The Situational Leadership® Blog

• "Ace of Sales" Jeffrey Gitomer Joins Forces with CLS Founder, Dr. Hersey

  May 13, 2010

  "I love Doc Hersey. If he called me on my cell and said 'Jeffrey, my tire just went flat on the San Diego Freeway', I would stop what I was doing, where ever I happen to be, and say 'Doc, I am getting on the next flight and I will be there to help you fix your tire'. Does that explain how I feel about this man?" This is Jeffery Gitomer's, typically colorful description of his relationship with Doctor Paul Hersey founder of the Center for Leadership Studies (CLS) and of Situational Leadership^®.

   

  "Frankly, I am flattered that I get to work with him" states Gitomer, known worldwide as the "Ace of Sales" with nine New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com best sellers to his credit. Commenting on his strategic alliance with Dr. Hersey and CLS, which will premier at the upcoming ASTD Conference, Gitomer outlines the content of his new training program with Hersey.

   

  "First, I am putting together a course book entitled "The Little Book of Leadership," which will talk about the qualities and characteristics of a great leader. The course will begin with our "YES! Attitude", then go through Doc's SitLead (Situational Leadership^®) and conclude with the "Resilient Leader". It will be our world class attitude training combined with Doc's world class leadership training -- significantly different from any course that exists."

   

  The YES! in Leadership

  "You cannot be a great leader without a YES! attitude," asserts Gitomer in his trademarked ebullient style. If leaders do not have a winning YES! attitude, people will begin to hate them and soon want to follow someone else. You don't have to be a wonderful person. Look at Vince Lombardi. He may not have been the greatest person but he definitely had the greatest attitude. Look at Coach K (Duke Basketball Coach, Mike Krzyzewski), he is all YES! attitude. I use coaches because I think of leadership as coaching, especially in sales."

   

  Can You Take a Bullet in the Chest?

  What does it take to be a Resilient Leader? Gitomer responds graphically; "Can you take a bullet in the chest and come back? If you can, your customers have more confidence in you because they know you can take it, no matter what."

   

  "It's winning when things don't go your way" emphasizes Gitomer. "It's not just positive attitude. When you are really excited about something you don't scream "positive". That's where the message lies. How do you really respond to what happens to you. It's YES! if you are a leader."

   

  Go to Booth 411

  On May 16-19, at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) International Conference & Exposition in Chicago, CLS will be introducing the Next Wave in Leadership Training: the Gitomer and Hersey partnership. Get your complimentary floor passes and find CLS at booth number 411.

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• Is Your Company Stagnant?

  May 05, 2010

  As we seem to be turning the corner of this severe recession, many companies are finding themselves in the doldrums, stagnant, feeling stuck. That is the common complaint that we hear at CLS from both existing and new clients. We anticipate this malady will only spread in the future. As leaders, let’s look back at what has happened as so many organizations emerge from weathering the storm.

  
  

  First of all, survival might be viewed as an achievement. Many organizations closed their doors over the past two years. But self congratulations are not in order in view of what has happened to our organizations.

  
  

  • Streamlining Fallout - When the economy went sour, many organizations had to let people go. How much expertise, potential and production capacity was also let go? Being fiscally prudent as well as relying solely on systems, eventually takes its toll. Further, for remaining employees, there was damage to trust and loyalty.
  • Generational Problems - The Baby Boomers with broken or dead 401K plans have hung onto their leadership positions, unable or afraid to exit their roles. Generation X - always suffering as the "sandwich" generation - again has been squeezed out of the market in favor of younger, cheaper Millennials or have been pre-empted from leadership roles by lingering Boomers.
  • Boomer Retirement Woes - When Boomers start exiting the market over the next five years, there will be a brain drain as Leadership intellectual property (IP) walks out the door with them. Is there time for the torches to be properly passed? Will disenfranchised Xers be able to fill the leadership gap and rejuvenate your company?

