Leadership Theory Application Situational leadership: A case study

Case summary

One of the principles of situational leadership is that there is no 'ideal' approach to management; rather good management is dependent upon particular situational variables. A good example of this is the case of employment at Google: Google is a company which is famous for its extremely flexible workplace environment for engineers. Engineers are considered the lifeblood of Google. Google even allows engineers to pursue their own projects on company time and allows workers great latitude in directing their daily routines. At Google, it is assumed that engineers 'want' to work: rather than creating a system of carrots and sticks to motivate them in a transactional format, instead the company seeks to hire employees who are extremely gifted and self-motivated.

Although this approach works for Google, situational leadership theory suggests that it would not necessarily work for all companies and all positions equally well. "Engineers are encouraged to take 20% of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally. This means that if you have a great idea, you always have time to run with it" (Mediratta 2007). Ideas that have their origins in 20% time include Gmail, Google News and even the Google shuttle buses (Mediratta 2007).

But...

In fact, there are concerns that this obsession with employee quality has led Google to invest so much into hiring workers that it obtains 'the best and brightest' for even lower-level positions. These categories of employees are under much more directional management and thus the over-qualified workers chafe under their limited roles.
Discussion

According to Northouse (2012), for a situational leader there are four basic styles which can be deployed when leading an organization: delegating, coaching, supporting, and directing. For workplaces in which there is a high level of commitment and competence, a delegating style is preferred (Northouse 2012: 101). At Google, this is the preferred leadership modality when dealing with engineers, given that the grueling hiring process is undertaken specifically so workers will not have to be directed in an extremely watchful manner and can complete tasks independently. Ideally, employees will voluntarily 'add' to their duties with the knowledge and zeal they bring to their roles.

However, a delegating leadership style is not considered appropriate for lower-level workers who are often assumed to have lower levels of competency and/or motivation because of the nature of the task and thus are they are more apt to be 'directed' (as it is assumed that both motivation…