Now on Display!! The Theory's Behind My Hobbie's and Job's ~ The Founders Blog

On Display here are the Theories and Practice's That Drive L.C.O.R.P.S.  (& Its Founder)

Life Changing Out Reach and Services.

http://www.lcorps.org/

Definitions taken from Wiki.

Performance measurement
Performance measurement is the process whereby an organization establishes the parameters within which programs, investments, and acquisitions are reaching the desired results.^[1]
This process of measuring performance often requires the use of statistical evidence to determine progress toward specific defined organizational objectives.

The reason for measuring performance

Fundamental purpose behind measures is to improve performance. Measures that are not directly connected to improving performance (like measures that are directed at communicating better with the public to build trust) are measures that are means to achieving that ultimate purpose (Behn 2003).
Behn 2003 gives 8 reasons for adapting performance measurements:

1. To Evaluate how well a public agency is performing. To evaluate performance, managers need to determine what an agency is supposed to accomplish. (Kravchuk & Schack 1996). To formulate a clear, coherent mission, strategy, and objective. Then based on this information choose how you will measure those activities. (You first need to find out what are you looking for).
Evaluation processes consist of two variables: organizational performance data and a benchmark that creates a framework for analyzing that data. For organizational information, focus on the outcomes of the agency’s performance, but also including input/ environment/ process/ output- to have a comparative framework for analysis. It is helpful to ask 4 essential questions in determining organizational data:

·                    Outcomes should be directly related to the public purpose of the organization. Effectiveness Q: did they produce required results (determined by outcomes).

·                    Cost-effective: efficiency Q (outcome divided by input).

·                    Impact Q: what value organization provides.

·                    Best-practice Q: evaluating internal operations (compare core process performance to most effective and efficient process in the industry).

As in order for organization to evaluate performance, its requires standards (benchmark) to compare its actual performance against past performance/ from performance of similar agencies/ industry standard/political expectations.
2. To Control How can managers ensure their subordinates are doing the right thing.
Today managers do not control their workforce mechanically (measurement of time-and-motion for control as during Taylor) however managers still use measures to control, while allowing some space for freedom in the workforce. (Robert Kaplan & David Norton) Business has control bias. Because traditional measurement system sprung from finance function, the system has a control bias.
Organization create measurement systems that specify particular actions they want execute- for branch employees to take a particular ways to execute what they want- branch to spend money. Then they want to measure to see whether the employees have in fact taken those actions. Need to measure input by individual into organization and process. Officials need to measure behavior of individuals then compare this performance with requirements to check who has and has not complied.
Often such requirements are described only as guidelines. Do not be fooled. These guidelines are really requirements and those requirement are designed to control. The measurement of compliance with these requirements is the mechanism of control.
3. To Budget Budgets are crude tools in improving performance. Poor performance not always may change after applying budgets cuts as a disciplinary actions. Sometimes budgets increase could be the answer to improving performance. Like purchasing better technology because the current ones are outdated and harm operational processes. So decision highly influenced by circumstance, you need measures to better understand the situation.
At the macro level, elected officials deciding which purpose of government actions are primary or secondary. Political priorities drive macro budgetary choices. Once elected officials have established macro political priorities, those responsible for micro decisions may seek to invest their limited allocation of resources in the most cost-effective units and activities.
In allocating budgets, managers, in response to macro budget allocations (driven by political objectives), determine allocations at the micro level by using measures of efficiency of various activities, which programs or organizations are more efficient at achieving the political objectives. Why spend limited funds on programs that do not guarantee exceptional performance?
Efficiency is determined by observing performance- output and outcome achieved considering number of people involved in the process (productivity per person) and cost-data (capturing direct cost as well as indirect)
4. To Motivate Giving people significant goals to achieve and then use performance measures- including interim targets- to focus people’s thinking and work, and to provide periodic sense of accomplishment.
Performance targets may also encourage creativity in developing better ways to achieve the goal (Behn) Thus measure to motivate improvements may also motivate learning.
Almost-real-time output (faster, the better) compared with production targets. Quick response required to provide fast feed-back so workforce could improve and adapt.
Also it is able to provide how workforce currently performing.
Primary aim behind the measures should be output; managers can not motivate people to affect something over which they have little or no influence.
Once an agency’s leaders have motivated significant improvements using output targets, they can create some outcomes targets.

·                    “output”- focuses on improving internal process.

