Many owners have one leadership style, matched to their temperament, and describe it as how they are rather than as a choice.
Situational leadership, developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, says the style is not supposed to be a fixed property of the leader. It is supposed to change with the person and, more importantly, with the specific task in front of them. The skill is moving between styles.
The two dials
You adjust two things. How much direction you give: instructions, structure, specifics, checking. And how much support you give: listening, encouragement, involvement in the decision, time spent.
Turn both up and you get Coaching. Direction high and support low gives you Directing. Support high and direction low gives you Supporting. Both low is Delegating, which is the goal for most tasks.
The four styles
S1 Directing — new to the task
Show, then check, with high direction and low support. The person knows they do not know, so specifics are welcome rather than patronising.
S2 Coaching — learning and wobbling
Turn both dials up. Direction is still needed, and now it needs the why attached to it. This stage decides whether the person makes it.
S3 Supporting — able but not confident
Ask rather than tell. Direction now becomes counterproductive, because they mostly know the answer and being told it undermines them. Hold the regular slot even when nothing is wrong, because the slot is the support.
S4 Delegating — able and confident
Agree the measure, agree what they bring you and when, then get out of the way.
The setting depends on the task, not on the person. Your operations manager may be a confident, competent S4 on scheduling and a nervous S1 on a disciplinary conversation. Leading her as an S4 because that is what she generally is will produce a disciplinary conversation that goes badly and a manager who is quietly humiliated by it.
Why it goes wrong at S2
Follow the route somebody takes as they learn a task. They start at S1, needing direction and not much hand-holding. Then they move to S2.
Competence has started to rise, which is why the direction is still needed but feels less welcome. Confidence has fallen, because they now know enough to see how much they are getting wrong. This is the disillusioned stage, and it is when people go quiet, start covering, or hand in their notice.
The owner's instinct at exactly this point is to back off. They have had the training, they seem to have got it, let them get on with it. So support drops precisely when support is the thing most needed, and direction drops before capability is there to replace it. A promising person then either fails visibly or retreats to the parts of the job they were already good at.
A promotion, month by month
An illustration rather than a client: the best technician is promoted to supervisor of a small team.
Weeks one to four, S1. He does not know what the job is. He needs to be told what a supervisor does on a Monday, what he decides and what he escalates, and he needs it in writing. He gets a structured weekly hour with the owner.
Weeks five to twelve, S2. He has had his first difficult conversation with somebody who used to be his mate, and it went badly. He is working long hours because he is still doing his old job as well as the new one. Team output has dipped. He is privately wondering whether he has made a mistake. What he needs is both dials up: specific direction on how to run the conversation, plus real time from the owner explaining why the job is done this way and telling him the dip is normal.
Months four to nine, S3. He can do it; he does not yet believe he can. Ask rather than tell, and hold the weekly slot even when there is nothing wrong.
From month ten, S4. Agree the measures, agree what he brings you and when, and get out of the way.
The owner’s effort should be highest at S1 and S2, then fall.
How to use it this week
Grid your people against their tasks
List direct reports down one side, their three main tasks across the top. Score each cell S1 to S4. You will find people who are S4 on one task and S1 on another.
Find anyone sitting in S2 on something that matters
Look for anyone in a new role or with a new responsibility in the last three months. They are the priority this week.
Put a weekly thirty minutes in the diary for each S2
Book it for the next eight weeks, with direction on the specifics and time on the why.
Ask one person how much direction they want
Ask about a named task rather than in general.
Audit one thing you think you have delegated
Is there a measure, a deadline and an agreed check-in? If not, add them.
Pick one task where you are over-directing, and stop
Say so out loud, agree what they will bring you instead, and then leave it alone for a month.
Questions to ask yourself
- Out of ten, how different is your leadership style with your longest-serving manager compared with your newest starter?
- Who in your business is in the disillusioned stage right now, and when did you last give them an unhurried half hour?
- Which of the four styles do you avoid entirely, and what has that cost you?
- What have you delegated that has no measure attached to it?
- Where are you leading the person rather than the task?
Where this connects
This is core material in Leadership Coaching. It runs directly into The Rules of the Game, because delegating safely means somebody knows what they may decide alone, and into Social Styles, which handles the other half of the problem: how the person in front of you needs to be spoken to.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I know which style someone needs?
Read the task rather than the person, and ask two questions about that specific task: can they do it, and do they believe they can. Cannot and know it means directing. Getting there but wobbling means coaching, with both dials up. Can do it but hesitant means supporting, which is asking rather than telling. Can do it and knows it means delegating against an agreed measure. The same person will sit in different boxes for different parts of their job, which is why a grid of people against their three main tasks is more useful than a label attached to each person.
What is the disillusioned stage and why does it lose people?
It is the second stage, once someone has learned enough to see how much they are getting wrong. Competence is rising, so direction feels less welcome, while confidence has fallen, so support is needed more than at any other point. The owner's instinct is to back off exactly here, on the grounds that the person has had the training and seems to have got it. Support therefore drops when it is needed most, and direction drops before capability has arrived to replace it. That is when people go quiet, start covering, or hand in their notice.
Isn't delegating leaving good people to get on with it?
No; the difference is what you agreed before you stepped back. Delegating means low direction and low support against a defined output, an agreed measure and a scheduled check-in. Leaving somebody alone with none of those often ends in surprise that the work was not done the way you would have done it. It is safe once the earlier stages have been done properly, and unsafe when it is used as a shortcut past them.