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What Should Santa Do?

Rudolph, Donner and Blitzen are not responding lately to your friendly conversation and obvious concern for their welfare. Their performance is declining rapidly, and you’re worried about a tight delivery deadline...

You would…

a.emphasize the use of standard procedures and the need for the job to be completed properly
b.make yourself available for discussion but not push your involvement
c.talk with the reindeer as a group and then set goals

If Santa was a Situational Leader he would choose Option C.

• Through their decline in performance he has identified a problem with certain individuals within the group, and he needs to ensure that their concerns are understood and dealt with.
• By setting new parameters with their agreement, he will be ensuring their buy-in to the task.


A very Happy Christmas to you all!
 

No Way Out?

Your team is struggling to solve a problem. You would normally leave them alone as they all get on really well and usually perform fantastically as a group.  What would you do?

a) Act quickly and firmly to correct and redirect
b) Encourage the group to continue their efforts
c) Work with the group and together engage in solving the problem 

A natural Situational Leader would choose Option B. This is because various factors have been considered by the leader:

1) They have always performed really well in the past
2) They get on with each other and quite clearly have their roles within the group in order to perform well
3) They have solved other problems in the past without needing your input

A Situational Leader therefore would accurately diagnose the ability of the individuals in the team for the situation that they’re in, encouraging them with his confidence in their problem solving skills.

 

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Finding it Tough to get the Message Across?

Your team has always been unified, but for some reason is ignoring all the new standards that you have set. What would you do?

a) Let them get involved in redefining the standards, but not take control
b) Leave them alone, they’ll come round in their own good time
c) Add some of their recommendations, but make sure that the new standards are met

A natural Situational Leader would choose Option C.  This is because various factors have been considered by the leader:

1) There has never been a problem with the team before, and they are unified in their approach
2) The team obviously has a problem with the new standards (they were not consulted) because they feel that they should have been involved in the change process
3) By ignoring the new standards the team is uncomfortable with the changes and their manager’s decision.

A Situational Leader therefore would be confident enough to ask the team for their input, and then enable them to implement the new standards themselves.

 

Click Here to view Situational Leadership®  public course dates.

Getting the Best out of Your Staff…and Improve Organisational Performance

'To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often'    Sir Winston Churchill

Imagine a scenario when a leader asks his team to do something for which they are a) unprepared or b) unqualified. 

The wrong type of leadership could spell disaster, or failure of the task involved. The right leadership would encourage, assess the readiness of the team to try, direct them accordingly and they would willingly follow. 

In order to steer a team through successive phases from a stage in which they do not yet understand the task ahead (or indeed the capabilities of their colleagues), to a stage where not only are they getting on with the job, but can do so without regular management, a leader has to not only understand his followers, but also himself. Techniques such as open questioning, shared learning objectives and focused appraisals have a powerful effect on the teams' ability to take an active role.

'High expectations and belief in people leads to high performance... so very often belief creates fact.'    Dr Paul Hersey

Strong leaders learn from their own strengths and failings, and ensure that their followers are recognised, honoured and cared for. The concept of Leadership can follow two paths – Leadership as a personal journey, and Leadership as a process for change. In reality, Leadership works best when it is a combination of both. A leader has to be switched on all the time, constantly assessing where his team is now, and directing them accordingly.

In the present economic climate more and more companies are realising that it is not only organisational culture, but good leadership, that is imperative to the success of the business. Those who have invested in a workable leadership programme have found that a good leader inspires his followers to follow him, despite any adverse external circumstances. A leader who shows confidence in his team ensures both listening and respect, inspires that team to come together in times of hardship, and ensures a maximum performance at all times.


GBS Situational Solutions... Take the Lead...
  

What is good leadership in a Competitive Environment?

A good leader needs to be able to build successful teams in a competitive environment, to explore the relationships between competing teams and know how to manage the consequences of stereotyping and win/lose situations.
 
In pursuit of a continual need to be flexible, organisations are increasingly moving towards operating in small integrated teams. 
The competitive attitude is useful, if not imperative when directed towards external organisations - however it can be disruptive if centred upon other internal teams.
 
To some extent competition is inherent within any functional organisation - largely because the various departments and groupings frequently have differing interests. In this instance members of each team can become more closely knit and bury their differences in order to become more task oriented, with the consequence of reduced creativity and personal disaffection as individual's needs are not met. 
 
Although the team has become more organised and structured, the leadership style has veered towards an autocracy, with other internal 'competitors' seen as 'the enemy' with commensurate distortions in perception. If these teams are then forced to work together they tend to isolate themselves, hostility increases and inter group communication decreases. Someone has to 'lose'.
 
Thus the leader's authority needs to derive from what they do rather than from what they are. It concerns the skills needed to manage teams and groups in a competitive organisation, resolving the problems described above, but doing so in a manner consistent with the leadership styles demanded by the ever vocal mantra - flexibility.

'A leader's authority needs to derive from what they do rather than from what they are.'
 
Leaders have to be more emotional than managers - they stand out by being different and this is why teams choose to follow leaders. However in seeking out the truth and making decisions based on fact, not prejudice they have to temper this emotion. Moreover they have to be able to think radically and creatively in order to ensure that their environment is positively competitive. And they have to teach their teams how to 'lose' - to use this experience to evaluate, to learn, and ultimately become more cohesive and effective.


As a leader do you feel confident in managing competition?    

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