Essay About Styles of Leadership

The Situational Leadership Model

The situational leadership model describes Jim’s leadership style as a supporting approach, which is what he does in his seminars. He focuses on making friends with the in attendance managers in an effort to win their favor by fostering their networking and socializing. The managers that participated in the program have varying levels of commitment and competency that range from moderate to high. How they evaluate the lectures based on their personal experiences explains this level. Even one of them is adamant that the training program will not benefit them in any way (Northouse, 2015). The 25 who were present found out that the seminar was not equipping them with the kind of skills and knowledge they acquired and the number kept decreasing as the sessions unfolded. Even though socializing and networking are desirable as far as management is concerned, Jim went too far with that and forgot the main aim of the seminar.

What Jim Did Wrong

From a leadership perspective, what Jim did wrong was that he was too friendly and allowed several breaks for the managers in between the sessions making them see it as a waste of time. These facts made the managers decide to go back to their offices and do some other constructive work. The changes that Jim needs to make to improve the effectiveness of seminars include ensuring that he starts them with the contents that are very attractive and useful to the listeners (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The reason for this is that at the beginning of the training program, the listeners are very attentive and willing to hear what the trainer has to tell them. Starting with the sessions of socializing and networking will waste the energy that the listeners have and the other sessions to follow will not be effective. Also, good content at the start will make the audience see the worth of the seminar and will be willing to stay until its end (Shockley-Zalabak, 2014).

References

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2014). Fundamentals of organizational communication. Pearson.