Leadership Approach Paper Essay Example for Free

leading Approach Paper EssayOrganizational behavior comes into play to aid wariness in enhancing their watching of human behavior within organizations to better communicate, allocate resources, delegate tasks, plan, organize, direct, and control naturalize activities. The main purpose of understanding organisational behavior is to increase lead effectiveness, motivate schoolers, and inspire them to work toward a common objective. Although there are many leaders advancementes, we will focus on the situational lead approach.We will analyze the purpose, strengths and weaknesses of the situational leadership approach, and provide an example of how it can be applied to real situations. Situational leadership Approach As it name suggests, the situational leadership approach states that leaders should use different approaches as situations change. In short, leaders should be on the table, embrace change as it comes, and be capable of adapting to it. The situational leadershi p approach is a puzzle that was developed by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey in 1972.The surmisal states that leaders should match their leadership mood to the maturity of pursual and to the specific tasks on hand (Lerstrom, 2008). As people within organizations acquire more(prenominal) experience and become more knowledgeable well-nigh their job, leaders will need to adapt fresh leadership styles to keep these people motivated. correspond to May (2013) the core concept of the situational leadership approach is that sensation size does not fit all.The best leaders are not only those who stupefy a vision, but the most successful leaders are the ones who are able to adapt their leadership styles across a broad range of varying maturity levels readily present within the clean organization (May, 2013). Moreover, using the situational leadership approach suggests that leaders use a mix of other leadership approaches to be effective. According to Phatak (2012), The philosophy of a leader should be flexible enough to adapt to situations and ever-ever-changing times.We need a mixture of transactional and transformational leadership techniques to get the job done. The basic idea behind this theory is that one must adapt strategy with changing conditions. Strengths As mentioned earlier, situational leadership allows for more flexibility. As the domain of a function evolves, organizations have to make adjustments to survive. Tomasco (2013) states that with the situational leadership approach, leaders get the opportunity to adapt their leadership style to their followers needs.Consequently, as leaders effectively match their leadership style to situations and followers needs, work activities will straddle smoothly, interactions will be more successful, relationships will be built up, and followers will achieve optimal performance. Weaknesses Although the situational leadership approach appears to be the best course of action due to its flexibility, it has weaknesses that one cannot ignore. Phatak (2012) explains that constantly changing strategies with time, a leader will find it difficult to implement new strategies on the go.A gigantic term vision may elude him due to constant changes. Further, Wile (2013) identifies four weaknesses of the situational leadership approach which are confusion, leadership or management, outside factors, and perception. Indeed, followers may become confused as leaders change a newly implemented leadership strategy as a result of changing conditions. The situational leadership approach is often misconstrued with a management strategy to lead employees to achieve better outcomes. unrivalled cannot downplay the impact out-of-door factors have on organizations and organizational behavior. Leaders should demonstrate their ability to understand the organizations external environment and to assess followers behavior to implement a leadership approach that will work. Finally, people within organizations ha ve different perceptions and react differently in correspondent situations. Hence, the situational leadership approach may not give accurate predictions of followers behavior.Situational Leadership Approach in Real Life Alan Lerstrom from Luther College did a case study using the situational leadership approach in which he demonstrated how academic advisors can alter their leadership style based on students maturity as they advance higher in their studies. Lerstrom applied the Hersey and Blanchards model of situational leadership in the case study. The model suggests that effective leaders will adjust their leadership styles in accordance with changing situations and followers maturity.According to Lerstrom (2008), Jay, the student in the case study began showing signs of maturity as he better unsounded the major he wanted to pursue and classes he needed to enroll in. Also, Jay became more confident about his abilities, understood the requirements associated with his major, and wa s more willing to communicate with the advisor. Situational leadership provide theoretical and practical tools that help advisors in understanding changes in the readiness levels of their students, and it suggests patterns for relating to students (Lerstrom, 2008, p. 7). ConclusionSituational leadership is the approach that states that leaders must be flexible enough to adapt their leadership styles to changing situations, to specific tasks, and to organizational behavior. This study showed that although the situational leadership approach yields authoritative outcomes it has weaknesses. Thus, it is important to leverage the strengths of the approach to alleviate its weaknesses. For increased effectiveness, leaders will need to use organizational behavior research methods to better understand the situations at hand, their followers perceptions, and the organizations internal and external environments.This method will provide guidance in applying the appropriate leadership style. R eferences Lerstrom, A. C. Advising Jay A Case strike Using a Situational Leadership Approach. NACADA Journal Fall2008, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p21-27, 7p May, R. (2013). Basics of the Situational Leadership Model. Retrieved from http//www. businessdictionary. com/article/724/basics-of-the-situational-leade rship-model/ Phatak, O. (June 20, 2012). Pros and Cons of Leadership Theories.