  
  

  "High expectations and belief in people leads to high performance...so very often belief creates fact."

  – Dr. Paul Hersey

  Right now the answer lies in your people, specifically your leaders. High achieving leaders are the ones to show you the way out of the doldrums and into prosperous growth. Actually this is always true, but more so in the current economic climate. Your executive team needs to step up with their own resilient leadership behavior and begin reinvesting in people, fostering leadership at every level in your organization. How to move forward beyond stagnancy, needs to be in every conversation your organization is having right now. For companies that are seeking substantial results, recessions are the best time to soar, while your competition is busy being fiscally prudent, streamlining and hunkering down.

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• Life Position - Situational Leadership® Training Series

  February 14, 2010

  

  Doctor Paul Hersey

  Thomas Harris "Life Position Theory" - Situational Leadership Training Series 

    

     Doctor Paul Hersey created the Situational Leadership® Model and founded the Center for Leadership Studies. Professor Hersey has spent the vast majority of his life studying, writing about and teaching the subject of human behavior and behavior management. There have been a number of human behavior studies that have influenced Doctor Hersey's thinking and ultimately his writings about leadership and leadership training and development. He is particularly fond of the writings and theories of Thomas Harris. This article is dedicated to sharing the centerpiece of the Thomas Harris writings and theory. 

   

     In the process of growing up, people make basic assumptions about their own self-worth, as well as about the worth of significant people in their environment, that may or may not be generalized to other people later in life. Thomas Harris calls the combination of an assumption  about oneself and another person a life position. Life positions tend to be more permanent that ego states. they are learned throughout life by way of reinforcements for, and responses to, expressed needs. These assumptions are described in terms of "okayness." Thus, individuals assume that they are either OK or not OK, or that as people they do not possess value or worth. Further, other individuals are assumed to be either OK or not OK.

   

     Four possible relationships result from these life positions: )1) neither person has value ("I'm not OK, you're not OK"); (2) you have value, but I do not have value ("I'm not OK, you're OK"); (3) I have value, but you do not ("I'm OK, you're not OK"); and (4) we both have value ("I'm OK, you're OK").

   

     "I'm not OK, you're not OK" people tend to feel bad about themselves and see the whole world as miserable. People with this life position usually give up. They don't trust other people and have no confidence in themselves.

   

     People with an "I'm not OK, you're OK" life position often come from their Compliant Child ego state. They feel that others are more capable and generally have fewer problems than they themselves do. They tend to think that they always get the sort end of the stick. This is the most common life position for people who have a high deference for authority. They see their world as "I don't have any control or much power, but those people (folks with authority or position power) seem to have all the power and rewards and punishments."

   

     People who feel "I'm OK, you're not OK" often come from their Critical Parent ego state. They tend to be down on other people as sources of criticism. They feel that if they're not exactly perfect or right, people will be excessively critical of them. Second, they want to break away or reel from some authority figure and become more independent, but they're either not sure how to go about this or they have had unpleasant experiences in attempting it in the past.

   

     This is a life position in which the person has had a few "zaps" along the road and feel, "I've got a lot of self-confidence and autonomy but I sure don't want to be open, honest, and sharing with others in my environment or I'll get punished." With this life position, listening often tends to stop even when someone is still trying to communicated with this person. Harris found in his work that people with an "I'm OK, you're not OK" life position, while acting self-confident and under control really were hiding "not OK" feelings about themselves. The way they play out their "not OK" feelings often is expressed in the need for power and control.

   

     "I'm OK, you're Ok" is suggested as the healthy life position. People with these feelings express confidence in themselves as well as trust and confidence in other people in their environment. Their behavior tends to come from their Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Happy Child ego states, while seldom being evoked from their Destructive Child of Critical Parent.

