Situational Leadership

Overview

Match your leadership style to each person's development level on each specific task — cycling through four styles (Directing, Coaching, Supporting, Delegating) as competence and commitment evolve. Introduced by Hersey & Blanchard (1969); formalized as SLII by Blanchard, Zigarmi & Zigarmi (1985).

Core diagnostic: instead of "what kind of leader should I be?" ask "what does this person need from me on this task right now?" Failure to update style as the person grows is the most common cause of high performers disengaging.

Composes with: kotter-change for org-level transformation (Kotter = org sequence; this = each individual relationship); principal-agent to rule out incentive problems first; okr-goal-setting to set goals (OKR) then govern how to support each person toward them.

When to Use

• A manager-report relationship has friction or underperformance and root cause is undiagnosed
• A high performer is disengaging ("I'm being micromanaged", "no room to grow") — signature of D4 receiving S1
• A new hire or person in a new role is struggling despite effort — signature of D1/D2 receiving insufficient structure
• A task or technology change resets development levels for experienced people
• AI adoption resets who's the expert — after rolling out AI coding tools / AI-native workflows amid the 2024–2026 AI capex race, a senior person is D1/D2 on the new tool even while D4 on the core work
• You are making a delegation decision for a specific person on a specific task