Servant Situation vs. Servant Situational

Servant

Situation vs. Servant

Situational leadership

Situational leadership first emerged during the late 1960s. The theory and model of situational leadership was coined originally by Ken Blanchard & Paul Hersey. The basic idea behind their structure of the situational leadership model was, as the name suggest, to base all management strategies around the different situation that a company faces in its commerce and to allow the situation in different times control the overall flow of work in a company. Situational Leadership is used in high-risk companies where the market trends lead the overall objectives of the business e.g. stock exchange is one format of business which is very unpredictable and totally dependent upon the market flow, here situational leadership can come in very handy as the overall decision making for the buying and selling of stock can be done after analyzing the overall 'situation' of the market. Again advertising is one sector where market and consumer trends lead all decision making procedures. It is however, very important, under the situational leadership format, that the format chosen is one that will benefit the business in the long run. Different formats of businesses use different formats which will be explained below (Hersey and Blanchard, 1969a and b).

Basically, what Blanchard and Hersey did with the first model of the Situational leadership style was that they divided the entire structure of a business into simpler terms of the level of work that the director, leader or manager put in to help his team members understand and fulfill a task. The grid below shows the basic divisions that they made (Hersey and Blanchard, 1969a and b):

"Directing" is by far the most close-structured format of the situational leadership as the leaders always give specific instructions, the followers or team members have only specific tasks to fill from which they cannot deviate. The biggest con for this format is that the communication s always top-down and one way. The pro, however, is that it allows the company to work under a very clear-cut structure and there is rarely any confusion with regards to work load and liability. This format is very common in traditional or family businesses where the overall format is very rigid and the head of the family who is also the head of the company has all the control and rarely ever seeks to modernize with time (Hersey and Blanchard, 1969a; b). In "Coaching," the biggest difference from the "directing" format is that the team members or followers have the liberty to share their ideas and compulsions with the leader and other members which make the communication model a lot more effective and useful as the communication runs both ways. The pro-here is that everyone feels like they are a part of the organization and the job satisfaction levels are high, the con is that mostly the suggestions taken in by the employees are not applied which can be taken very negatively in the long-run. This format is usually present in the transitional companies i.e. The companies that are running family businesses but are moving towards modification with modern techniques. In "Supporting," the overall task of the leader is based around delegation of tasks ad regular monitoring while the team members control what they each contribute. This is the format that is most commonly present globally. The pro-here is that all team members are highly sufficient and informed about their tasks, which takes the pressure off of the leader. In "Delegating," most of the control lies with the team members. which is why the biggest pro-here is the high level of job satisfaction amongst employees, and the leader is only involved in the overall decision making when the team members feels its necessary. However, the con here is big as the surrendering of overall control from the leader to the team members can result in high personality clashes, diversion from primary objectives, creation of personal objectives, etc. (Hersey and Blanchard, 1969a; b).

The overall use of technology advancements within the situational leadership model can only be helpful as situational leaders can use the advanced technology to gather better and more detailed data on market trends and situations that form the basis of their overall structure. Hence, once the data quality improves the overall services and provision of consumer and global needs would be more efficiently fulfilled. The ethical concern here however is that mostly data collection on such a large expanse can lead to privacy and confidentiality issues along with the issues of copyright which the company must protect itself against by following ethical means of data collection. If the overall ethical issues are handled correctly, then the overall application of the situational leadership style will prove to be far more versatile then any other style as it will allow the leaders the liberty to not only choose their management structure but also allow them to modify it when the need arises or the situation demands it (Hersey and Blanchard, 1969a; b; 1977).

The Situational Leadership II theory and model (see figure below) was constructed, after nearly 25 years, by Ken Blanchard and his associates with minor changes and alterations (Hersey and Blanchard, 1977).

Retrieved from: http://www.google.com.pk/imgres?imgurl=http://managementlessons.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/leadership1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/situational-leadership-ii-1081287.html&h=448&w=300&sz=74&tbnid=kKCwMisdn-6VYM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=85&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsituational%2Bleadership&hl=en&usg=__i892RVB9iOgLdmuQG4JXS9uOkV0=&ei=RFIFS8qsD4zVngeW79XBCw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=9&ct=image&ved=0CB4Q9QEwCA

Servant Leadership

Servant leadership, as a word formation, brings forth a paradox which is explained in the overall strategy of what servant leadership actually is. Greenleaf (2002) emphasizes how the global community needs to embrace better and enhanced management structures with reorganizing their overall priorities from profits to community development. The servant leadership format does exactly this by placing the leader of companies, the form the infrastructure of a community from trade institutions to educational intuitions, in the place of servants whose main purpose is to serve the community, their employees and clients/customers first and making their quality of life the objective of their company (Greenleaf, 2002).

Greenleaf, in his book Servant Leadership, writes that in this format of leadership management, the leader comes across as the servant first and foremost. He further writes "It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant -- first to make sure that other people's highest-priority needs are being served. The best test is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?" (Greenleaf, 2002). Basically, a servant leadership format is a long-standing, transitional methodology of life that is brought forth in one's work structure. Greenleaf (2002) explains that "The great leader is first experienced as a servant to others." The biggest advantage of this format of leadership is that its structure can potentially bring about a positive string of activities and alterations in the overall social structure and ambience. Servant leaders must have the following qualities to become effective leaders and provoke change: persuasion, conceptualization, listening, healing, awareness, stewardship, empathy, foresight, growth and building community (Greenleaf, 2002).

Perhaps the biggest indicator of the success and efficiency is the fact that many companies all over the world still apply it as a management structure and the philosophy for management. Some have even incorporated the philosophy behind the servant leadership format as their mission statement. Some of the companies that are major advocates of servant leadership and apply it themselves include: Parker Palmer (The Active Life), Toro Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota), M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled), Southwest Airlines (Dallas, Texas), Ann McGee-Cooper (You Don't Have to Go Home from Work Exhausted!)