Situational leadership: adapting your style project by project

Executive overview

Most leaders pick a single style and apply it uniformly — getting it right sometimes, alienating people the rest of the time. Situational leadership fixes this by matching your approach to two variables for each person on each project.

Rate each person on two dimensions: their confidence and commitment to the project, and their skill level on it. The combination of those two tells you the leadership style to use.

The same person needs different leadership on different projects — ignore this and you'll under-support or patronise them.

The two dimensions to assess

• Confidence and commitment: how engaged and willing the person is on this specific project
• Skill level: their actual capability on this specific task
• Both dimensions must be assessed together — high skill doesn't mean high confidence
• A new CFO may be highly skilled but nervous about disrupting existing culture — they still need more support

How the leadership style shifts

• Low skill + low confidence: micromanage — give exact steps, no input solicited
• High skill + high confidence: step back entirely — no direction, no cheerleading
• A 2-year-old pouring juice needs every step shown; an 18-year-old pouring juice needs nothing
• The same project-by-project logic applies to senior leaders