The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory

“Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.”Deepak Chopra

Great communication skills coupled with Interpersonal skills are the building block to help with direction, guidance, and motivation of subordinates. One who is open-minded, willingly accepts ideas of others, have the ability to make changes. Someone who influence the actions of their subordinates guiding them to accomplish their full potential in an optimal manner. Who are goal oriented and thinks analytically. Personally taking responsibility

Participating: is a process where decisions are made by the entire group, making it a democratic system. Here emphasis is placed on sharing ideas thus arriving at a clear conclusion on how to accomplish the given task with confidence.

4. Delegating: tasks to group members are distributed offering minimal leadership interference; here the level of maturity is greater. There is high preparedness based on capacity, readiness, and certainty about task completion.

Four levels of maturity where identified according to the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory from M1 through M4:

M-1: They lack the specific knowledge and skills required to job achieve the task in hand.

M-2: Incompetent to do the task but prepared to do so, they are unable to take on responsibility for the task being done; however they are eager to complete the task.

M-3: They are qualified and competent to do the task but lack the courage or the readiness to take on responsibility.

M-4: the group is qualified, prepared, and capable to do the task. They are mature at the task, and are satisfied with their own knowledge and skills to do it

Leadership programs should be directed to individuals who can be propelled from narrower management positions to public health leadership positions. With the situational leadership model coupled with advanced public health training would allow workers to focus on understanding and applying constructs of power and authority in a range of settings to help develop skills that influence policy. Public health training on leadership and helping people move up to the next leadership level is a priority. For those who come from outside the profession, we need to better recruit level 5 leaders who can improve the performance of their own organizations and sectors whilst serving as allies for the public health