Situational Leadership Styles

i.Define Leadership. What are the four styles of leadership according to situational leadership model? Explain each using relevant examples.

Leadership is the practical ability of motivating and leading/guiding individuals, teams, groups and organisations. This involves a process through which any leader could impart social influences to motivate and persuade others to accomplish any particular task (Bratton, 2020).

Four styles of leadership

According to Western (2019), there are four different styles of leadership which have been characterised by Hersey and Blanchard in terms of the measure of relationship and task based behaviour in the overall leadership structure which is provided to the followers by their leaders. These four styles are Telling, Selling, Participating and Delegating.

Telling

Under such leadership styles, individuals are found to have shortfalls in terms of particular skills which are required for the execution of the responsibility which could be accorded to them. In spite of their shortcomings, the individuals could be interested towards workings regarding their responsibilities since, despite the fact that they could be novices, they generally are enthusiastic towards their work.

Selling

This form of Situational Leadership is essential to motivate personnel who could be able to perform their responsibilities, however, they could remain demotivated regarding the outcome of the tasks and thus, could become unwilling to perform their responsibilities.

Participating

This format of leadership is particularly suitable for the individuals who could be experienced as well as able to perform their assignments although could be deficient in terms of confidence or enthusiasm to perform such responsibilities.

Delegating

This format of situational leadership is essential in terms of providing guidance to personnel who could be comfortable with their responsibilities and experienced in the same as well. Such personnel could be willing and able to manage their responsibilities in a self-motivating manner.

ii. Define the term ‘servant leadership’. How are servant leaders different from other leaders?

Servant Leadership

According to Rosenbach (2018), this involves a leadership philosophy within which the primary goal is to render specific service by the leader. This could be considered to be completely different from the traditional leadership approaches were the leader focuses on the achievement of particular objectives pertaining to the mission of the employer organisation. The difference from traditional leadership involves the sharing of power by the Servant Leaders to their employees through emphasising on the welfare and growth of the employees so that the subordinates could perform optimally and develop in terms of capability extent (Bolman and Deal, 2017). As opposed to the notions of conventional leadership, servant leadership inverts the procedures in the form of prioritisation of services to the subordinates.

iii. James Kouzes and Barry Posner identified five practices which according to them should be part of every leaders' set skills? What are these?

The five practices concerning the measures of exemplary leadership, according to Hoch et al (2018) researched by Posner and Kouzes, could be identified as the following:

1: Development of a model which could outline the way forward. This involves encouraging the leaders to observe similar behaviour which they generally instruct others to observe.

2: Inspiring a vision which could be shared by many. This involves development of differential goals and visions which could be accepted and shared by every person involved in the entire process.

3: Challenging the existing processes. This process is suggestive towards the development of innovativeness within organisational subordinates so that novel solutions could be developed for existing and prospective issues.

4: Enabling the other to act effectively. This involves formulation of conducive environment through which other could provide optimised performance.

5: Provisioning of effective encouragement. This involves fostering sincerity and recognition provisioning to successful and outstanding performance holders.

iv. What is the difference between a manager and a leader? Discuss using examples

Leaders have to be followed by others while managers generally direct and supervise personnel who are subordinates to them. Any successful manager is required to be a leader so that proper performance management regarding organisational vision could be undertaken.

2: Discuss various types of thinking. Use appropriate examples to support each type.

According to Gandolfi and Stone (2018), thinking skills, categorised in order of complications, could be identified to be six in number. These are as the following:

1: Knowledge in the form of remembering and recalling information.

2: Comprehension in form of formulation of better understanding.

3: Application in the form of implementation of gained experiences.

4: Analysis in the form of assessing the interconnectivity of different elements of any phenomenon.

5: Synthesis in form of creation of novel ideas.

6: Evaluation.

3. How is influencing important for leadership? Discuss

According to Covin and Slevin (2017), the influence is the key factor to successful leadership outcomes since the sine qua non of any leadership is motivating others to follow the guidance of the leader. Inspiring and guiding others towards a shared mission and accomplishment of the same through consistently developing and sustaining the cooperative and collaborative relationship. According to Silva (2016), experimental psychologists have outlined that reliability and compliance generation within the leadership elements remains incumbent on the influence which could be imparted by leaders on their followers. The constituent elements are reciprocity, attraction, colleagueship, commitment and credibility involving the leadership elements.

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Reference List

• Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
• Bratton, J. ed., 2020. Organizational leadership. SAGE Publications Limited.
• Covin, J.G. and Slevin, D.P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic leadership. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
• Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., 2018. Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), pp.261-269.
• Hoch, J.E., Bommer, W.H., Dulebohn, J.H. and Wu, D., 2018. Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44(2), pp.501-529.
• Rosenbach, W.E., 2018. Contemporary issues in leadership. Routledge.
• Silva, A., 2016. What is leadership?. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 8(1), p.1.
• Western, S., 2019. Leadership: A critical text. SAGE Publications Limited.