Book review: Leadership and the One Minute Manager

Originally published in GP magazine .

Written for GP magazine around 2007. This is the version I submitted - the published article may have been edited.

Do you want to know how to get more from your staff? Read Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness through Situational Leadership by Ken Blanchard.

I first came across the concept of situational leadership on a leadership course run by my SHA. It was developed and expanded on by Ken Blanchard, a famous management guru responsible, with others, for the One Minute Manager series of books. It tries to teach you how to be a better manager of staff and employees, and is suitable for partners and practice managers or even team leaders.

Essentially, employees have different amounts of two traits, competence and commitment, which places them in one of four groups.

1: Low competence, high commitment - poor skills/knowledge but eager to learn. This often applies to a person new to a job or a task.

2: Some competence, low commitment - some skills, but possibly bored or feeling unsupported or unappreciated. Can often apply to someone who joined a while ago and hasn’t been made to feel part of the team and trained enough.

3: High competence, variable commitment - these are key individuals, as they know the job but are lacking motivation, e.g. seniority, pay, acknowledgement, promotion. They may leave for pastures new and are difficult to replace.

4: High competence, high commitment - the ultimate: good at the job, and often internally driven, needing little input to get on with things.

Some people naturally fall into one category, but situation is important. Training, experience and managerial support affect which level a person is in, and people tend to start in 1 and move to 4 - and some get lost or stuck along the way.

It then follows that managers have different styles. They give different amounts of direction (instructions) and support (contact).

Direction - e.g. giving instructions on how to use the computer system.

Coaching - still need to train, but need to give feedback and support (often the hardest level).

Supporting - the manager needs to supervise and give feedback, but the follower knows what to do.

Delegation - occasional task setting and review is all that is needed.

Every manager has preferred styles of management, and this means they instinctively get on better with certain types of subordinates. You may notice that colleagues tend to go to their favourite person; some of this may be that the styles match.

The theory is that a good manager judges what level a follower is at and adjusts their management style to meet it, and it is this adaptability that is the key. A good manager should also develop their staff to move them through the stages to the top stage, which is delegation.

The book is written in parable form, which is quite common for management books but can be annoying. It is very American in places, but I found the concepts fascinating and it has changed me in several ways. I used to think I could delegate to everyone (my favourite style) and wondered why things didn’t get done. I now realise that some of our staff need more instructions on how to perform the task I have asked them to do, and some are capable of doing it but need me to check in with them more regularly, not just at task end. I also realise that delegation is not the only technique and that I can get results from all levels of employee. Also, by training and supporting people I can get them moved up the ladder and not just expect them to develop by themselves.

I highly recommend the book and have already lent it to one of our managers. Another piece of advice from the book is to ensure all of your employees know about situational leadership, so they know what to expect from you and what they should be doing with their subordinates.