Leadership Models Literature Review of Situational Leadership

Leadership Models

LITERATURE REVIEW OF SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Situational leadership is a leadership paradigm proposed by Hersey and Blanchard as an alternative to the simplistic trait theories of leadership in vogue at the time. The main feature of the situational leadership theory of Hersey and Blanchard is that leaders are able to adapt their leadership styles to the level of readiness of the followers (Bovee et al. 1993). Employee readiness is a function of the ability and willingness of employees to engage in certain behaviours while leadership styles range from telling and selling styles to participating and delegating styles. These styles reflect varying emphasis on task and relationship behaviour by the leader. The telling style involves explicit instructions to the followers when they experience low levels of ability and willingness either due to a lack of information or confidence. The selling style is used when employees are unable to do the task but are motivated to perform it. The participating style is used when employees are able to perform the task but are not sufficiently confident in their abilities. Finally, the delegating style is used when employees are both willing and able to perform the task required. This shows that the leader needs to be quite flexible in his or her behaviour.

Cubero (2007) states that situational leadership styles can play an important role in organizational environments where a number of people with disabilities make up the workforce. Physical or mental disabilities affect the level of employee readiness according to Hersey and Blanchard's theory. Therefore, the flexibility of the leader's style of leadership plays a more significant role than physical or personality traits. Cubero (2007) identified a number of benefits including positive work environments that situational leadership theory can have in organizations where people with disabilities constitute the workforce.

Hersey (2002) describes an essential feature of the situational leadership theory in that it requires leaders to adapt their communication styles to the demands of the situation. In explaining task and relationship behaviors, Hersey (2002) explains that task behaviour involves one-way communication where instructions and guidelines flow down from the leader to the followers whereas relationship behaviour involves two-way communication where the leader may invite input and feedback from followers to increase their ability and willingness levels.

Yagil (2002) describes the effect of situational leadership theory on the strength of leadership power bases in the light of the emerging trend towards self-management. Situational factors can have a moderating effect on the leadership power bases in self-management. Yagil (2002) found that when employee ability and willingness levels are high, the influence of the leader's expert or informational power is reduced. Similarly, when employee motivation levels are high for a task, the strength of the leader's reward or coercive power are considerably reduced.

Arvidsson et al. (2007) have also pointed out that leadership adaptability is a better predictor of work group success than operational characteristics or task design features. Their study also presents evidence for relationship behavior having a stronger impact on work group performance than other styles of leadership. Work groups where leaders were able to adjust their leadership styles on the basis of the individual or group nature of the task were able to attain their targets more effectively.

Larsson and Vinberg (2010) propose a third type of behavior to the situational leadership theory. They propose that leaders engage in structure or change behaviors depending on the external and internal environment. At all times, they demonstrate high preference for relationship behavior. In this way, effective leadership involves the ability to adopt high relationship behaviors in general while adapting to structure or change behaviors as needed.

PART II: INITIAL COMPREHENSION REPORT

The course Emerging Trends in Global Leadership Teams is unique in that it provides opportunities to explore ways in which collaborative efforts among team members dispersed geographically and across time zones can be coordinated through the use of information and communication technologies and team management techniques by virtual teams. Such collaborative efforts can enable an organization to develop core competencies in areas like product design, marketing and distribution by bridging geographical distances and providing diversity of virtual team members.

According to Shady (2010), an emerging area in virtual teams and virtual collaboration is the virtual world. They distinguish between the two on the basis of quality of interaction and interpersonal distance. While virtual team members primarily communicate with one another through the use of information and communication technology tools such as instant messaging, chat and email, in a virtual world each team member is represented as an avatar in a 3D virtual world that closely resembles the real world. Therefore, through the avatar, the team members can communicate with one another as though they were communicating face-to-face in a real office. This has several implications for communication styles. With the ease of face-to-face communication, team members may be able to communicate through meta-messages such as body language in addition to written messages. In addition to providing better opportunities for team building and training exercises, virtual worlds as opposed to virtual teams are expected to build better social ties and relations among team members. At the same time, there are security implications as interaction in virtual worlds continues to increase.

As team collaboration across geographical and national boundaries continues to increase, there is likely to be greater interaction among individuals from diverse national, cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. While such pooling of diverse backgrounds is a potential source of competitive advantage for organizations, such differences can imperil the team processes and goal attainment of virtual teams. These risks can be reduced by increasing intercultural sensitivity and adaptability prior to entering into virtual team situations. Intercultural sensitivity can be enhanced by learning about other cultures. Hofstede's dimensions of culture can be used as a primary tool for understanding cultural differences and describing cultures along the dimensions of power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation (Bovee et al. 1993). Intercultural adaptability can be increased by developing empathy, controlling ethnocentric biases and prejudices, and by developing fluency in foreign languages. In this way, employees can perform in virtual teams as well as other cross-cultural work arrangements to meet organizational objectives.