ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL: SITUATIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Case Assignment

For this assignment, first review the background materials with a focus on Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model.  Make sure you are familiar with  the four leadership styles covered in the situational approach including Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating and situations where you are supposed to use these four styles.  

Also, familiarize yourself with the more complex Path Goal model and Fiedler’s Contingency model. You don’t need to know these two models in as much detail as the Situational model to complete this assignment, but make sure you understand the main idea of these models as well as some of their main advantages and disadvantages.

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Now pick up where you left off in Chapter 4 of Avery (2011) and read her perspective on contingency theories:

Avery, G. (2011). Contingency theories: Situations matter, from Chapter 4 of Understanding Leadership: Paradigms and Cases. SAGE Publications Ltd, London, pp. 78-86. [Ebrary]

Since this is a relatively complex topic, make sure to read up more on this topic with the following readings.  Most of these readings are pretty short but they are important:

Kumar, N. (2009). Chapter 14: Leadership.  Organizational Behaviour: A New Look : Concept, Theory and Cases.  Global Media, Mumbai, pp. 274-278. [Ebrary. Note: you don’t have to read the whole chapter just the last few pages]

Burke, R., & Barron, S. (2014). Chapter 6, Section 3: Situational leadership. Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (2nd Edition). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Somerset, NJ, USA, pp. 88-90. [Ebrary]

Williams, M. (2005). Chapter 2, Section 2: Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard.  Leadership for Leaders. Thorogood, London. Pp. 33-35 [Ebrary]

How situational leadership works. (2012). Alanis Business Academy.  Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbS3samTsOA

The Path-Goal theory of leadership. (2012). Alanis Business Academy.  Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSio5j3Iy4

Yeakey, G. W. (2002). Situational leadership. Military Review, 82(1), 72-82. [Proquest]

Obolensky, N. (2010).  Chapter 8: What is leadership anyway? Complex Adaptive Leadership. Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Surrey, GBR. [Ebrary]

Vijayaragavan, I. (2008). Chapter 2: Leadership theories and styles. High Performance Leadership. Global Media, Mumbai, pp. 19-21. [Ebrary]

Once you have finished your reading and research, write a four to five page paper answering the following questions. Make sure to cite at least one of the required background readings in each answer, and to cite at least three of the required readings total in your paper:

1.     For each of the following situations, explain which of the four leadership styles covered in the Situational model should be used and explain your reasoning with references to Chapter 4 of Avery (2011) and at least one other required reading from the background materials:

A.  You are in charge of a team of architects. They are highly skilled but have strong opinions and do not necessarily follow instructions. These architects are independent thinkers who are used to doing things their own way.

B.  You are in charge of a fast food restaurant. The employees are all teenagers who have not yet graduated from high school, and for most of them this is their first job.

C.  You are the supervisor for a team of software engineers. They are all highly skilled and highly motivated, and are used to working independently.  All of them believe in the mission of the company.

2.     For the above situations, how hard would it be to apply the Fielder Contingency model or the Path Goal model to choose a leadership style?  Would it be easy, or would you require a lot more information about each of the situations?  You don’t need to actually apply these two models, just discuss how difficult it might be to apply these models.

3.     Of the three models (Situational, Fielder Contingency, Path Goal), which one do you think is the most useful for the real world?  Explain your reasoning.