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By Dr. Scott.

This week, we resume our short series on Situational Leadership.  Last month, I introduced the series and provided a short overview of Situational Leadership Theory in 6 Characteristics of Situational Leaders followed by a quick dive into the model developed by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey back in the late 1960s in The Situational Leadership Model.  The theory, and the models that followed, focus on a leader’s need to alter their leadership style to align with a follower’s level of development, the complexity of the task, and the nuances of the situation.

If you missed either or those previous installments, I highly recommend, at least, quickly reviewing The Situational Leadership Model because, this week, we’ll focus are sights on one of the four quadrants of the Situational Leadership Model: Directing.

As a quick refresher, though, the model identifies 4 Quadrants: Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating.  To understand the model, we should think of a leader and a follower as moving through the quadrants.  The leadership style that the leader should use in each quadrant is dictated by the follower’s competency and commitment levels.  In the Directing Quadrant, leaders should provide a great deal of supervision and focus their efforts providing task and job specific instructions.  As Julia Khvashcheva emphasized, recently in Situational Leadership: 4 Styles of Hersey and Blanchard, with directing, leadership communication is typically “one way” and that the leader “does not expect new ideas or participation in decision making.” 

Only after the follower demonstrates higher levels of competency in their specific tasks can the leader then move on to more relationship building leadership and more collaborative communication.  This, of course, is an oversimplification of the Directing Quadrant specifically and the overarching theory that the model presents more generally, but should, more-or- less bring you up to speed for our discussions here.

Rather than simply describing the directing quadrant, though—which we’ve done previously in Situational Leadership Model—we’ll focus our efforts on presenting three examples of real-world situations where a leader should apply the Situational Leadership approach of Directing.

The New Hire

One of the easiest ways to think about the Directing Quadrant is to envision a new hire.  New hires are often carefully selected from a pool of applicants.  While the reasons for selecting the individual will vary from situation to situation and industry to industry, new hires have several things in common.  New hires are typically excited and enthusiastic about beginning a new chapter and this translates into high commitment levels.  However, new hires also lack the skills and competencies they need to be successful in their new role, even if they have worked in a similar job or industry previously.  In fact, prior experience may even be a hindrance if processes differ and especially in the case of having to “unlearn” bad or out of date habits from the previous employment. 

For example, in my college days, I worked at several pizza restaurants and held various positions from delivery driver to cook to manager.  In fact, at one such location, I was promoted to manager and was placed in charge of every aspect of the business from hiring to firing, weekly stocking, daily prep, etc.  Well, way led on to way, and I later signed on at another major pizza chain—a job I got, in part, because of my prior experience. 

Despite having such a diverse and experienced background, however, I still needed to unlearn quite a bit from my prior jobs and learn the differences in tasks and expectations.  As a result, my new manager put me through the same training as any other new hire.  I watched all the training videos, worked under highly supervised situations, and received regular feedback for task related improvements.

Like that manager, situational leaders need to be highly involved in the new hire’s tasks and training.  Relationship building and goal setting will come later.  With new hires, situational leaders need to be task specific and take a highly directive approach.  As Ken Blanchard noted in Situational Leadership II: A Situational Approach to Managing People, directive leadership behaviors can be defined by just 3 words: “structure, control, and supervise.”

The First Timer

Similar to the new hire, the first timer is an individual who may be working their first job or has changed careers so drastically that their work experience doesn’t overlap with the new job expectations.  For true first timers though, there is a drastic learning curve that must be met.  Often overlooked are those things that experienced team members may take for granted, such as work related protocols and etiquette, basic task related skills, self-motivation techniques, or even basic computer skills.

Leading someone with no prior work experience, then, is somewhat unique from the new hire model.  With first timers, we’ve got to start with some of the basics.  That is why, if we think about situational leadership as an upward arcing journey through the Directing Quadrant, first timers begin their journey at ground zero and we, as leaders, must begin our journey with them there.  From a situational leadership perspective, then, the first timer presents many challenges requiring the highest levels of supervision that include a system for regularly revisiting task specific competencies and job specific expectations. 

Overall, the situational leader must remain patient and gradually help first timers progress up the Directing Quadrant arc.  First timers will often take much longer than typical new hires before they can demonstrate mastery of the necessary expectations and task specific competencies that will allow the leader to adopt leadership styles from the other situational leadership quadrants.

The Deadline

One of the most important things to keep in mind about the Situation Leadership Model is that it should not be seen as a single path or trajectory, even though visual representations of the model often present it as such.  Rather, the key tenet of situational leadership is adaptability and effective situational leaders must adopt different leadership styles depending on the followers, the situation, or both.  The Directing Quadrant, then, is more than just a leadership style for new hires and first timers.  Another key time to apply high supervision and a high task focus is during high pressure situations like looming deadlines. 

In other words, when the pressure is on, a more direct leadership style is often the most effective.  For example, one way that many people think about the directing quadrant is as the “telling” leadership style.  Said another way, leaders using a directing leadership style spend most of their time “telling” people what to do.  While this style of leadership, if used continuously, will eventually erode confidence and trust, short bursts of directive leadership can be very effective in high-pressure or tight deadline situations.  Especially if reinforced both prior and after with leadership styles from the other quadrants that emphasize collaboration, innovation, and delegation.

Final Thoughts

To recap, the Situational Leadership Model consists of 4 Quadrants: Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating.  In this entry, we focused our attention on the Directing Quadrant.  While there are many times when it is appropriate to apply a directing leadership style, in this piece, we highlighted the importance of directing with new hires, first time workers, and when navigating high pressure situations with looming deadlines.

In these instances, situational leaders need to provide high levels of supervision and promote task and job competencies.  Once the individual has gained higher levels of competencies or the high-pressure situation has been completed or resolved, situational leaders can then apply leadership best practices from the other 3 quadrants: Supporting, Coaching, and Delegating.

In upcoming weeks, we’ll explore the remaining quadrants in more detail and explore some more real-world examples and applications.

Thank you for reading the Madison School of Professional Development Wednesday Leadership Blog where we highlight leadership best practices each week.  Check out more from this blog and other blogs hosted by MEG here.

If you have a topic that you would like to see me pontificate on, drop me an email at info@meg-spd.com.

Dr. Scott Eidson is the Executive Vice President of the Madison School of Professional Development and holds doctoral degrees in both history and business.  When not thinking about leadership, he’s usually thinking about surfing or old Volkswagens.