·                    “outcome”- motivate people to look outside the agency (to seek way to collaborate with individuals & organizations may affect the outcome produced by the agency)

5. To Celebrate Organizations need to commemorate their accomplishments- such ritual tie their people together, give them a sense of their individual and collective relevance. More over, by achieving specific goals, people gain sense of personal accomplishment and self-worth (Locke & Latham 1984).
Links from measurement to celebration to improvement is indirect, because it has to work through one of the likes- motivation, learning...
Celebration helps to improve performance because it brings attention to the agency, and thus promotes its competence- it attracts resources.

·                    Dedicated people who want to work for successful agency.

·                    Potential collaborators.

·                    Learning-sharing between people about their accomplishments and how they achieved it.

Significant performance targets that provide sense of personal and collective accomplishment. Targets could ones used to motivate. In order for celebration to be a success and benefits to be reality managers need to ensure that celebration creates motivation and thus improvements.

·                    By leading the celebration.

6. To Promote How can public managers convince political superiors, legislators, stakeholders, journalists, and citizens that their agency is doing a good job.
(National Academy of Public Administration’s center for improving government performance- NAPA 1999) performance measures can be used to: validate success; justifying additional resources; earn customers, stakeholder, and staff loyalty by showing results; and win recognition inside and outside the organization.
Indirectly promote, competence and value of government in general.
To convince citizens their agency is doing good, managers need easily understood measures of those aspects of performance about which many citizens personally care.
(“National Academy of Public Administration-NAPA” in its study of early performance- measurement plans under the government performance and results Act) most plans recognized the need to communicate performance evaluation results to higher level officials, but did not show clear recognition that the form and level of data for these needs would be different than that for operating managers. Different needs: Department head/ Executive Office of President/ Congress. NAPA suggested for those needs to be more explicitly defined- (Kaplan & Nortan 1994) stress that different customers have different concerns(1992).
7. To Learn Learning is involved with some process, of analysis information provided from evaluating corporate performance (identifying what works and what does not). By analyzing that information, corporation able to learn reasons behind its poor or good performance.
However if there is too many performance measures, managers might not be able to learn anything. (Neves of National Academy of Public Administration 1986)

·                    Because of rapid increase of performance measures there is more confusion or “noise” than useful data.

·                    Managers lack time or simply find it too difficult to try to identify good signals from mass of numbers.

Also there is an issue of “black box” enigma (data can reveal that organisation is performing well or poorly, but they don’t necessarily reveal why). Performance measures can describe what is coming out of “black box” as well as what is going in, but they do not reveal what is happening inside. How are various inputs interacting to produce the output. What more complex is outcome with “black box” being all value chain.
Benchmarking is a traditional form of performance measurement which facilitates learning by providing assessment of organisational performance and identifying possible solutions for improvements.
Benchmarking can facilitate transfer of know how from benchmarked organisations. (Kouzmin et al. 1999)
Identifying core process in organisation and measuring their performance is basic to benchmarking. Those actions probably provide answer to issue presented in purpose section of the learning.
Measurements that are used for learning act as indicators for managers to consider analysis of performance in measurement’s related areas by revealing irregularities and deviations from expected data results.
What to measure aiming at learning (the unexpected- what to aim for?)
Learning occurs when organization meets problems in operations or failures. Then corporations improve by analyzing those faults and looking for solutions. In public sector especially, failure usually punished severely- therefore corporations and individuals hide it.
8. To Improve what exactly should who- do differently to improve performance? In order for corporation to measure what it wants to improve it first need to identify what it will improve and develop processes to accomplish that.
Also you need to have a feedback loop to assess compliance with plans to achieve improvements and to determine if those processes created forecasted results (improvements).
Improvement process also related to learning process in identifying places that are need improvements.
Develop understanding of relationships inside the “black box” that connect changes in operations to changes in output and outcome.
Understanding “black box” processes and their interactions.

·                    How to influence/ control workforce that creates output.

·                    How to influence citizens/ customers that turn that output to outcome (and all related suppliers)

They need to observe how actions they can take will influence operations, environment, workforce and which eventually has an impact on outcome.
After that they need to identify actions they can take that will give them improvements they looking for and how organization will react to those actions ex. How might various leadership activities ripple through the “black box”.
Principles of performance measurement
All significant work activity must be measured.

·                    Work that is not measured or assessed cannot be managed because there is no objective information to determine its value. Therefore it is assumed that this work is inherently valuable regardless of its outcomes. The best that can be accomplished with this type of activity is to supervise a level of effort.

