Importance of situational approach in leadership
The concept of leadership is omnipresent in contemporary times. The study of leaders and leadership skills provides an in-depth analysis of various aspects with the help of which an individual could achieve goals that he or she aims for. Nowadays, in the business communities the terms of ‘leaders’ and ‘leadership’ is highly popularized as these define and shape the structure of a business or a company for the long run. Many believe that leaders are born and not made; however, some of the concepts present differ with this statement (Fischer, 2016). In my opinion, the leadership skills can be developed over the period. Thus, it can be rightly said that leaders and leadership skills can be acquired. Hence, leaders are born and made as well.
Situational approach is the most widely popularized approach. It describes me best as a leader since it believes in the fact that a leader can adapt with the changing circumstances. Hence, any situation that comes in the way, a leader has to act according to it. In order to accomplish the goals one has to evolve and amend his or her approach and style with the ever-evolving business environment. The core idea of this approach is how the varied nature of followers affects the style of a leader and how rapidly a leader amend his or her leadership skills with the varied nature of the followers. This approach heavily depends on the way a leader functions in handling his or her followers. The theory developed by Hersey and Blanchard have gone through various substantive amendments and thus making this approach slightly unreliable (Thompson, G., & Glasø, 2015). However, the approaches central idea has remained the same, which have practical and realistic ideology to it. This makes this approach widely used. Leaders have to be flexible enough to change their style in order to handle distinctive circumstances. In my opinion this approach describes me the best as a leader.
A leader does have some traits in him or her that makes him or her take the position of an in charge and take the entire crew towards the road to success. Some of the key leadership traits that I possess are as follows:
- Honestyis something, which in recent times is not found abundantly. Many believe that honesty is not a trait that is significant in the field of business. However, I stand to oppose this statement, as I believe that many great leaders road to success was with the implementation of honest intentions that they had towards achieving their goal. An honest opinion as well as feedback shall refrain the future drama that might give rise to chaos and conflict in the group or team (Nichols, 2016). Honesty is one of the distinguished leadership trait that I possess.
- Self-managementis one of the significant attribute, which in my opinion is necessary to be present in a leader. A leader manages and holds together the varied characteristics of followers together and strives forward towards fulfilling the goals. If a leader is not able to manage his or her own self then it is impossible for him or her to manage the others (Northouse, 2017). Self-management involves prioritizing the goals and act towards fulfilling those goals.
- A leader’s vision should be able to look into the future as well. This simply means a leader should have a vision to foresee the future. This involves predicting the possible threats that the company may face (Furtner, Rauthmann & Sachse, 2015). It also involves taking necessary precautions while performing the current task. In addition to this, a leader must always have a backup plan prepared. I as well have the tendency to foresee and predict the possible threats that might affect my followers and me and according to it, I plan my actions.
- Positive thinkingis what makes a leader unique and distinguished than others. A leader must always stay positive no matter how hard of a situation he or she faces. This positive attitude not only helps the leader to overcome the tough situations but also boosts the followers’ moral spirit. I always have a positive approach towards handling a situation. This attitude helps me to achieve my goals efficiently.
As a follower, I would prefer my leader to take the way of Situational approach, as I believe that it is an extremely realistic approach. The core idea of situational approach states that a leader should always amend his or her style according to the changing circumstances (Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche, 2015). I believe that in any business it is evident that a situation varies and hence the approach to deal with each distinctive circumstances should be different as well. It would not be justified if a leader takes the same style for handling each and every distinguished situations. In addition to this, a team never comprises of a like-minded individuals. Each member has his or her unique nature and characteristics. In my opinion, a leader with help of situational approach would be able to handle the varied range of unique characteristics of team members (Gonos & Gallo, 2013).
Key leadership traits to possess
In any business environment, it is quite evident that there are multiple situations, which are distinguished from each other. For instance, one circumstance might be such that the company is facing degrading image in the market and as a result of which the employee retention issue is arising. Now in this scenario both, the circumstances are contrasting from each other and a leader has to adapt himself to both the situations. He or she has to deal with these contrasting circumstances by applying distinguished styles that would affect both efficiently (Roy, Sato, & Calò, 2015). It is impossible that a strategy that would work for image building would as well work for managing employee retention. Thus, an efficient leader who adopts situational approach would be able to handle this situation efficiently without any hesitation.
The situational approach, which is also known as contingency approach is in my opinion have the capacity to influence others. The central idea of this approach is the efficiency to cope with changing situations. The flexibility a leader requires in order to deal with distinctive tasks is what influences others (Schultheiss & Schultheiss, 2014). The varied situational hazard may arise simultaneously and a leader would have to take care of such contrasting circumstances at the same time. He or she also have to be efficient enough to multi-task. Time management is a trait that would come handy if one has to deal with multi-tasking situation (Kirillov, Tanatova, Vinichenko & Makushkin, 2015). All these attributes in a leader influence others. A great leader possess these traits. For instance, leader possessing all these attributes can handle any situation without any hesitation. Observing such leadership skills will influence others as well since this will impress and motivate them to strive to work hard for achieving their goals.
