Situational Leadership: Why Great Leaders Adapt to the Person

What Is Situational Leadership? The Four Leadership Styles

At the crossroads of management and psychology, Situational Leadership Theory has long been a respected framework. First proposed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in the 1960s, its central idea is this: a leader should adjust their leadership style according to the "readiness" of each team member. In other words, situational leadership accounts for both the person and the circumstances, allowing management to prescribe the right remedy for the right colleague.

First, we need to understand the concept of "readiness". Readiness refers to the competence and commitment a team member brings to a given task. By Hersey and Blanchard's classification, a team member's readiness can be sorted into four levels: low competence and low commitment, low competence and high commitment, high competence and low commitment, and high competence and high commitment. Accordingly, a leader's style is divided into four kinds: Directing, Coaching, Supporting and Delegating.

1. Directing style: suited to team members with low competence and low commitment. In this situation, the leader needs to give clear instructions and close supervision, helping members build basic skills and confidence.
2. Coaching style: suited to team members with low competence and high commitment. Here, beyond providing guidance, the leader also needs to offer emotional support, encouraging members to raise their competence step by step.
3. Supporting style: suited to team members with high competence and low commitment. The leader's role shifts to that of a supporter, drawing out members' motivation through listening and encouragement rather than issuing direct instructions.
4. Delegating style: suited to team members with high competence and high commitment. This is the ideal state; the leader need only provide the necessary resources and freedom, letting members realise their full potential.

To take a real example, suppose you are a newly appointed manager with an intern and a senior staff member reporting to you. For the intern, you may need to adopt the directing style, telling them clearly what to do at every step and checking progress regularly. For the senior staff member, you can adopt the delegating style, stepping back and letting them decide how to complete the task, offering input or resources only when needed.

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Situational Leadership: A Full Assessment

The greatest strength of Situational Leadership Theory lies in its flexibility. It lets a leader adjust their behaviour to different circumstances and the needs of individual members, thereby raising the team's performance. At the same time, this flexibility demands that the leader possess a high degree of perceptiveness and adaptability.

First, the advantages of Situational Leadership Theory are plain to see. A successful leader needs not only good personal qualities but also the ability to accurately assess the state of team members and take corresponding action. For instance, when you face a newly formed team, you may find that most members lack experience; adopting a directing or coaching style here can help them get up to speed quickly. Once the team is operating maturely, you can shift towards a supporting or delegating style, giving members greater autonomy. What is more, team members themselves have their own needs within the team — and research shows that team members hold expectations about the leadership style they require at different times (Zigarmi & Roberts, 2017), so being able to judge precisely and provide the leadership style they need helps build employees' trust in their leader.

That said, Situational Leadership Theory also has its shortcomings. The first challenge is the difficulty of assessing the situation. Accurately gauging team members' readiness is not easy, especially when the team is large or the task is complex. A leader may, through misjudgement, adopt an unsuitable style and end up harming the team's performance instead. The second challenge is the transition period when switching styles: when a leader needs to move from one style to another, it may leave members feeling confused or unsettled. For example, a leader moving from a coaching style to a delegating style may be misread by members as showing a lack of care.

For this reason, although situational leadership is sound in theory, in practice it requires the leader to possess a high degree of self-reflection and communication skills to ensure that style transitions go smoothly and effectively.

Applying the Situational Leadership Model: Concrete Cases Across Different Settings

Below are three examples of situational leadership applied in different settings:

1. A start-up's period of rapid growth: in a start-up, team members are often full of enthusiasm but short on experience. Here, the leader needs to adopt the coaching style, offering emotional support alongside guidance to help the team build basic technical and management skills. For example, the founder of a tech company, in the firm's early days, discussed project details with team members daily and held regular one-on-one training, making sure everyone could keep pace with the company's growth.
2. A traditional company's period of transformation: when a traditional company faces a transition, some senior staff may feel confused by new technology or new processes. Here, the leader needs to adopt the supporting style, easing resistance through listening and encouragement and rekindling employees' motivation. For example, when a manufacturing company introduced an automated production line, the supervisor first held a series of communication sessions with employees to understand their concerns, then provided training opportunities so staff could adapt to the new technology step by step.
3. A multinational's multicultural team: in a multinational company, team members come from different cultural backgrounds, and their working styles and values may differ widely. Here, the leader needs to adopt the delegating style, granting members a high degree of autonomy while ensuring the team's overall coordination through regular meetings and feedback mechanisms. For example, when a regional manager at an international firm was overseeing teams in Asia and Europe, they allowed each team to set its work plan according to local cultural norms, but convened a global meeting each month to resolve common problems and share best practice.

These cases show that the successful application of the situational leadership model requires a leader to possess sharp insight and flexible adaptability in order to respond to different circumstances and challenges.

How to Apply Situational Leadership Successfully: Practical Tips for Stronger Leadership

To apply the situational leadership model successfully, the following tips can help a leader strengthen their leadership:

1. Continuously assess team members' readiness: a leader needs to communicate with members regularly to understand changes in their competence and commitment. This not only helps you adjust your leadership style but also strengthens trust and rapport with members. For example, you can gather feedback through weekly team meetings or quarterly one-on-one conversations, and adjust your management approach accordingly.
2. Cultivate a diverse set of leadership skills: the situational leadership model requires a leader to be capable of multiple leadership styles. A leader therefore needs to keep learning and practising, strengthening their directing, coaching, supporting and delegating abilities. For example, you can sharpen your leadership skills by attending management training programmes or exchanging ideas with experienced leaders.
3. Build psychological safety: psychological safety is one of the key factors in successful situational leadership. When members feel psychologically safe, they are more willing to express their views and needs, which helps the leader assess their readiness more accurately. For example, you can cultivate psychological safety by encouraging open communication and fostering a positive culture that accepts mistakes.

Conclusion

The situational leadership model offers a flexible and practical framework that helps leaders adjust their behaviour to different circumstances and the needs of individual employees. To apply it successfully, however, a leader needs sharp insight and a diverse set of management skills. By continuously assessing members' readiness, cultivating a varied set of leadership skills and building psychological safety, a leader can effectively lift the team's performance and achieve the organisation's long-term goals.

If you want to take your team's leadership skills further — especially learning how to apply leadership styles flexibly across different settings — our training programme "Management Psychology in Full: Becoming an Outstanding Manager" will be your ideal choice. This programme covers the situational leadership model, the cultivation of psychological safety and effective feedback techniques, helping participants become truly influential leaders in the workplace!

References

Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. H. (1969). Managing Research and Development Personnel: An Application of Leadership Theory. Research Management, 12(5), 331–338. https://doi.org/10.1080/00345334.1969.11755973

Zigarmi, D., & Roberts, T. P. (2017). A test of three basic assumptions of Situational Leadership® II model and their implications for HRD Practitioners. European Journal of Training and Development, 41(3), 241–260. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejtd-05-2016-0035