·                    Unmeasured work should be minimized or eliminated.

·                    Desired performance outcomes must be established for all measured work.

·                    Outcomes provide the basis for establishing accountability for results rather than just requiring a level of effort.

·                    Desired outcomes are necessary for work evaluation and meaningful performance appraisal.

·                    Defining performance in terms of desired results is how managers and supervisors make their work assignments operational.

·                    Performance reporting and variance analyses must be accomplished frequently.

·                    Frequent reporting enables timely corrective action.

·                    Timely corrective action is needed for effective management control.

If we don’t measure ……

·                    How do you know where to improve?

·                    How do you know where to allocate or re-allocate money and people?

·                    How do you know how you compare with others?

·                    How do you know whether you are improving or declining?

·                    How do you know whether or which programs, methods, or employees are producing results that are cost effective and efficient?

Common problems with measurement systems that limit their usefulness:

·                    Heavy reliance on summary data that emphasizes averages and discounts outliers.

·                    Heavy reliance on historical patterns and reluctance to accept new structural changes (or re-design of processes) that are capable of generating different outcomes, like measuring the time it takes them to do a task.

·                    Heavy reliance on gross aggregates that tend to understate or ignore distributional contributions and consequences.

·                    Heavy reliance on static, e.g., equilibrium, analysis and slight attention to time-based and growth ones, such as value-added measures.

Purpose By Theory
Purpose is a result, end, mean, aim, or goal of an action intentionally undertaken,^[1] or of an object being brought into use or existence, whether or not the purpose was a primary or secondary effect. It is possible that an intentional act may have multiple and hierarchisated purposes, only some of which is primary intentions while the remainder are secondary (or tertiary or more) intentions.
For example, the introduction of a gene into a species of rice may have the primary intention of providing resistance to disease and a secondary intention of reducing nutritional value. The diminished nutritional value, though perhaps regrettable, would be a secondary intention in that it is a known effect willingly accepted.
First attested in c.1290, from earl Old French porpos "aim, intention", purpose is related to from porposer "to put forth," from Vulgar Latin corruption of por- "forth" (Latin pro- "forth") and Old French poser "to put, place".^[2] Purpose is related to the term pose used from 1374 as to "put in a certain position," or "suggest, propose, suppose, assume," a term use in Late Latin debating (c.300–c.700) from pausare "to halt, rest, pause".^[3]

In human life

“There is a fundamental human need for guiding ideals that give meaning to our actions”, states Roger Fisher. Renowned psychiatrist Victor Frankl’s premise is that "man’s search for meaning" is the primary motivation of his life. He speaks of the "will to meaning" as opposed to Freud’s’ "will to pleasure" and Alfred Adler’s "will to power". William Damon, Director of Stanford University's Center on Adolescence and leading scholar of human development, defines purpose as "a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self".
According to some philosophies, purpose is central to a good human life. Helen Keller wrote that happiness comes from "fidelity to a worthy purpose".^{[citation needed]} Ayn Rand wrote that the three ruling values of life should be "reason, purpose, self-esteem".^{[citation needed]} Some people hold that God, as the force that created life, assigns purposes to people and that it is their mission to fulfill them. Others hold that purpose is not fixed, but instead freely chosen (or not chosen) by individuals and can change throughout life. Among these, some say that natural propensities may determine what sorts of purposes a person needs to pursue, but do not guarantee that he or she will pursue them, that being dependent on free choice, or external factors such as available resources. Oftentimes, it is fundamental for one to attempt to fulfill the purpose one feels is theirs. But in some occasions, fulfillment of purpose is halted by fear, the fear that the purpose one is trying to fulfill won't be fulfilled due to personal failures. In other words, someone who feels that they have a purpose that they must fulfill, might not attempt to do so because of fear due to lack of resources.
Pursuing a career, raising a family and creative vocation are all long terms for all cultures. It is, as one could say, the American Dream. These aspects take a Westernized position. The eudaimonism and objectivism that claim self-sacrificial goals are destructive take more of a Western philosophy and cannot be generalized into the Eastern philosophy. Eastern philosophy such as Buddhism shows that self-sacrificial goals are not destructive because one can bring out their own happiness through self-sacrificial goals especially when it comes to family. In eastern cultures, it is more of a collectivistic perspective than an individualistic one.^{[citation needed]}
Modern spiritual philosophy sees the purpose in life as improving the environment and world condition for all beings. In the most immediate sense, this means each individual finding the special talents which are a gift to serve others. This, in turn, is found in pursuing a soul level joy, so that the personal and highest individual purpose of life is pursuit of soul level joy. This is the first joy, that which has followed the individual from birth. In most instances, it begins with the desire for acceptance and evolves to discovery of each person's genius or gift to serve. Several methods exist for determining the soul's particular gifts and strengths, and thus its life purpose, such as the Life-Purpose System originally formulated by Dan Millman in his book The Life You Were Born to Live.^[4]
From a biological point of view the purpose of evolution is the progression of genes. However, this is not necessarily the same thing as a human being's purpose, according to evolutionary biologist and popular science author Richard Dawkins, who states that purpose is something that "grows up in the universe" (see: Growing Up in the Universe).^[5] Dawkins believes that humans have the complex genetic make-up that allows them to choose purposes for themselves that extend beyond the goal of passing on their individual genes.
Another view is exemplified by a famous work by the Christian Rick Warren, who wrote the best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life.^[6] This work expresses the common religious belief that there exists an inherent purpose of life, as provided by God, which is the force that created life. There has also been a lot of scientific criticism of Rick Warren's book, including a critique by philosopher Daniel Dennett.^[7] But both ideas of purpose are based on the goal of seeking to clarify one's purpose in life, in which case the purpose of life is to be aware of one's purpose in life.
Another position is the “purpose-guided education” approach developed by Jerry Pattengale. It structures one's understanding about their purpose in relation to their evaluation of worthwhile causes and how their lives and gifts are attached to one.

