Are You an Effective Leader? How to Master the Four Styles of Situational Leadership

By Eric Douglas

For anyone in a leadership role, the good news is there’s no “best style” of leadership. Rather, it’s more important to excel in “situational leadership.”

Situational leadership means that you’re adept at adapting. Based on a situation, you can tailor your behavior to maximize your effectiveness and achieve the results you want.

Okay, fair enough. But how do you navigate when you don’t have a compass? What repertoire of styles matters?

The Four Styles of Situational Leadership

The best starting point is to familiarize people with four basic styles: the Director, the Expresser, the Thinker, and the Harmonizer.

Here’s a quick snapshot:

• Directors are goal oriented, bottom-line focused, quick decision makers, and risk takers.
• Expressers are idea oriented, focused on people, fun, and entertaining.
• Thinkers are fact and process oriented, they emphasize precision, stress academic credentials, and quality control.
• Harmonizers are relationship oriented, they emphasize teams, are loyal to the cause, and–no surprise–are warm and friendly.

Each style has its flipside:

• Directors can be overly abrupt and pursue risky enterprises.
• Expressers can have too many ideas, lack clear priorities, and have difficulty following through.
• Thinkers can be too linear in their thinking, unwilling to take risks, and blind to the big picture.
• Harmonizers may avoid conflict, make decisions slowly, and be unclear about their goals.

So in what situations does each style excel? Well, Expressers are tops in situations where a team needs energy and creative spark. Harmonizers are well suited in situations when the team lacks trust and cohesion. Thinkers excel when a team needs to solve a tough problem. And Directors are at their leadership best when a team is faced with a crisis.

All right, you say. So I need to be four different people in one. Not necessarily–we’re not advocating for quadra-schizophrenics to occupy positions of authority. The truth is, you can learn how to leverage your own natural style and bend it so that you reflect the qualities of the other three. Equipped with a compass that appreciates all four styles, you can start to communicate and act differently, depending on the situation.

For example, let’s assume you learn that the founder of your company has terminal cancer. If you’re a Director, your natural inclination may be to respond by starting to talk about and plan how to move forward and facilitate a transition. But situational leadership calls for someone with a Harmonizer style. The effective leader will adapt and employ some Harmonizer-like qualities, like asking how people feel, listening patiently, expressing empathy, and giving people time to mourn.

Are Leadership Qualities Contagious?

The Harvard Business Review recently published the article “The Trickle-Down Effect of Good (and Bad) Leadership.”  Authors Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman wanted to know whether the quality of leadership inside organizations was contagious.

We know, of course, that leaders influence a variety of outcomes such as turnover, customer satisfaction, sales, revenue, productivity, and so on. But if you’re a good leader, are the people around you more likely to become good leaders as well? And which behaviors are most readily “caught”?

The article makes the case that many leadership behaviors are contagious. By implication, the situational leader who is adept at adapting will foster more adaptive, situational leaders around him. This is a powerful reason to learn and practice situational leadership. Not only will it make you more effective; it will also infuse similar qualities in those around you.

Traits of Good Situational Leaders

So let’s summarize. What do good situational leaders do?

First, they read a situation well. They understand the problem they are trying to solve. Second, they adapt their leadership style accordingly; they use all the strategies available, including their own style of interacting, to influence the situation. Third, they stick with it. They’re consistent so long as the situation prevails. Fourth, when the time is right, they reflect. They ask questions to see whether they had the intended effect.

We are a tribal species. We look for leaders to lead in all situations: good, bad, or otherwise. If you’re looking to rise as a leader, you’ll need to learn how to adapt.