The Importance Of Situational Leadership Theory

As the most important human capital of a company, leaders and managers are critical in delivering company’s message, assigning work and motivate employees. Effective leadership is essential to an organization’s success. There are many factors can influence a manager’s leadership style and method. It can be determined by the leaders personality, education and education. It is also can be determined by the characteristics of the pemployee who is being lead. Among all the leadership theories, Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) has been identified as the most effective leadership theory recently. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to identify why situational leadership theory is relevant in developing effective leadership culture by …show more content…
SLT is developed by Dr. Paul Hersery and Ken Blanchard. They believe there is no single universal effective leadership method that exists, as any form of leadership style or method can be effective under certain condition. The most effective leadership style is a complex of leadership method, and the successful leader “must tailor their approach to the maturity of the followers and the situation, or details and environment, of the assignment” (Campbell, 2015). Three major SLT models are further developed, each support the originally SLT theory, but also involves more in-depth studies. These models are, Fred Fielder’s Contingency model, Robert House and Terrence Mitchell’s path-Goal Model, and Paul Hersey and Kenneeth Blanchar’s Life-Cycle model (Plunkett, Allen and Attner, 2013, p. 456 – …show more content…
The strength of this model is “it extended knowledge about leadership by considering the impact of situations on leader” (da Cruz, Nunes, and Pinheiro,2011). He believes the most effective leadership style should take into the consideration of three major situational variables, “the leader-member relationship, task structure, and leader position power”(Plunkett, Allen and Attner, 2013, p. 456). Leader-member relationship is a scale that determine the degree of acceptance of the leader by his subordinates. This is a critical factor to determine whether the leader can effectively perform it duty. As we know, the task structure and position power can controlled by the organization, but the relationship can not be controlled by the organization. A leader is repected and trusted by his subordinates not only can perform his duty easier, gaining support from surbonidate easier, and his insight and idea can be asscepted by members easier, which ultimately promote the success. The tast structure rating relate “ to the nature of subordinats’ jobs or taskes” (Plunkett, Allen and Attner, 2013, p.457). It is reflect the relationship between the leader competency to the nature of the assigned work and the subordinate’s competency on the duty of the assigned work. If all the party are clear with right and duty of the job, leader can control the working process more effectively. Leader position power “describe the