Relationship as a purpose

The Dalai Lama, a Buddhist, states in The Art of Happiness that the purpose of life is the pursuit of happiness, which would seem to present a circular argument with the definition of purpose according to other philosophies mentioned above, if purpose and happiness are the same thing. One important distinction to make is that statistically, those people who behave or appear happy tend to be altruistic and less egotistic. It would follow that an appropriate choice of purpose altruistic in nature leads to happiness, or that a willful drive to happiness develops altruistic traits.
According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, belongingness, and usefulness to others, are fundamental to meeting human needs and conducive to building happiness; or, moreover, that the pursuit of these things, though not necessarily directly, are major underlying purposes of one's actions. These motivations can include sexual intimacy, but there is no evidence that sexual intimacy as a motivation is universal in the way other kinds of intimacy are. Concerning sexual intimacy, the Dalai Lama's view is that sexual intimacy is not necessarily conducive to happiness and fulfillment. Sexual intimacy serves at least one purpose, which is to provide temporary gratification and a committed bond, which is brought-about by the secretion of oxytocin during orgasm. This promotes the desire for intimacy between the two individuals. Daniel Maguire says in his article "Sex and the SacredJ":
"It used to be said animal humanum post coitum triste, humans, after love-making, are sad. 'A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love,' said the poet Yeats. That can happen. Sex awakens hopes for intimacy and the priceless gift of mutual trust."^[8]
It would follow that one key purpose of sexual intimacy is to build a lasting bond between two people. According to the Dalai Lama, contemporary Western culture falsely holds that deep intimacy between individuals is not possible outside of romantic or marital attachments. Deep relational intimacy is possible and appropriate between all individuals regardless of status. In light of this, the Dalai Lama's views, and Maslow's hierarchy, all indicate an underlying biological purpose of life to diligently build and retain intimate bonds with other people, either genetically or otherwise, with the goal of passing on information through genes or ideas memes.

Life stances and purpose

The purpose in life has different explanations from different life stances. It may differ substantially within the communities of each life stance, but the examples below are the purposes that are generally accepted as the main for each life stance.

Life stance	Main purpose
Buddhism	To help sentient beings end their suffering (see The Four Noble Truths) with Karma and Dharma methods.
Christianity	To know, love and serve God, until he comes.
Hinduism	To worship work (Karma) according to law (Dharma) without any thought of result, as said in the Bhagavad Gita.
Humanism	To promote human flourishing.
Islam	The Arabic word Islam means peace, submission and obedience to God's will.
Judaism	To serve God[9] and to prepare for the world to come[10] ("Olam Haba").[11]
Postmodernism	To create complex structures and interactions with purpose of joy and understanding.

