Situational Leadership: How and Why Leaders Need to Flex

Podcast Transcript

Emily Grimes: Welcome to Learning to Lead, a leadership development podcast by Cleveland Clinic. I'm Emily Grimes, and today we're talking about Situational Leadership. Never heard of Situational Leadership? That's OK! This is a style of leadership that can improve any relationship, whether we're in a leadership position or not. My GLLI colleague Elizabeth Pugel recently had the chance to speak with Lori McCormick, who is a Nursing Leader at Cleveland Clinic Indian River, in Florida. In addition to be trained in Situational Leadership, Lori has hands-on experience applying this leadership style in her daily work. I hope you enjoy their conversation.

Elizabeth Pugel: So welcome to our Situational Leadership podcast today. I am very excited to be joined by Lori McCormick, and she is joining us from our Florida region. Welcome, Lori.

Lori McCormick: Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.

Elizabeth Pugel: Well, we are excited to have you here and to hear a little bit about your leadership journey, particularly into how you have led with situational leadership. So I'm curious if you could start us off by giving us a little bit of an insight of what is situational leadership from your own experience?

Lori McCormick: Sure. So situational leadership, I have learned that it is an adaptive leadership style, it's very flexible, and it's based on a given situation. There is no such thing as a good or bad leadership style. Like I said, it's just very flexible, and one that you can tailor to the exact situation that you have at hand.

Elizabeth Pugel: Great. So we will talk a little bit more about that flexibility and adaptability I think throughout our conversation and our podcast today. Did you have an example of situational leadership from your experience?

Lori McCormick: Sure. Every day, there's always examples, but one of the biggest ones and I think perhaps one of the most challenging situational examples I have is we all know about, in 2020, there was COVID. And that situation was one that none of us had ever dealt with before. And in dealing with the employees and the patients, it was very challenging on a daily basis, and sometimes it was challenging on an hourly basis.

On one hand, your employees were obviously doing their job and taking care of the patients, but they themselves were scared because of the situation. And we found ourselves as leaders in a situation where we needed to be comforting for the staff and understanding their fear in the situation, but at the same time, we had to take care of our patients. So there was a fine balance in managing the staff and helping them feel supported, but at the same time, getting the job done.

So that I believe in my career has been the most challenging situation that we have had to deal with. And sometimes the information from the CDC and the leadership team from Cleveland Clinic changed almost hourly with isolation precautions and things like that, but it really worked out well. And we found that each day was a new situation, and we flexed our leadership style to accommodate the need.

Elizabeth Pugel: Thanks, Lori, that was a really good and timely example of situational leadership. So you mentioned being comforting and understanding of the staff, being supportive while also balancing operations and obviously patient care. So what would be some key elements of situational leadership for you?

Lori McCormick: So I think some key elements of situational leadership, like I said, is there's no such leadership style that's better than another, and that's key. Really use the situational leadership style that's going to get you the best result. It changes according to the situation. What might've worked in one meeting might not work in another meeting with the same caregivers present.

And I just always remember that there's a lot of components to situational leadership. There's directing style, where you need to direct everybody to a desired result. There's coaching, there's a lot of coaching and situational leadership. There's participating in a very collaborative style. There's delegating, sometimes you just have to delegate for those high performing employees who love the challenge, and so you delegate to them and you help them grow in their role. And then there's integrity. Sometimes you just don't get the result that you want, so you have to keep going back at it again. And then there's the courage to do so.

Elizabeth Pugel: Great. Thank you. Those are really important key elements as it pertains to situational leadership. So you mentioned directing, coaching, participating, delegating, integrity and courage. What would be some benefits to being a situational leader?

Lori McCormick: So one of the main benefits with being a situational leader is that you gain the trust of your employees because you're tailoring your leadership style to something that they can relate to. You are creating a comfortable environment for your employees by doing so, and it takes developmental phases into account. So you may have some brand new employees who are just starting their careers, and you can have some tenure employees who really are engaged and are really active in the process. So it really allows you to gauge your employees on what the need is and how they respond best. And I also think it helps the team to be able to work better together and encourage successful collaboration among each other.

Elizabeth Pugel: That's great that you've really talked about the team environment, the collaboration perspective of having a situational leadership approach.

So, Lori, you've talked a lot to us about examples of situational leadership, key elements, and benefits of situational leadership. I'm curious to hear about how you would describe your own leadership style.

