The Manager 143 - Situational Leadership and more

Jun 14, 2021

The Manager - Edition 143 - Situational Leadership and more

Hi,

I hope you are safe and well. It’s nearly crunch time with our house move, so you may find this newsletter is a little patchy in delivery for the next couple of weeks. There’s also a high probability that we will be without Internet for a couple of days, when we move on the 25th. What will the boys do then?

I’ve packed up my camera gear hence no new videos for now - although I have one I’m still editing. Parent Brain is going strong - this fortnight I wrote a story about Super Market shopping and how futile it appears.

Situational Leadership

Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard (1977) defined something called situational leadership. I reckon you’ve worked with people who seem stuck in one of the four styles:

Telling

These leaders like to tell people what to do - they are instructive, demanding and demonstrate a need for results.

Selling

These leaders like to sell people on their ideas. They are persuasive and encourage people to buy in through visuals, good clean language and a bright future.

Participating

These leaders like to include people in the defining and facilitating decision making. They often provide little in the way of guidance.

Delegating

These leaders like to leave the decision making and definitions to others and provide little support or guidance.

What I find fascinating about the above four is that they resonate closely to DISC behavioural tools - which you’ll know I’m a big fan of. They are the foundations of my communication course; find your style and work hard to adapt other aspects from the other styles - to meet in the middle.

Good leaders flex depending on who they are working with and what context they find themselves in.

Which style do you resonate the most with - and do you need to learn to flex?

I know I am very much drawn naturally to “selling” but I’ve worked hard to learn to study the situation and then use my communication skills to change my style depending on what I understand. It’s not easy to let go of my natural mode of selling, but it works.

Learning

When I work with companies and leaders I always check out how learning is done in the organisation.

Typically learning is done through online courses, Learning Management tools and workshops. These can be good. This information then needs putting into action. Learning by doing is how you spot the nuances, techniques that don’t work and how to learn about the work you are doing.

Edward Deming said:

” The aim of education should be to preserve and nurture the yearning for learning that a child is born with. Grades and gold stars destroy this yearning for learning.”

Spot on. Yet, companies seem obsessed with learning portals and grading and gamification. If only they spent that much energy, attention, time and money on instigating on the job training. Learning by doing the work is powerful.

And another thing to consider. When we work in organisation we often didn’t create that organisation in the first place; someone else did. And because we’re trying to nudge, change or nurture something that someone else made - it’s unlikely this system of work conforms to the standards, theories or expectations that are mainstream in many learning sources. It is likely a reflection of the owners, leaders and original creators - so a lot of learning in the workplace is about deconstructing someone else’s work. And that can often be enlightening.

Learning is done by studying the problems and system at hand, knowing the theory (information acquisition) and then gaining knowledge by doing the work (task acquisition).

Back to the office

An interesting article I’ve read is about how the narrative of remote working is winning. There are memes, articles, companies and brands all forming around the fact that remote working is the future. I’m not so sure.

I for one cannot wait to get back into the office. Not full time, for sure - I don’t relish the commute every day, but I miss the energy you get from being in a workplace.

I miss the areas of the office that teams make their own. I miss seeing people face to face and reading the emotional body language that supports (or contradicts) their words. I miss being able to start a meeting on time without tech issues. I miss the sense that people are working together. I miss the peace and quiet of the commute - and my word I have some podcasts to catch up with. I don't like the fatigue that comes with being on calls all day.

But I like the flexibility of home working and the extra time I get back.

And here’s the point - we’re all different, and even us, as individuals, contain multitudes of thoughts and feelings on a subject. I am forcing myself to think critically about this subject and, like the article suggests, consider why I am reading what I'm reading, and whether the opposite side of the argument is even being heard.

The system governs behaviours

As much as this article is about nudging your environment for health gains (Keto, Paleo, Low Carb - which I'm not endorsing by linking BTW), the same principles apply in business. The system of work governs behaviours, just like the environment and system at home.

Getting your gym kit laid out the night before, removing naughty food from the fridge (easier said than done with three growing boys in the house), configuring your work-out areas so you’re good to go - all good environmental changes to help build healthy habits.

What about work? Similar things apply. Visualising all work in a suitable container with rules, so everyone knows what’s in flight and what is next. Removing the friction (red tape, nonsense, stupid rules) so that people can get work done. Removing resources and money to force people to work better together (that’s a hard sell to management but it works). Ensuring people have the right equipment and tech so they can sit down and just work.

At the end of the day, it’s about spotting areas of friction - those areas where the friction is so high that the rewards simply aren’t worth it, or are hard to tease out, and then removing the friction.

Quote to get you thinking:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller

References:

Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K. H. (1977). Management of Organizational Behavior 3rd Edition– Utilizing Human Resources. New Jersey/Prentice Hall.

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Thanks
Rob..

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