Teleology

Purpose is similar to teleology, the idea that a final goal is implicit in all living organisms. Until the modern age, philosophy followed Aristotle's and Plato's depiction of a teleological cosmos in which all things had a final purpose (namely, to realize their implicit perfection). Perhaps most^[who?] modern philosophers of science have reversed the idea of purpose inherent in nature; they do not consider an eye explicable as being "in order to see"; instead, cause-and-effect processes are credited with bringing about the eye organ, which allows us to see.^{[citation needed]} Though this latter definition is also included in the definition of the word purpose. The difference, for some philosophers is between a cause as pushing from behind (movements of billiard balls) and a cause as pulling from within (movement of a growing plant). With teleology (purpose) matter is fulfilling some aim from within ^{[citation needed]}.

Contingency Theory

Contingency theory is a class of behavioral theory that claims that there is no best way to organize a corporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions. Instead, the optimal course of action is contingent (dependent) upon the internal and external situation. Several contingency approaches were developed concurrently in the late 1960s.

Drama Theory

Drama Theory is a Problem Structuring Method of Operational Research. It is based on GameTheory and adapts the use of games to complex organizational situations, accounting for emotional responses that can provoke irrational reactions and lead the players to re-define the game. In a drama, emotions trigger rationalizations that create changes in the game, and so change follows change until either all conflicts are resolved or action becomes necessary. The game as re-defined is then played.

Metagaming
Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself.
In simple terms, using out-of-game information, or resources, to affect one's in-game decisions.
Metagame analysis
Metagame analysis involves framing a problem situation as a strategic game in which participants try to realise their objectives by means of the options available to them. The subsequent meta-analysis of this game gives insight in possible strategies and their outcome.


Game Theory
In mathematics, game theory models strategic situations, or games, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others (Myerson, 1991). It is used in the social sciences (most notably in economics, management, operations research, political science, and social psychology) as well as in other formal sciences (logic, computer science, and statistics) and biology (particularly evolutionary biology and ecology). While initially developed to analyze competitions in which one individual does better at another's expense (zero sum games), it has been expanded to treat a wide class of interactions, which are classified according to several criteria. Today, "game theory is a sort of umbrella or 'unified field' theory for the rational side of social science, where 'social' is interpreted broadly, to include human as well as non-human players (computers, animals, plants)." (Aumann 1987).

Revelation Principle

The revelation principle of economics can be stated as, "To any Bayesian Nash equilibrium of a game of incomplete information, there exists a payoff-equivalent revelation mechanism that has an equilibrium where the players truthfully report their types."^[1]
For dominant strategies, instead of Bayesian equilibrium, the revelation principle was introduced by Gibbard (1973). Later this principle was extended to the broader solution concept of Bayesian equilibrium by Dasgupta, Hammond and Maskin (1979), Holmstrom (1977), and Myerson (1979).
The revelation principle is useful in game theory, Mechanism design, social welfare and auctions. William Vickrey, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Economics, devised an auction type where the highest bidder would win the sealed bid auction, but at the price offered by the second-highest bidder. Under this system, the highest bidder would be better motivated to reveal his maximum price than in traditional auctions, which would also benefit the seller. This is sometimes called a second price auction or a Vickrey auction.
In Mechanism design the revelation principle is of utmost importance in finding solutions. The researcher need only look at the set of equilibrium characterized by incentive compatibility. That is, if the mechanism designer wants to implement some outcome or property, he can restrict his search to mechanisms in which agents are willing to reveal their private information to the mechanism designer that has that outcome or property. If no such direct and truthful mechanism exists, no mechanism can implement this outcome/property. By narrowing the area needed to be searched, the problem of finding a mechanism becomes much easier.
Mechanism Design
Mechanism design (sometimes called reverse game theory^[1]) is a field in game theory studying solution concepts for a class of private information games. The distinguishing features of these games are:

·                    that a game "designer" chooses the game structure rather than inheriting one

