Understanding Leadership Styles

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UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP Understand Leadership Styles Describe factors that will influence the choice of leadership styles or behaviours in workplace situations To enable understanding of factors influencing the choice of leadership styles and behaviours I considered Situational Leadership and will link this to my own workplace experiences. Situational Leadership covers 4 styles of leadership, directing, coaching, supporting and delegating and two types of behaviour being amount of direction and/or support employee needs when carrying out tasks. It also depends on employees’ competence and commitment of which there are 4 levels. Competence depends on employees experience/knowledge/training for any given task and commitment can be measured by the enthusiasm/motivation of the employee. The 4 leadership styles are linked to 4 levels of employee competence/commitment as follows. Style 1 Directing – Leader gives instructions i.e. telling employee what, how, when to do task, close monitoring of employee, task progression, communication, decision making by leader. Level 1 Competence/commitment - Employee has little/no competence, knowledge, prior experience or training but has high commitment/enthusiasm for the task. Style 2 Coaching – Leader gives instructions/directions, employee closely monitored leader would make decisions but give explanations to employee; leader elicits suggestions on completing task and supports employee progression, communication from leader with input from employee. Level 2 Competence/ commitment – Employee has some/limited competence, knowledge, experience and training but low commitment for task. Style 3 Supporting – Leader would not give instructions on how to do task but supports, encourages, employee makes decisions in agreement with leader, two way communication between leader/employee. Level 3 Competence/commitment -

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