Case 2 – MGT

Module 2 Case -MGT 401

Module 2 – Case

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL: SITUATIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Assignment Overview

For this assignment, first, review the background materials with a focus on Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model. Make sure you are familiar with the four leadership styles covered in the situational approach (Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating) and situations where you are supposed to use these four styles.

Case Assignment

Pick one of the following scenarios (A, B, or C) below:

A. You are in charge of a team of junior accountants. They are skilled but have strong opinions and do not necessarily follow instructions. These accountants are independent thinkers who are used to doing assigned tasks without taking extra initiative to learn new skills.

B. You are in charge of a pizza restaurant. Except for the delivery people, the employees are all teenagers who have not yet graduated from high school, and this is the first job for most of them.

C. You are the supervisor of a team of software developers. They are all highly skilled and highly motivated and are used to working independently. All of them believe in the mission of the company.

Write a 
3 full-page paper (excluding title and reference pages) to include 3 scholarly sources from the required or optional reading lists and address the following:

1. What is the Situational Leadership Model, and how can it be used to improve your selected scenario?

2. The Situational Leadership Model involves both “inputs” and “outputs” by taking employee commitment and competency as inputs and then, based on the employee information, selects one of the four leadership styles, Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating, as an output.

Discuss the four leadership styles in terms of 
inputs and outputs, and include a 1 -or 2-paragraph discussion of the best leadership style for your selected scenario.

3. Based on the readings, which of the four leadership styles do you think is most useful to the scenario you selected? Explain your rationale for your leadership style selection.

Assignment Expectations

1. Your Case Assignment should be 
3 – 4 full pages in length (excluding Title and Reference pages). It must include an introduction below the paper’s title prior to the answer to the first assignment question and a conclusion on the last page before the References list page. There should be nothing in the top left corner of the paper and only a page number in the top right corner of all pages.

2. Be sure to cite and reference (using APA Style) a 
minimum of 3 scholarly sources listed in the Course Materials and Bibliography (Module 2 Required and Optional Reading List), in the Module 2 Background Page: Required and Optional Readings, or in the Trident Online Library (peer-reviewed journal articles).

3. Upload your paper to the Case 2 Dropbox before the assignment due date.

4. Include both a References Page and in-text citations. Citation and reference style instructions are available at Trident University’s 

Introduction to APA
. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My Resources” in the TLC portal, or the APA Manual (7th ed.).

This Case submission will be evaluated using the criteria as stated in the Case rubric. The following is a review of the rubric criteria:

· Assignment Requirements

· Critical Thinking

· Writing and Assignment Organization

· Use of Sources and Mechanics

· Timeliness

The references found online via a tool like Google, the Trident Online Library, or even in the courses may not be in correct APA format. For this reason, you are expected to research how to correctly format references. Do not just copy citations and expect them to be correct. The basic format of references are:

Author, A. B. (2020, December 25). Title of the article. 
Title of the Academic Journal, 55(3), 23-28.  

· 55 is the volume number for this fictitious example of a perfectly formatted reference of a journal article. Article titles are never typed in italics.  

Author, A. B., Bolden, C., & Cheswick, D. E. (2023). 
The art of leadership. John Wiley and Son. 

· This is the reference format for a fictitious book. Book titles never begin every word with a capital letter, but they are always typed in italics. Notice the use of an ampersand before the last listed author. 

MacMillan, P. (2020). 
Modern paradigms of leadership [Video]. Alexander Street. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

· This is the reference format for a video. The video title is always in italics.

Additional citation and reference style instructions are available at 

Purdue OWL
 ( and 

Trident University’s Introduction to APA Style
, 7th edition.

You will find the following useful as you critique sources:

Herring, J. E. (2011). Chapter 3: Evaluating websites, Figure 3.1, p. 38. In
 Improving students’ web use and information literacy: a guide for teachers and teacher librarians. Facet Publishing. Available in the Trident Online Library, EBSCO eBook Collection.

Lack, C. W., & Rousseau, J. (2016). Chapter 4: What is critical thinking? In 
Critical thinking, science, and pseudoscience: Why we can’t trust our brains. Springer Publishing Company.  Available in the Trident Online Library, EBSCO eBook Collection.

Background Information:

Module 2 – Background

ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL: SITUATIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Required Reading

A good place to start is by viewing the following short videos that will introduce you to some of the main concepts covered in this module. A key issue to remember as you go through the materials is that each of these leadership models has “inputs”—regarding the situation the leader faces—and “outputs” in terms of the actions or style the leader should take given the situation. For example, the Situational Leadership model takes employee commitment and competence as “inputs.” Then based on the employees’ commitment and competency, you choose one of four different approaches (e.g., coaching, delegating, etc.).

Jenkinson, P. (2018, November 26). 

Hersey Blanchard situational leadership
 [Video]. YouTube.

Now take a look at the following readings for more detail about Situational Leadership, Fiedler’s Contingency, and Path-Goal models. Pay close attention to both the “inputs”—such as traits of the employee or the situation—as well as “outputs,” which are the leadership style that you should use for the given situation and type of employees.

Fabac, R., Kokot, K., & Bubalo, I. (2022).  Path-goal theory – leadership styles and their changes during the Covid-19 pandemic. 
Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 20(4), 349-374 DOI: 10.7906/indecs.20.4.4. Available in the Trident Online Library.

Griffin Jordan, R. (2021). 
Secondary principal perceptions of preparatory experiences [Doctoral dissertation, Gardner-Webb University]. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

Lacey, J. M. (2019). 
Student development and studio management in applied music teaching through implementation of the Situational Leadership model (Order No. 13812073) [Doctoral dissertation, Florida State University]. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

The following Straker reference is a great website that has freely available information about a variety of leadership theories as well as numerous other disciplines:

Straker, D. (n.d.). (n.d.). 

Leadership theories
. 
Changing Minds. 

Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2018). Situational leadership theory: A test from a leader-follower congruence approach. 
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39(5), 574-591. Available in the Trident Online Library, ProQuest database.

Note: If you still want to tie up some loose ends regarding the three main leadership models for this module, then take a look at some of the optional videos and text. None are required but are highly recommended.

Optional Reading

Gregg Learning. (2019). 

Fiedler’s contingency theory
 [Video]. YouTube.

Pasaribu, S. B., Goestjahjanti, F. S., Srinita, S., Novitasari, D., & Haryanto, B. (2022, May 2). 

The role of situational leadership on job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and employee performance
. 
Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 896539-896539.