Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership II

In one minute you will know you are reading a good leadership book with help for everyday leaders.

This book shows you how to becoming a situational leader by:1. Crystallizing goals that are clear to both the manager and the people involved.2. Participating together to examine "competence" and "commitment" to accomplish those goals. 3. Contracting with each employee about the tasks at hand and jointly agreeing which leadership style will likely be most effective. This is Optimal Thinking, the mental software needed to optimize performance.4. Following through to provide the agreed-upon leadership style until feedback suggests another option.The book provides a realistic roadmap for diagnosing each employee's status in relation to important goals. This book provides a practical roadmap for the leader. Read it and read Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self to learn how to optimize your thinking, be your best, bring out the best in others and create the best results. This is a 10-star combination!

Don't let the title or the number of pages fool you. This small volume packs substance. Situational management was not a fad. As recently as 1999, Peter Drucker (in his book "Management Challengers for the 21st Century") emphasized that despite the apparent hunger for learning "the one best way to manage, one such method does not exist." Producing desirable results is the goal of management; how to manage varies tremendously according to differences in situations.This book goes well beyond espousing the idea of "different strokes for different folks." Becoming a situational leader involves:1. Starting with goals that are clear to both the manager and the people who will help accomplish them.2. Working with her people to diagnose their "competence" and "commitment" to accomplish those goals. Diagnosis preceds effective management methods.3. Contracting with each person on each of the tasks and jointly deciding which leadership style will likely be most effective. 4. Following through to provide the agreed-upon leadership style until either (i) enough progress or (ii) lack of suitable progress warrants a change in leadership style.The book presents a practical model for diagnosing each person's level of development with regard to achieving each major goal. One other note: Despite its "leadership" title, the book addresses one-on-one supervision methods. If you're looking for a book that addresses how to create and sustain a "vision" that will drive your organization forward, this is not that book. It is, however, the most practical presentation of situational management that I've read.

This is a step by step journey from Management to Situational Leadership. You will read it again and again as you move forward in your career and face new challenges with new teams, new direct reports and new bosses. This is also an excellent present for some one that is facing a management position for the first time.

Dr. Ken Blanchard is indeed the master of Situational Leadership. He and Hershey were the great inventors of Situational Leadership I. They had something great going then. Now, Situational Leadership II is fully on the scene and it is catching on everywhere. From major corporations to the Lady Volunteers of Tennessee, everyone is successfully using Situational Leadership to manage their people. This book tells you how to do it the right way. When situational leadership is done correctly, your people will love you for it. You can also use situational leadership at home with your wife and kids. If you are a manager, you MUST have this book. You can't effectively manage or lead without it. Remember, when you undersupervise you frustrate yourself. When you oversupervise, you frustrate others. Situational leadership is simply providing for subordinate what they cannot provide for themselves. Dr. Blanchard's book will tell you how to do it! As U.S. Air Force instructor, I have taught this theory using this book to over 450 managers per year. All of them have praised this book and Blanchard/Hershey's theory.