Situational Leadership was first explored by Paul Hersey (late) and Ken Blanchard in 1969. Leadership and The One Minute Manager discusses an updated version of the theory called Situational Leadership II, with two new writers but through a story. The story follows an entrepreneur struggling with managing her time and team and learning situational leadership from the one minute manager.

The core tenets of the book are:

• There is not one single way of managing people.
• You need to manage differently depending on the development level of the person and the situation
• The four leadership styles discussed are Directing, Coaching, Supporting and Delegating
• Managers must be ready to spend time understanding and diagnosing the competence and commitment levels of their team members in order to decide how best to manage them

In my next post I will share a One Page Summary that gives a top level overview of each leadership style and when to use it.