Making New Friends & Situational Leadership (and Parenting)

"I don't know anyone in my class," one of our kids complained as we got ready for church on Sunday.

This was a bit confusing to her mother and I. She had complained about this the week before and when we got to church we found that she already had at least one friend in the class. And we had already encouraged her to go and meet other kids. What more could we do?

But my wife wisely saw a moment here to help our child learn some quality social skills.

"Maybe you need to introduce yourself," she said. She patiently talked through a script for how talk to a new person.

A couple hours later, we went to pick her up from her class. "I met nine new kids today!" she exclaimed gleefully before we even left the room. What our kid needed wasn't just encouragement. She needed specific direction.

One of the most helpful parts of my Area Director training a couple of weeks ago was the introduction to the Situational Leadership model. I think it applies to leadership, management, and parenting.

From the "supervisor" position, there's four basic postures: directive (specific instructions), coaching (they've got some basics but need concrete feedback and helps), supporting (they know what they're doing, they just need someone to believe in them and encourage them) and delegating.

Every supervisor (and parent) has a naturally more comfortable style. Both Kelly and I are naturally more the supportive type than directing, coaching or delegating.

The trick with supervision (and parenting) is matching your style with the needs of the person you're working with. On Sunday, Kelly realized that our daughter needed more than just encouragement. She needed direction--specific, step-by-step instructions on what to do in a specific situation.

She changed her style to match the situation and person in question. And the results were dramatically different.

Perhaps you've been in a situation where you've needed more direction and all you got was support. Or perhaps you just needed to be left alone but you were stuck with a boss (or parent) who insisted on telling you exactly what to do.

Fewer things are more frustrating than having someone in authority over you who's doing all the wrong things but who thinks that they're doing it right.

Maybe you can take a look at this, think on these things, and make sure that person isn't you.