   

     To learn more about Situational Leadership® and the Center for Leadership Studies, please call our Escondido, California offices at 1-866-545-4951. CLS conducts monthly Situational Leadership® Workshops and in fact has a workshop scheduled for February 22 - 26. If you are interested in securing a seat for one of our upcoming Leadership events, please call us at 1-866-545-4951 or email us at info@situational.com. The Center for Leadership Studies team will be at the ASTD conference scheduled for May of 2010. Please take time to drop by our booth and meet our team.

   

  CLS Social Media Sites

   

  Subscribe to the CLS Youtube Channel, Friend Dr. Paul Hersey on Facebook, Follow Dr. Hersey on Twitter, Follow Dr. Knapp on Twitter, Connect with Dr. Hersey on Linkedin, Follow David Hersey on Twitter, Follow Ron Campbell on Twitter, Follow Rob Archambeault on Twitter, Visit CLS Blog on Google

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• A Healthy Personality - Situational Leadership® Series

  February 08, 2010

  

  Doctor Paul "Doc" Hersey

   

  Abe Wagner's Ego States - Situational Leadership®

    

     Situational  Leadership® came about as the result of a lifetime of study by Dr. Paul Hersey on the complex issue of human behavior and human behavioral management. Professor Hersey is a world class leadership and development trainer. He is also a published author, a superior keynote speaker, the creator of Situational Leadership® and the founder of the Center for Leadership Studies.  In this post, Dr. Hersey takes an in-depth look into what he likes to call “A Healthy Personality.”

     All people behave from these three ego states at different times. A healthy person has a personality that maintains a balance among all three; particularly, according to Abe Wagner. Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Happy Child. This means that these people are able, at times, to let the Adult ego state take over and think very rationally and engage in problem solving. At other times, these people are able to free the Child ego state and let their hair down, have fun, and be spontaneous and emotional. At still other times, healthy people are able to defer to the Parent ego state and learn from experience; they do not have to reinvent the wheel every time. They develop values that aid in the speed and effectiveness of decision making.

     While a balance among all three ego states seems to be most healthy, some people seem dominated at times by one or two ego states. This is especially a problem when the Adult ego state is not in the “executive position” and a person’s personality is being dominated by the Critical Parent or the Destructive Child. When this occurs in people, it poses problems for their managers in the world of work.

     More specifically, Child-dominated people who are mainly coming from Destructive Child do not engage in much rational problem solving. They learned in their early years that they could get things by screaming, hollering, and being emotional. It’s very difficult to reason with them in many situations. Instead of solving their own problems, these people want their managers or some other person to tell them what to do, where to do it, and how to do it – or what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s good, and what’s bad.

     Parent dominated people, who are mainly coming from Critical Parent, also do not engage in much rational problem solving because they already know what’s right and what’s wrong. They seem to have an answer for everything. These people we would characterize with the comment, “Look! Don’t confuse me with the facts. I’ve already made up my mind.” It really doesn’t  matter how much real information anyone brings to these people – they’ve already decided “it’s  bad,” “you should,” or “you shouldn’t.”

     Even Adult dominated people can be troublesome, because they can be very boring people with whom to work. They are often “workaholics.” They don’t seem to act like other people. They are never able to let down their hair and have fun. Thus, a balance between the three ego states makes for a healthy person.

    Learn more about Doctor Paul Hersey, Situational Leadership® and the Center for Leadership Studies by contacting our Escondido, California offices at 1-866-759-5811. CLS conducts monthly Situational Leadership® workshops and has a session coming up this month. When in town, Doctor Hersey attends each workshop and always devotes a full hour or more to the students for a question and answer session covering Situational Leadership® and he makes every effort to answer any question, as long as it is about Human Behavior. The best part of the Q & A session is you get Doctor Paul’s responses with what he likes to call “The Bars Off.” When you attend a Situational Leadership® course at CLS you will enjoy the special treat of a module called “12 O’clock High.” After viewing the movie and going through the thought provoking leadership style and readiness assessment module, you will fully appreciate Dr. Paul’s favorite tee it up line!  

