A New Approach to Situational Leadership

Abstract

It has been shown that the Hersey and Blanchard situational leadership model suffers from fundamental flaws since it violates three logical principles — consistency, continuity and conformity. If the model is corrected to avoid this violation, allowing smooth progression of leader as parent (using LT/LR leadership style) to the leader as developer (using an HT/HR leadership style) the leader will maintain balanced emphasis on task and relationship as long as the ability and willingness of the group are developing symmetrically. The model performs all the functions of the original while avoiding its flaws.

Citation

Nicholls, J.R. (1985), "A New Approach to Situational Leadership", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 2-7. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb053578