SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP
This paper will address why situational leadership theory is useful and relevant in developing an effective leadership culture. In addition, it will also discuss the three theories of situational leadership and what is considered to be the strengths and weaknesses of each theory when leading staff in the organizational environment.
Situational leadership is useful and relevant in developing an effective leadership culture because it allows the leader to become flexible in pursuing different styles of leading employees towards achieving success. Leaders are free to adapt and make changes to the leadership style based on the situation at any given point in time. Situational …show more content…

When leading staff in the organizational environment, it appears that some of the strengths of the contingency theory include the length of time it has been utilized successfully over the years. In addition, this theory has allowed leaders to focus on a new approach in the research of leadership, and it also appears to be useful in helping organizations develop profiles for effective leadership as it relates to human resource planning.
One of the weaknesses to this approach is that Fiedler’s use of scale has been questioned, and there is a “lack of internal consistency, conceptual contradictions, and ambiguities.” (McCleskey, 2014, p118) One of the strengths of House and Mitchell’s path-goal theory is that it considers the situation and it utilizes an expanded classification of leadership styles. One of the weaknesses of this theory is that it takes into account that all leaders are mature and smart enough to understand the style that is needed. This theory also assumes that the leader is going to be interested in the relationship with his or her employees, in addition to the ability to adapt to the various leadership styles. One of the strengths of the life-cycle theory developed by Hersey and Blanchard is that the approach is relatively easy to implement.
Under this theory, there appears to be