Friso Wittebol asks a number of questions about the "Situational
Leadership" model. I have used this for years, and I like it. I can
respond to his questions, and Rick can decide if it is worthy of the
list. My responses reflect my own experiences. Of course, this is
obvious. On the other hand, some of my situations are not like what
Friso hypothesizes are the norm.
[Host's Note: The Situational Leadership Model was very helpful to me as
a young manager. I think this is about learning and is a fine topic for
the learning org list... Rick]
Friso says, "I would like to have some comments on the following
hypotheses:"
1.The model is based on a vertical relationship between a boss and his
subordinate(s). These kinds of relationships are rapidly getting out of
date. More and more the boss is becoming a manager with no formal
authority over his (or her!) co-workers. Therefore, the actual value of
the model is declining.
=====
I don't think formal authority is what makes the model work, at least
most of the time. However, I work in an environment where the hierarchy
and cross-functional teams are both alive and thriving synergistically.
In fact, we believe pretty strongly that the imultaneous interaction of
functional and cross-functional organizations is the "best of all
possible worlds" as voltaire said.
Rather than formal authority, I think credibility and integrity drive
the relationship. You should understand that I am responsible for one
of the functional organizations. The experts who work for me spend 90%
of their time in teams far from my door. Nevertheless, their expertise
derives from the leadership they get from my organization, not from
anywhere else. They do not come to my organization as experts, such as
an engineer might. They come as generalists, and all the training,
guidance, and direction they get in the professional execution of their
responsibilities originates in my organization. In addition, they get
the corporate vision, mission, and their functional organization vision
from within my department.
When new employees arrive in the department, we use the S1 (directive)
approach. As time goes on as mastery improves, we migrate through the
other modes. We have an S5 (teacher) and S6 (Initiator --
self-empowered) which go well beyond the traditional model.
Of course, performance evaluations originate from managers in my
department. We get input from others, and that is incorporated and
attached. The final assessment is from other experts in the department.
Thus, formal authority still exists. Some of the time, we use the
formal authority to manage behavior of people who are working on teams.
We are expected to manage to corporate values, and sometimes teams (25
of them in Marketing) can go off at a tangent. At these times, formal
authority is a tool to manage our staff's adherence to corporate, not
team, values. As someone said, localized groups can suboptimize. The
checks and balances of functional organizations work very well as a
feedback loop in these situations.
========================
2.In the more traditional organizational structures, like the simple
structure and the machine-bureaucracy (according to Mintzberg), the model
is expected to be more applicable than in organizations which have
characteristics of a professional bureaucracy or an adhoccracy.
========================
I am unfamiliar with these other structures. We are a professional
service organization with many, many professionals. Corporately, our
experts bring skills from many different fields. Bean's success as an
organization depends on the quality of the expertise, but also on our
ability to blend these experts' inputs into a whole product. Again, the
checks and balances of functional organizations work well to keep the
many cross-functional teams on track and within the corporate values
structure.
============================
3.An organization should be in the pro-active state (according to Burns &
Nelson) for the Situational Leadership model to be usefull in all its
aspects. (In the reactive state one should observe a strong bias towards
the S1 behaviour, and in the high performing state one should observe a
bias towards S4 behaviour.)
============================
Burns and Nelson must mean that when a company is in a reactive state,
few managers ever progress their subordinates beyond the S1 state. In
the high-performing state, one still begins with S1 management mode when
working with a new employee. It depends on the complexity, quality of
management, and skill of the employee how fast they progress. In a
high-performance organization employees go beyond S4 to become teachers
and self-empowered employees. However, even these people begin in the
S1 state as new employees.
I know absolutely nothing about recent developments in the theory. I
can only report my own direct experience using it in one location.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>