Situational Leadership and Performance Readiness at the IDCCA

As I progress further in my internship with the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association, I’ve been assigned projects that combine elements of previous projects. A task that was once an entire project in and of itself is now just one element of a larger project. As my supervisors assign and explain these projects to me, I’ve considered how situational leadership, particularly the idea of performance readiness, plays into their explanations.

To use the past two weeks as an example, I have twice been assigned to write a memo to the president of the IDCCA, Kristina Zahorik, to outline her meeting schedule for days she travels for in-person meetings. One element of the memos is to list donation information for the organizations she’ll be meeting with, which is available on a website known as Illinois Sunshine. Previously for this internship, I had an entire project centered around looking up donation information on Illinois Sunshine, so I was familiar with the site. When asking me to write the first memo, my supervisor Jillian sent me an email with detailed instructions, sent a few example memos, and made sure I knew I could reach out to her with any questions — but didn’t tell me to look up the donor information, as she (rightly) assumed I would remember that. And when assigning the second memo, there was even less instruction — she just gave me Kristina’s schedule for the day and sent me on my way to write it up.

The reason for these changes in approach, I now understand, is Hersey and Blanchard’s idea of “performance readiness,” or the extent to which a follower demonstrates ability and willingness to accomplish a given task. When receiving a new task, I was at an R2 on their performance spectrum (willing but unable), and Jillian used “telling” and “selling” strategies to bring me up to speed. But by the second memo (and, I assume, for future memos), I was at an R4 — willing and able — and Jillian transitioned to delegating accordingly.

Ultimately, I believe her leadership in this situation was effective — and as Hersey and Blanchard would argue, it was also theoretically sound. I will be sure to look out for other ways performance readiness informs leadership decisions for the rest of my internship experience.