   

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• Transactional Analysis Ego States – "Parent State"

  February 01, 2010

  

  The Situational Leader

  Doctor Paul "Doc" Hersey

   

  Doctor Paul Hersey has spent a lifetime studying human behavior. Compiling years of experience and knowledge, Professor Hersey created the Situational Leadership® Model and founded the Center for Leadership Studies.

  The Parent ego state is a result of the “messages” (conditioning) people receive from their parents, older sisters and brothers, school teachers, Sunday school teachers, and other authority figures during their early childhood. These messages can be thought of as recorded on “little cassette tapes” in people’s heads. They’re in place, stored up, and ready to go. All like dialing a number on the telephone. Push another button and you get a different message. After the message is given, the tape is rewound and ready to go again. For instance, if a father’s son was eating his dinner and was playing with his food, a common Parent tape such as the following might be played: “Stop playing with your food. Garth, and clean up your plate. People are starving all over the world, so you’re going to eat everything.” Now where did the father learn to say that? He probably learned it from his mother and father, who learned it from their parents. And now he’s playing it on his kids. This is a Parent tape. Many of us were taught when we were young that it’s good to clean our plate and bad to leave food on our plate. In fact, many of us probably still feel guilty today if we leave food on our plate.

  Personality Subsystems – Eric Berne Transactional Analysis

  >  Parent Personality     <

  >    Adult Personality    <

  >    Child Personality     <

  Thus, a person is operating from Parent ego state when “old tapes” from childhood are mentally played back. These recordings say such things as “it’s right!” “it’s wrong!” “it’s bad!” “it’s good!” “you should!” “you shouldn’t!” Thus, our Parent ego state is the evaluation part of us that evokes value-laden behavior. But remember, this value-laden behavior is not necessarily “real value” – it’s “learned value.” In our example with Garth not cleaning his plate, it might have been more appropriate had his father said, “Don’t feel you have to eat everything on your plate if you are really not hungry” – particularly if Garth were a little overweight. Thus, cleaning up one’s plate is a “learned value” because, in a real sense, whether or not Garth eats all the food on his plate won’t impact starving children around the world; it will only impact the size of the garbage.

  Dr. Paul Hersey was fascinated by the Eric Berne theories and devoted a large part of his life to studying human behavior and teaching human behavior management. His career is filled with incredible highlights. Easily one of his top achievements was the creation of the Situational Leadership® Model. Since inception, the model has been used to train more than 14 million managers and leaders. The vast majority of the world’s fortune 1000 firms are actively using and training their leadership teams with the Situational Leadership® program.

  If you and/or your firm are interested in learning more about Situational Leadership®, we strongly encourage you to call our Escondido, California office at 1-866-759-5811. We also invite you to visit our web site (www.SituationalLeadership.Com) to learn more. Our CLS training group conducts monthly Situational Leadership® workshops that allow our prospective clients to learn more about the program first hand. These sessions are also used as “Train the Trainers” workshops for companies who have already purchased the program and are educating their trainers so they can in turn roll out the training program within their organizations. Participants from outside of California generally choose to fly into the beautiful San Diego International Airport. The drive to Escondido is a short 30 – 45 minute trip from the airport. Taking time to gain a complete understanding of Situational Leadership® by jumping into a training workshop is an incredibly valuable opportunity. Classes fill up pretty quickly so again, we encourage you to call 1-866-759-5811 now to secure your seat.

   

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• Theory X and Theory Y - Situational Leadership®

  January 25, 2010

  

        Doctor Hersey

   

  Theory X and Theory Y - Douglas McGregor

     The work of Mayo and particularly his exposure of the Rabble Hypothesis may have paved the way for the development of the now classic "Theory X -Theory Y" by Douglas McGregor. According to McGregor, the traditional organization - with its centralized decision making, superior-subordinate pyramid, and external control of work - is based upon assumptions about human nature and human motivation. These assumptions are very similar to the view of people defined by Mayo in the Rabble Hypothesis. Theory X assumes that most people prefer to be directed, are not interested in assuming responsibility, and want safety above all. Accompanying this philosophy is the belief that people are motivated by money, fringe benefits, and the threat of punishment.

