Scientific analysis of the task should be done instead of following the The rule of thumb approach. 2. The manager has to Select, Train and Develop the skills of each employee instead of leaving them to do them self. 3. The managers have to cooperate so that he can check if the work is being done properly. 4. The work has to be divided between managers and tasks, where managers do the planning and the employees finish the tasks.

It was effectively applied by Henry Ford but this theory lacks feedback mechanism which is an important part of Systems theory. There are no details about the type of job and task significance etc. He proposed the use of Stopwatch and it is not always possible and some strikes were acknowledged. There is no place to understand the human behaviour and organisational culture which is a major drawback in this theory. He was against initiative and incentive as the worker has to decide how to increase the productivity. This theory has put emphasis on communication and it is the managers responsibility to delegate the task but there is no detail about the type of leadership which can be applied to it. But it seems its more transactional in nature with impetus on fulfilling the objectives but with cooperation.

Extra Info : TO have more sleep

Systems Theory A system can be looked at as having inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. Systems share feedback among each of these four aspects of the systems. The effect of systems theory in management is that writers, educators, consultants, etc. are helping managers to look at the organization from a broader perspective. Systems theory has brought a new perspective for managers to interpret patterns and events in the workplace. They recognize the various parts of the organization, and, in particular, the interrelations of the parts, e.g., the coordination of central administration with its programs, engineering with manufacturing, supervisors with workers, etc. This is a major development.

Inputs would include resources such as raw materials, money, technologies and people. These inputs go through a process where theyre planned, organized, motivated and controlled, ultimately to meet the organizations goals. Outputs would be products or services to a market. Outcomes would be, e.g., enhanced quality of life or productivity for customers/clients, productivity. Feedback would be information from human resources carrying out the process, customers/clients using the products, etc. Feedback also comes from the larger environment of the organization, e.g., influences from government, society, economics, and technologies. This overall system framework applies to any system, including subsystems (departments, programs, etc.) in the overall organization.