Situational Leadership

To be honest, I was somewhat confused with these four "quadrants" and exactly what they meant. To me, delegating and directed sounded like the same thing, and coaching and supporting seemed similar as well. However, after reading about each of the four different sections, I think I kind of understand them a little better. But in all honesty, I kind of still don't, so if none of these don't make any sense...Oh well!

The lecture was interesting, but I had a hard time paying attention, so I don't remember much of what happened. I don't know if I should admit that or not though. Haha. The parts I do remember were interesting and I feel like I did learn some things about leadership that I didn't already know.

Directing: For this one, I am most reminded of my World History class my junior year of high school. The teacher basically just got up in front of the class, told us what we needed to read or showed a video, and then assigned us a project in which we had precise directions to complete. He didn't act very interested in the students, but just told us exactly what we needed to do.

Coaching: This section reminds me of my voice teacher. I had about four years of vocal training while I was in high school, and I had an excellent teacher. Although she obviously had many more years of experience than I did, she would always listen to my ideas. There was a lot of communication. She always gave me wonderful suggestions, and would help me to understand certain concepts or why she was having me do a certain song/exercise. However, if I suggested another course of action would be more effective for me, she would always listen to me and we would come to a compromise. I think that this is my favorite type of leadership.

Supporting: I mentioned this example in class, but it's getting late so I think I will use it again. Throughout my youth, I was almost always in some type of presidency within the Young Women's program at Church. Because of this, I often had to attend Presidency meetings. We always had to have some type of advisor there, or in BYC, the Bishopric, to help facilitate conversations and ideas and help us accomplish certain tasks, but the control was with the members of the presidency.

Delegating: This type of leadership reminds me of family get togethers. My mom sets up a date for everyone to come over for dinner, and asks everyone to bring some type of dessert, appetizer, etc. Beyond that, it is up to everyone to bring what they think everyone will enjoy, and enough of it to share. My mom will tell everyone what the main dish is, and then everyone just decides on something that goes with it.


The quiz on about.com said that I was a "participative leader", which I agree with. I think that leaders definitely need to take the ideas and talents of others into consideration, but at the same there needs to be someone that makes the final decision. I feel like if no one is overlooking the group and making sure everything is being addressed, things tend to fall apart. However, I also believe that if a person takes complete control and doesn't listen to others, the organization or group will not function completely correct either. There is a time and place for all these types of leadership, and it's all about discerning the needs of the group and the type of leader that is needed.

I'm not going to lie, sometimes I tend to get into the mode of leadership where I want everything my own way, and I have a hard time really taking other ideas into consideration. When I get my heart set on something, or think my idea is the best, I have a hard time changing my mind--I'm very hardheaded.  I think that this stems from high school where I often was put with the "slacker" kids that never did their work in projects, so I just got used to doing everything my own way. I should probably work on that, because obviously everyone has ideas that are worth listening too. With my leadership position of being in charge of the BYU/SA blog, I am going to make it my goal to listen to the people on my committee and help involve them more.

From lab today, I really loved the quote that Audrey told us towards the end. In order to be an effective leader, it is necessary to understand the needs of those that you are working with. My mom always tells me that you need to be able to adapt to certain situations, even if it's not exactly how you originally wanted it to go. Being able to be intune with the emotions and situations of others is a skill that is sometimes hard to obtain but once you have mastered it will benefit you in all aspects of life. Even though I can be kind of hardheaded, like I mentioned earlier, I do believe this is a quality I do have, and I find it easy to understand the viewpoints of others. Though, there is definitely always room for improvement, because even if I do understand the viewpoints of others, I still am very slow to change my mind.

And PS...this has nothing to do with anything, but you all should check out my other blog here. I am always looking for more people to read my blog/critique it! haha :)