·                    that the designer is interested in the game's outcome

Such a game is called a "game of mechanism design" and is usually solved by motivating agents to disclose their private information. The 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory".^[2]
Implementation Theory
Implementation theory is an area of game theory closely related to mechanism design where an attempt is made to add into a game a mechanism such that the equilibrium of the game conforms to some concept of social optimality (for instance Pareto optimality).
In a game where multiple agents are to report their preferences (or their type), it may be in the best interest of some agents to lie about their preferences. This may improve their payoff, but it may not be seen as a fair outcome to other agents. In order to implement a more "fair" outcome, in a repeated game, the other players may choose to punish any "cheaters".
The conditions of a repeated game where an arbitrary outcome may be enforced are set out in theorems often known as folk theorems. If a game is not repeated, it may only be possible to implement outcomes which are Nash equilibria or satisfy some other equilibrium concept.
Incentive Compatibility
In mechanism design, a process is said to be incentive compatible if all of the participants fare best when they truthfully reveal any private information asked for by the mechanism. As an illustration, voting systems which create incentives to vote dishonestly lack the property of incentive compatibility. In the absence of dummy bidders or collusion, a second price auction is an example of mechanism that is incentive compatible.
There are different degrees of incentive compatibility: in some games, truth-telling can be a dominant strategy. A weaker notion is that truth-telling is a Bayes-Nash equilibrium: it is best for each participant to tell the truth, provided that others are also doing so.

Expectancy Theory

Expectancy Theory proposes that a person will decide to behave or act in a certain way because they are motivated to select a specific behavior over other behaviors due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior will be.^[1] In essence, the motivation of the behavior selection is determined by the desirability of the outcome. However, at the core of the theory is the cognitive process of how an individual processes the different motivational elements. This is done before making the ultimate choice. The outcome is not the sole determining factor in making the decision of how to behave.^[1]
Expectancy theory is about the mental processes regarding choice, or choosing. It explains the processes that an individual undergoes to make choices. In the study of organizational behavior, expectancy theory is a motivation theory first proposed by Victor Vroom of the Yale School of Management.
"This theory emphasizes the needs for organizations to relate rewards directly to performance and to ensure that the rewards provided are those rewards deserved and wanted by the recipients." ^[2]
Victor H. Vroom (1964) defines motivation as a process governing choices among alternative forms of voluntary activities, a process controlled by the individual. The individual makes choices based on estimates of how well the expected results of a given behavior are going to match up with or eventually lead to the desired results. Motivation is a product of the individual’s expectancy that a certain effort will lead to the intended performance, the instrumentality of this performance to achieving a certain result, and the desirability of this result for the individual, known as valence.^{[3]
Goal Setting Theory}
Goal setting involves establishing specific, measurable and time-targeted objectives^{[citation needed]}. Goal setting features as a major component of personal development literature. Goals perceived as realistic are more effective in changing behavior.
Work on the theory of goal-setting suggests that it's an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants in a group with a common goal are clearly aware of what is expected from them if an objective is to be achieved^{[citation needed]}. On a personal level, setting goals is a process that allows people to specify then work towards their own objectives — most commonly with financial or career-based goals^{[citation needed]}.
"Goals provide a sense of direction and purpose" (Goldstein, 1994, p. 96).^[vague] "Goal setting capitalize on the human brain's amazing powers: Our brains are problem-solving, goal-achieving machines."

Path Goal Theory

The path-goal theory, also known as the path-goal theory of leader effectiveness or the path-goal model, is a leadership theory in the field of organizational studies developed by Robert House, an Ohio State University graduate, in 1971 and revised in 1996. The theory states that a leader's behavior is contingent to the satisfaction, motivation and performance of his subordinates. The revised version also argues that the leader engages in behaviors that complement subordinate's abilities and compensate for deficiencies. The path-goal model can be classified both as a contingency or as a transactional leadership theory.
Situational Leadership Theory
The Situational Leadership Theory, is a leadership theory developed by Paul Hersey, professor and author of the book Situational Leader, and Ken Blanchard, leadership guru and author of The One Minute Manager, while working on the first edition of Management of Organizational Behavior (now in its 9th edition).^[1] The theory was first introduced as "Life Cycle Theory of Leadership".^[2] During the mid 1970s, "Life Cycle Theory of Leadership" was renamed "Situational Leadership theory".^[3]
In the late 1970s/early 1980s, the authors both developed their own models using the situational leadership theory; Hersey - Situational Leadership Model and Blanchard et al. Situational Leadership II Model.^[4]
The fundamental underpinning of the situational leadership theory is there is no single "best" style of leadership. Effective leadership is task-relevant and that the most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the maturity ("the capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility for the task, and relevant education and/or experience of an individual or a group for the task) of the individual or group they are attempting to lead/influence. That effective leadership varies, not only with the person or group that is being influenced, but it will also depend on the task, job or function that needs to be accomplished.^[5]
The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory rests on two fundamental concepts; leadership style and the individual or group's maturity levle.