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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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