Coaching practices for Situational Leadership Performing

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Situational Leadership Performing, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • My team is genuinely running well without me now, but I keep inserting myself into decisions they could make
  • I’ve quietly filed each person on my team as strong or weak, and then I’m baffled when my "strong" one flounders on something new
  • Everything still flows through me
  • Someone on my team is underperforming and I keep collapsing the two things together

Practices that may help

  1. Situational Leadership, Made Practical
    Situational Leadership, developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, says the right leadership style depends on the follower’s readiness for a given task: match how much you direct versus support to where the person actually is. It is enormously popular in corporate training, but its empirical support is genuinely weak — treat it as a useful thinking tool, not a validated law.
  2. Supporting — step back on direction, stay high on support
    For the capable-but-cautious performer, lighten the instructions and bolster their confidence.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  3. Delegating — hand over both direction and decision
    With a skilled, committed performer, give the goal and the authority, then get out of the way.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  4. Build the flexibility to switch styles
    The skill the model actually demands is style range — most leaders overuse one default.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  5. Performing: step back and protect the conditions
    A Performing team needs air cover and resources, not direction.
    Tuckman’s Stages of Team Development
  6. Assess readiness task by task, not person by person
    Rate competence and commitment for the specific task in front of them, not the person overall.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  7. Coaching — high direction and high support for the disillusioned learner
    When early enthusiasm dips but skill is still forming, combine clear guidance with active encouragement.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  8. Directing — high direction for the eager novice
    With someone new and keen but unskilled, give clear, specific instruction and tight structure.
    Situational Leadership, Made Practical
  9. Distribute leadership rather than centralizing it
    Develop leadership capacity throughout the team, not just in the designated leader.
    Transformational Leadership, Made Practical
  10. Lead with empathy and acceptance
    Accept the person fully even while refusing to accept poor performance.
    Servant Leadership, Made Practical

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