Leadership and Followers
Read this text to look at how leaders and followers interact in task behavior and the relationship. The group's maturity in its ability and willingness to complete the job is one of the determinants of the leadership role that the leader should take – telling, selling, participating, or delegating.
Task Behavior and Relationship Behavior
For Hersey and Blanchard, leadership style is determined by the mix of task behavior and relationship behavior that the leader shows. Task behavior concerns the actions required of followers and how they should be conducted. Relationship behavior concerns how people interact together to achieve a goal. The various combinations of high and low task and relationship behaviors suggest four leadership roles:
- S1 – Telling: The leader's role is to direct the actions of the followers. The leader instructs the followers on how, what, where, and when to do a certain task. This is primarily task behavior.
- S2 – Selling: The leader is still primarily concerned with directing action but now accepts communication from followers. This communication allows the followers to feel connected to the task and buy into the mission. S2 leading is still primarily task behavior, but now it includes some relationship behavior.
- S3 – Participating: This role is similar to S2, except now the leader welcomes shared decision-making. Participating leadership shifts the balance toward relationship behavior and away from task behavior.
- S4 – Delegating: The leader simply ensures that progress is being made. Decisions involve a lot of input from the followers, and the process and responsibility now lie with followers. S4 is primarily relationship behavior.