Vroom Vroom!

I've always strongly believed in the concept of situational leadership, which is the idea that there is not one universal leadership style that works for every situation.  Rather, effective leaders adapt their style to the context of the particular situation (see my posts "What style of leadership works best? It depends upon the problem at hand...", "Connecting the dots...", "Tame the chaos", and "The place where we feel we belong" for more on this topic).  It is a well-accepted truism that when it comes to leadership, a one-size fits all approach just doesn't work.

While situational leadership as a theory/model was originally described by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in the 1970's while working on their classic textbook Management of Organizational Behavior, the concept of adapting your leadership style to the specific needs of the situation has certainly been described by other management and organizational behavior experts.  For example, contingency theory, developed in the 1950's is very similar to situational leadership theory and emphasizes that there is no one best way to organize and lead a team, group, or corporation or make decisions.  Rather, the best approach is contingent (dependent) upon the specific needs of the situation. 

Robert Blake and Jane Mouton  developed their managerial grid model (also known as the Blake Mouton Grid) in the late 1960's (more on that model in an upcoming post).  William James Reddin developed the 3D Theory (also a subject for a future post), which he first outlined in his 1983 PhD thesis, Managerial Effectiveness and Style: Individual or Situation.  Reddin stated, "Any managerial style has a situation to it, and many situations inappropriate to it..." 

More recently, Daniel Goleman described six different leadership styles in his article, "Leadership That Gets Results" that was published in the March/April 2000 issue of the Harvard Business Review.  These six leadership styles included coercive leadership, authoritative leadership, pacesetting leadership, affiliative leadership, democratic leadership, and coaching leadership.  Importantly, Goleman concluded that "being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches." 

In today's post, I want to discuss the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model which was first developed in 1973 by Victor Vroom and Phillip Yetton, with later contributions by Arthur Jago in the late 1980's.  Again, the underlying assumption of this model is that there is no single universal approach to leadership, and the optimal leadership approach is determined by the specific context or situation at hand.  Vroom and his colleagues described a number of different leadership styles, ranging from autocratic (the leader makes decisions on his or her own) to collaborative (the leader reaches consensus with the other members of his or her team).  They developed a series of yes/no questions - seven in total - that would help a leader navigate through a complex decision tree, which would determine the leadership approach that would work best in a particular situation:

1. Is the quality of the decision important?

2. Is team commitment to the decision important?

3. Do you have enough information to make the decision on your own?

4. Is the problem well-structured?

5. If you made the decision yourself, would the team support it?

6. Does the team share organizational goals?

7. Is conflict amongst the team over the decision likely?

Here is the decision tree that Vroom and his colleagues developed:

Here were the five different leadership styles that Vroom and his colleagues proposed:

Autocratic Type 1 (A1): The leader makes his/her own decisions using information that is readily available at the time.  This style is completely autocratic.

Autocratic Type 2 (A2): The leader collects required information from followers, then makes a decision alone.  The problem or decision may not be fed back to the followers, and their involvement is simply to pass along and provide information to the leader.

Consultative Type 1 (C1): The leader seeks ideas and suggestions on how to solve a problem from followers individually, but still makes a decision alone.  The leader's decision may or may not be influenced by the followers' input.

Consultative Type 2 (C2): The leader meets with the followers as a group and seeks their collective input, but still makes a decision alone.  The leader's decision may or may not be influenced by the followers' input, but at least the followers have an opportunity to express their opinions and share their ideas with the group.

Group-based Type 2 (G2): The leader meets with the followers as a group and seeks their collective input.  The leader accepts any decision by the group and does not try to force his or her idea on the group.  The ultimate decision is made by consensus.

I suspect that no one in their right mind would actually go through the exercise of answering all seven questions as they work through the decision tree, particularly when a decision needs to be made quickly.  That's not the point here though.  While there are certainly advantages and disadvantages to using this model, I think the key point is that there is likely to be a situation or decision that lends itself very well to a specific leadership approach, even what Vroom and his colleagues call an autocratic approach.  The seven questions can provide leaders with a rough idea of which style fits which particular situation the best.

I think William Reddin and Daniel Goleman perhaps said it best.  Reddin said, "Any managerial style has a situation to it, and many situations inappropriate to it..." Goleman added, "Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches." Incidentally, rumor has it that Victor Vroom once had a boat that he named "A1".  In other words, he was the captain of his boat and on his boat, he called the shots!