Situational leadership, introduced by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, is one of the most recent theories on

موضوعات القيادة and management. It is based primarily on managers continually adapting their behavior, reactions, and responses to situations

both internal and external—those that arise within or outside the company—and that affect its operations.

According to this approach, a manager responds to the maturity level of their subordinates and gives direction accordingly. This theory aligns with the model القيادة الذي كانت

The model previously introduced by Ohio University proposes four leadership styles: the Telling style, the Selling style, and the

Participating style, and finally the Delegating style.

Needless to say, each of these four styles is shaped by several factors, most notably the situation at hand and the employees’ level of maturity.

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The Most Effective Leaders:

The most effective leaders and managers (with effectiveness measured by how well they improve their employees’ performance and productivity) are those who can adapt their behavior and responses

to different situations, the nature of their subordinates and their level of maturity, as well as the time available to carry out a project or complete a particular task.

As a result, rigid, one-dimensional leadership has become obsolete; its time has passed. How can a manager use the same approach to handle situations

and circumstances that are constantly changing?

The danger of adopting this approach—administrative rigidity and leading in just one way or style—is that these managers will be left behind. They will find their subordinates

disengaged, and their performance and productivity will decline, while the organizations they work for will collapse.

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The Leadership Continuum:

According to the Leadership Continuum developed by Tannenbaum and Schmidt, managers and leaders move along a spectrum from the style

from authoritarian to democratic, with varying degrees of democracy and authoritarianism between these two extremes.

But what determines how much freedom employees are given, or how much they are required to comply, is not managers or leaders, but the situations they face and the way they respond to

the freedom they are allowed or the constraints imposed on them.

At this particular point, employees themselves are responsible: by anticipating how their leader or manager will react, they can choose the approach that gives them the greatest possible freedom

in carrying out their various job responsibilities.

If we take this approach to its logical conclusion and follow the method developed by Ken Blanchard in his theory of situational leadership, we find that it is possible to

Employees work with minimal supervision or management, provided managers understand how to deal with different levels of maturity.

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The four behavior styles:

In 1971, Robert House proposed his Path-Goal Theory, which holds that leaders’ behavioral styles are primarily determined by how employees respond and how subordinates handle different events.

الأساس طرق تعامل الموظفين، وتعاطي المرؤوسين مع الأحداث المختلفة.

He argued that the styles سلوكيات القادة that emerge from employees’ reactions can be summarized as follows: the supportive style, the directive style, the

collaborative and focused on achieving results.

Accordingly, it can be said that القيادة is simply a reaction—a response to employees’ actions and to the various situations that arise within the company and affect its workforce.

بشكل عام.