In order to enhance the leadership skills one must have to set specific goals and have to abide by it. These goals are as follows –
A leader has the power to motivate and influence others. This helps in boosting the teams’ morale spirit and ultimately gaining its position towards the road to success. Thus, a leader must possess the quality of a motivator. A leader should develop his motivating skills. When the team members lack in motivation it affects their spirit and naturally hampers the productivity level (Fiumara, 2016). Hence, it is extremely important to set a goal for a leader to become a better motivator.
It is significant that a leader must always have an excellent communication skill and have the efficiency to communicate with anyone. Hence, it is important that a leader should set a goal to improve his communication skills. Inter personal communication always have a significant impact on the team members and a leader should always be efficient in communication (Hagan & Thompson, 2014).
Realistic objectives
A leader should always be able to make a distinction between a realistic objective and irrational aim (Rangapuram, Bühler & Hein, 2013). A leader should always make a goal to establish a realistic objective. This will help the leader to progress with valid action plan and motivate his or her followers to work according to the realistic objective.
Goals to improve leadership skills
It is extremely essential that a leader shall set a goal to keep a check on his or her own skills (Botvin & Griffin, 2014). Sometimes it is observed that an individual taking in charge forgets to keep a check on one own skills this hamper the teams effort to work hard. Hence setting a goal to keep a check on individual skill is important.
In order to achieve the goal of an efficient motivator one must take the following actions and these are –
- Gaining the knowledge about motivating others.
- Books on the subject topic.
- Researching on the specific subject topic.
The second goal in the list is to enhance communication skills –
- Expanding the knowledge of vocabulary.
- Practicing on a regular basis.
- Knowledge of varied languages.
The third goal is to set realistic objectives and in order to gain that the following procedures should be taken into action –
- Have a clear vision of the aims that is needed to be achieved.
- Practical approach towards situations.
- Analyzing the situation or circumstances thoroughly.
- Prediction of possible threats.
The last goal that needs to be achieved is self-assessment and the following are the action plan –
- Regular self-assessment of skills.
- Enhancement of skills that needs to be developed.
- Expanding the knowledge in order to further enhance those skills.
Conclusion:
Thus, it can be said leadership skills cannot be acquired in a single day and requires experience and knowledge. In order to establish oneself as an efficient leader in any field, an individual has to have a set of goals. These goals should be achieved through a structured action plan. The approach is also efficient in order to develop an individual’s leadership skill. The above discussions mention that how situational approach is best suited for me. The core idea of the approach is related to my style. The above discussions also efficiently states that how leaders and leadership skills are not born but are acquired over the time. An individual gains leadership skills through his or her experiences that he or she accumulates while working in any field.
References:
Botvin, G. J., & Griffin, K. W. (2014). Life skills training: preventing substance misuse by enhancing individual and social competence. New directions for youth development, 2014(141), 57-65.
Fischer, S. A. (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing: a concept analysis. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(11), 2644-2653.
Fiumara, D. A. (2016). The Effects of Motivational Strategies to Increase Teachers’ Commitment and Enthusiasm.
Furtner, M. R., Rauthmann, J. F., & Sachse, P. (2015). Unique self-leadership: A bifactor model approach. Leadership, 11(1), 105-125.
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C., & Reaiche, C. (2015). The emerging role of transformational leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), 459-467.
Gonos, J., & Gallo, P. (2013). Model for leadership style evaluation. Management: journal of contemporary management issues, 18(2), 157-168.
Hagan, L., & Thompson, H. (2014). It’s good to talk: developing the communication skills of an adult with an intellectual disability through augmentative and alternative communication. British journal of learning disabilities, 42(1), 66-73.
Kirillov, A. V., Tanatova, D. K., Vinichenko, M. V., & Makushkin, S. A. (2015). Theory and practice of time-management in education. Asian Social Science, 11(19), 193.
Nichols, A. L. (2016). What do people desire in their leaders? The effect of leadership experience on desired leadership traits. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(5), 658-671.
Northouse, P. G. (2017). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.
Rangapuram, S. S., Bühler, T., & Hein, M. (2013). Towards realistic team formation in social networks based on densest subgraphs. In Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on World Wide Web (pp. 1077-1088). ACM.
Roy, M. J., Sato, K., & Calò, F. (2015). Further limits to institutional isomorphism? Introducing the ‘neo-contingency approach’to the field of community-led social ventures. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 26(6), 2536-2553.
Schultheiss, O. C., & Schultheiss, M. (2014). Implicit Motive Profile Analysis: An If?Then Contingency Approach to the Picture?Story Exercise. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(1), 1-16.
Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2015). Situational leadership theory: a test from three perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 527-544.
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