Lori McCormick: So my leadership style, and I think if you would ask anybody about my leadership style, they would definitely tell you that I have a very collaborative leadership style. I invest time in building relationships with my employees and my colleagues, and that has enabled me to address conflict in a constructive manner. And together with that, the team arrives at a desired result. I definitely feel that building relationships and spending the time to know your colleagues and your employees, it's definitely a benefit. And by and large, I feel that that has really helped me become a successful leader.

Elizabeth Pugel: That's great to hear. And hearing that collaborative theme again throughout this podcast is very present for me. I also appreciate hearing you talk a little bit about building relationships, and I think that's very important as we talk about the different components of situational leadership. How easy is it for you to vary your leadership style?

Lori McCormick: I have to say that my answer today is very different than it was when I was a new leader. As a new leader, it was very difficult. It is a learned skill. And with having trust in yourself and confidence in yourself and knowing that you're learning as a leader, it becomes easier.

Today, I feel that I can vary it at any time that I need to, but that did not come as a new leader. It did take practice and it is a skill.

Elizabeth Pugel: That's great to hear. And I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing the transition from a new leader to a tenured leader that you are today. Why do you think situational leadership is most effective?

Lori McCormick: I think it's most effective because you definitely get the desired result that you want. It really helps you to guide conversations. It helps you relate to your employees. For example, if you're talking to an employee who takes constructive criticism very hard, then you want to have a softer approach, opposed to an employee who is very to the point, "Just tell me the way it is." And by building those relationships with people, you know exactly how to relate to them. And that way, you do get your desired result.

Elizabeth Pugel: That's great. And we're hearing you speak more about the flexibility and the adaptability, which tends to be a common theme throughout our podcast today.

Lori, we will have variety of leaders listen to our podcast today, and I'm curious for you to share a little bit for, depending on where people are at in their careers, how they could go about developing situational leadership skills.

Lori McCormick: Developing leadership skills for situational development is really hard in the beginning, but I had always found that if you get to know your employees and your colleagues then study them, assess their skill level, their motivation is another big component of it, you're going to lead them in the right direction.

For example, if you have somebody who just comes to work, does their job, not really motivated, but gets by with the least amount of work they have to do, that's a different leadership style that you have to use with that person, opposed to somebody who's energetic, wants to exceed, has been going back to school to better themselves, and that is another engaging leadership style.

So I think to develop a flexibility leadership style in any situation, you really do need to know who you're speaking to. Once you have that knowledge, you can, like I said, tailor your leadership style to that person, where they can relate to you, and then you'll get the result that you want.

Elizabeth Pugel: Lori, how would you advise leaders to develop situational leadership skills?

Lori McCormick: Developing situational leadership skills is challenging in the beginning, but know your direct reports, know your colleagues. And once you know who they are, you will know which style suits them best. And not every style is for every person. So you have to tailor it to who they are, their motivation style, what their ability style is. And once you have that, you will be able to really relate to your employees.

Elizabeth Pugel: Yeah, absolutely. That's great insight. Thank you so much. So, Lori, you have provided such incredible insight to situational leadership, both with your perspective, certainly from your experience. And so I wanted to give you an opportunity to share any additional points that you have about situational leadership that you haven't already shared with our podcast audience today.

Lori McCormick: So I would say have confidence in yourself, have confidence in yourself that you can do this, and knowledge of emotional intelligence in yourself and recognize it in your direct reports and colleagues as well. Because emotional intelligence is a large part of situational leadership and knowing when and how to address a situation in a given moment. And it can change on a dime, so you have to be ready, but it's also a really good rule of thumb to pause for a few minutes before you react. And by doing so, you can assess the room, you can assess body language, you can assess the situation and how people are responding to it so that you know exactly which way to react in your situational leadership style.

Elizabeth Pugel: That's fantastic. You've provided so much great insight today regarding being a flexible leader, having the confidence when working with your direct reports and your team, the power of the pause, and really being in tune with your emotional intelligence, the importance of building relationships. These are all great attributes and aspects for situational leadership.

So, Lori, thank you for giving our podcast audience such incredible insights to your experiences and your input regarding situational leadership. We really appreciate you being our guest speaker today and providing all of your tremendous insights.

Lori McCormick: Thank you.

Emily Grimes: That's our episode on Situational Leadership. A huge thank you to Lori McCormick for sharing her time and wisdom on this topic with us. And a big thanks, as usual, to Elizabeth Pugel. We hope you enjoyed hearing about Situational Leadership -- and Caregivers, if you're curious to learn more, we encourage you to check out additional leadership resources in the Leader Development space in Connect Today.

That's it for all of us at GLLI! Stay curious, and keep learning!