    Managers who accept Theory X assumptions attempt to structure, control, and closely supervise their employees. These managers feel that external control is clearly appropriate for dealing with unreliable, irresponsible, and immature people.

     After describing Theory X, McGregor questioned whether this view of human nature is correct and if management practices based upon it are appropriated in many situations today: Are not people in a democratic society, with its increasing level of education and standard of living, capable of more mature behavior? Drawing heavily on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, McGregor concluded that Theory X assumptions about human nature, when universally applied, are often inaccurate and that management approaches that develop from these assumptions may fail to motivate many individuals to work toward organizational goals. Management by direction and control may not succeed, according to McGregor, because it is a questionable method for motivating people whose physiological and safety needs are reasonably satisfied and whose social, esteem, and self-actualization needs are becoming predominant.

    I encourage you to provide your feedback to my blog posts.  Would really like to hear your thoughts on my posts and on what you would like to hear more about? Feel free to call my office in Escondido, California to obtain more information about Situational Leadership® or to book yourself into one of our wonderful Situational Leadership® training classes. We conduct a course at least once per month. You can visit our web site to review the schedule for upcoming classes.

   

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• Self-Actualization Needs

  January 22, 2010

  

  Dr. Paul "Doc" Hersey

   

  Self-Actualization Needs - Situational Leadership®

     

     Of all the needs discussed by Maslow, the one that social and behavioral scientists know least about is self-actualization. Perhaps this is because people satisfy this need in different ways. Thus, self-actualization is a difficult need to pin down and identify.

   

     Although little research has been done on the concept of self-actualization, extensive research has been done on two motives that we feel are related to it - competence and achievement.

   

     Competence.  According to Robert W. White, one of the mainsprings of action in a human being is a desire for competence. Competence implies control over environmental factors - both physical and social. People with this motive do not wish to wait passively for things to happen; they want to be able to manipulate their environment and make things happen.

   

     The competence motive can be identified in young children as they move from the early stage of wanting to touch and handle everything in reach to the later stage of wanting not only to touch but to take things apart and put them back together again. Children begin to learn their way around their world. They become aware of what they can do and cannot do. This is not in terms of what they are allowed to do but in terms of what they able to do. During these early years, children develop a feeling of competence.

   

     Learn more about Management of Organizational Behavior and Situational Leadership® by contacting my Escondido, California office at 1-800-330-2840 or visit my web site at (www.situational.com). We have another Situational Leadership® training course coming up in February. Call my office and we will reserve a spot for You. Hope to hear from you soon?

   

  Warmest Regards,

   

     Dr. Paul Hersey

   

   

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• Esteem Needs - Power

  January 20, 2010

  

  Dr. Paul "Doc" Hersey

   

  Esteem Needs "Power" - Situational Leadership®

     

     The resource that enables a person to induce compliance from or to influence others is power. It is a person's influence potential. There tend to be two kinds of power - position and personal. Individuals who are able to induce compliance from others because of their position in the organization have position power; individuals who derive their influence from their personality and behavior have personal power. Some people are endowed with both position and personal power. Others seem to have no power at all.

   

     Alfred Adler, a one-time colleague of Freud, became very interested in this power motive. By power, Adler essentially meant the ability to manipulate or control the activities of others to suit one's own purposes. He found that this ability started an early age when children as babies realize that if they cry they influence their parents' behavior. Children's position as babies gives them considerable power over their parents.

   

   

     According to Adler, this manipulative ability is inherently pleasurable. Children, for example often have a hard time adjusting to the continuing reduction in their position power. In fact, they might spend a significant amount of time as adults trying to recapture the power they had as children. However, Adler did not feel that children seek power for its own sake as often as they do out of necessity. Power, for children, is often a life-and-death matter because they are helpless and need to count on their parents' availability. Parents are a child's lifeline. Thus, power acquires an importance in children that they somehow never lose, even though they are later able to fend for themselves.

