Has anyone done the Ken Blanchard situational leadership course? I have the opportunity to go on the course, and was just wondering what people think of it.
Has anyone done the Ken Blanchard situational leadership course? I have the opportunity to go on the course, and was just wondering what people think of it.
Did it years ago. Quite good, but I would not pay a lot of money for it. When I did it it was put on by Anglo American's Training Division at Macoa Vlei.
My previous post was probably far too brief - perhaps I should at least have explained what the course is about. Blanchard maintains that different personalities require different intensities and styles of supervision, as do different occupations. Looking at occupation dictates - in electrical engineering for example, cable layers work as a team, they have to, whilst cable jointers work very much on their own (with an assistant to throw them their tools - they never touch each other during a live joint). And then there are personalities; some folk prefer, and indeed take comfort from close supervision, whilst others want very much to be left alone. Blanchard proposes a sort of matrix where these factors are balanced.
The course included an old WWII movie starring Gregory Peck who is shown taking over an air force squadron which has taken a hammering. As the movie opens you see Peck en route to the new air base, sitting in the front seat of the car, having a matey chat with the driver. As they reach the main gate, Peck stops the car, gets out, stubs out his cigarette, straightens his hat and climbs into the back of the car and orders the driver in a curt voice to carry on. New situation you see. As the movie unfolds most of Blanchard’s proposals are seen enacted.
In the end we see that for every situation and employee type there is an appropriate leadership style. Seemed very common sense to me at the time.
I went on the course many years ago. I attended it at a time when we were contemplating an expansion of our training effort and I attended a whole host of courses in order to evaluate them against our needs. I never took this one up, although if I had been working in a different business environment I might have. It was not appropriate in the local government culture of the time.
Thanks for the feedback Graeme. I actually have the opportunity to do the course because one of my friends has been trained to train the course. As a part of that he has to present a course, which gives my wife and I an opportunity to do the course at just about no cost. We're going to do it, as it is just another opportunity to learn.
Some feedback from the course:
The course was Situational Leadership II, which (based on the copyright in the material) started in 2001. It is just a further development of the original Situational Leadership course. We didn't see the Gregory Peck movie, but there were other videos which served as examples and discussion material.
Overall I think the material is of very high quality. The model is a very simple, and yet effective one. The basic model can be found on their website.
What I like about the model is that it is task oriented rather than personality oriented. They speak about two things, "competence" and "commitment." Competence (the definition in their model) is demonstrated ability to do the task along with any transferable skills (i.e. skills from other tasks which can be applied). Commitment is the persons motivation and confidence.
If you look at the model you can see that they have four development levels (along the bottom), with varying degrees of competence and commitment. For each level of development there is an appropriate leadership style with differing levels of directive and supportive behaviour. Apply the correct leadership style to the person and they move through the developmental levels until they become a "self reliant achiever."
Key to this all is that it is task/goal specific, i.e. someone with 20 years experience starting a new job is at the lowest developmental level (they still need to demonstrate their ability to do the new job). Hopefully though, they will move quickly to the highest developmental level (but they will go through each stage).
To implement the model in an organisation will take a bit of a value shift, but I do think there is a lot of real value in applying this. If you have the opportunity I would recommend it.
It is aimed at large corporates with pricing to match, and the direct value of that is going to be dependant on the size of your organisation (I was fortunate enough to attend a course as part of the facilitators accreditation process).
If you are interested in doing the course, please contact me and I can refer to an excellent facilitator.
Hi
Im pleased to see all these comments regarding Ken Blanchards Situational Leadership II program.
We are the official representitives of The Ken Blanchard Companies in SA. If any one is looking for more information,brochures or dates of public workshops etc, please feel free to contact me by PM. I have case studies from various industries that have succesfully implemented Situational Leadership II which im sure you will find useful.
Last edited by Dave A; 11-Jan-08 at 11:45 AM.
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