        

     Learn more about Management of Organizational Behavior and Situational Leadership® by contacting my Escondido, California office at 1-800-330-2840 or visit my web site at (www.situational.com). We have another Situational Leadership® training course coming up in February. Call my office and we will reserve a spot for You? Hope to hear from you soon?

   

   

  Warmest Regards,

   

      Dr. Paul Hersey

   

   

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• Esteem Needs

  January 18, 2010

  

  Dr. Paul "Doc" Hersey

   

  Esteem Needs - Situational Leadership®

     

     The need for esteem or recognition appears in a number of forms. This blog post will discuss two motives related to esteem - prestige and power.

   

     Prestige.  The prestige motive is becoming more evident in our society today, especially as we move toward a middle-class society. People with a concern for prestige want to "keep up with the Joneses"; in fact, given the choice, they would like to stay ahead of the Joneses. Vance Packard and David Riesman probably had the greatest impact in exposing prestige motivation. Packard wrote about the status seekers and their motives, while Riesman unveiled "other-directed" individuals who were part of "the lonely crowd."

   

     What exactly is prestige? Gellerman describes it as "a sort of unwritten definition of the kinds of conduct that other people are expected to show in one's presence; what degree of respect or disrespect, formality or informality, reserve or frankness." Prestige seems to have an effect on how comfortably or conveniently one can expect to get along in life.

   

     Prestige is something intangible bestowed upon an individual by society. In fact, at birth children inherit the status of their parents. In some cases, this is enough to carry them through life on "a prestige-covered wave." For example, a Rockefeller or a Ford inherits instant prestige with that family background.

        

     Learn more about Management of Organizational Behavior and Situational Leadership® by contacting my Escondido, California office at 1-800-330-2840 or visit my web site at (www.situational.com). We have another Situational Leadership® training course coming up in February. Call my office and we will reserve a spot for You? Hope to hear from you soon?

   

   

  Warmest Regards,

   

    

     Dr. Paul Hersey

   

   

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• Social Needs

  January 15, 2010

  

  Dr. Paul "Doc" Hersey

   

  Social Needs - Situational Leadership®

     

     After the physiological and safety needs have become somewhat satisfied, the social needs may become predominant. Since People are social animals, most individuals like to interact and be with others in situations where they feel they belong and are accepted. While this is a common need, it tends to be stronger for some people than for others and stronger in certain situations. In other words, even such a commonplace social need as belongingness is, upon examination, quite complex.

   

     In working toward a better understanding of our need to belong, Stanley Schachter for the University of Minnesota has made a significant contribution. His efforts, in particular, have been directed toward studying the desire to socialize as an end in itself - that is, when people interact simply because they enjoy it. In some of these situations, no apparent reward such as money or protection was gained from this affiliation.

   

   

     Schachter found that it was not always simply good fellowship that motivated affiliation. In many instances, people seek affiliation because they desire to have their beliefs confirmed. People who have similar beliefs tend to seek each other out, especially if a strongly held belief has been shattered. In this case, they tend to assemble and try to reach some common understanding about what happened and what they should believe (even if it is the same as before). In this instance, the need for affiliation was prompted by a desire to make one's life seem a little more under control. When alone, the world seems "out of whack," but if one can find an environment in which others hold the same beliefs, it somehow makes order out of chaos. This attitude hints at some of the problems inherent in any change.

        

     Learn more about Management of Organizational Behavior and Situational Leadership® by contacting my Escondido, California office at 1-800-330-2840 or visit my web site at (www.situational.com). We have another Situational Leadership® training course coming up soon. Call my office and we will reserve a spot for You? Hope to hear from you soon?

   

  Warmest Regards,

   

     Dr. Paul Hersey

   

   

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