Chapter 12 – The Situation
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Part 4: Focus on the Situation
Chapter 12: The Situation
Leader
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Chapter 12 Outline
The Situation
Introduction
The Task
How Tasks Vary, and What That Means for Leadership
Problems and Challenges
The Organization
An Afterthought on Organizational Issues for Students and Young Leaders
The Environment
Are Things Changing More Than They Used To?
Leading across Societal Cultures
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Key Learning Points
Introduction
This chapter,, the first in the section designed to “focus on the situation” (Part 4), introduces the
concept of situational levels as a way to consider many situational factors. In a book designed to
In response to the Great Man Theory of leadership, some researchers focused on the influence of the
situation and environment as the most important determining variable. The early situational studies
tended to be more popular in the U.S. compared to Europe because of national values and culture.
Recent situational theories have begun to explore how situational factors affect leader behavior (i.e.,
role theory and the multiple influence model). These theories also recognize the impact of different
situational levels that can range from the task, to the job, to the organization, and to the external
environment.
The Task
The tasks to be performed are the most basic and fundamental of levels of the situation. Research has
The Organization
Things have changed in organizations since the days of the Industrial Revolution creating a new set
of operating assumptions concerning things such as cross functionality, how organizations link to
The Environment
There are two extra-organizational aspects of the situation that are highlighted in the chapter. These
include the ways in which leaders increasingly confront situations that are unexpected, unfamiliar,
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Implications for Leadership Practitioners
Leadership practitioners should expect to face a variety of challenges to their own systems of ethics,
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Brief Definitions of the Key Terms for Chapter 11
Situational engineering: A means for leaders to modify or restructure the elements in the
environment to be more effective—an often-overlooked tool leaders have access to.
Task Autonomy: Degree to which one has control over what/how work is done.
Task Feedback: Degree to which someone receives information about performance from
performing the task itself.
Task structure: Specifies the degree to which there are procedures for accomplishing a task,
rules governing how to accomplish it, and the guarantee of one result.
Formal organization: Refers to the hierarchy, structure, complexity, formalization, and
centralization of an organization.
Level of authority: One’s hierarchical position in the formal organization.
Organizational structure: A conceptual or procedural reality that refers to how an entity’s
activities are coordinated and controlled (usually a chart clarifying formal authority).
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Organizational climate: Members’ subjective reactions to or about the organization.
Myths and stories: Tales about the organization that are passed down over time and
communicate a story of the organization’s underlying values.
The framework is a 2×2 matrix on which the values concerning an internal focus/integration or
external focus/differentiation and flexibility/discretion or stability/control are depicted on
opposite ends of each axis and are inherently in tension with each other.
Hierarchy culture: Organizational culture that emphasizes stability and control and focuses
attention inward (on things like how people within the organization interact with each other or on
GLOBE: An acronym for the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness
Research Program which is the most comprehensive study of leadership and culture ever
attempted involving data collected from over 17,000 managers representing 950 companies in 62
countries.
Future orientation: The degree to which individuals in organizations or societies engage in
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Participative leadership: The degree to which managers involve others in making and
implementing decisions.
Humane-oriented leadership: Supportive and considerate leadership as well as compassion and
generosity.
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Overview of the Learning Resources for Chapter 12
Exercise 12-1: Task Factors in the Sport of Your Choice. In this 20 minute exercise, student teams use a
handout to rate a sport according to the seven task factors. They then discuss their findings with the rest of
the class.
Exercise 12-2: Task Factors in Jobs. This exercise requires teams to interview someone in the workforce,
Exercise 12-3: Only the Resourceful Survive. This 40 minute experiential exercise requires student teams
Exercise 12-4: Building Bridges. This is an extensive, 120 minute, experiential exercise that gets at
Exercise 12-5: Variations on Tower Building. This exercise is run like the Tower Building exercise
Exercise 12-6: Acid River. In this 35 minute experiential exercise, the class must work together to cross a
hypothetical river under tight time constraints and some fairly rigid rules using a minimum of resources.
Because of the materials involved, this exercise is best conducted outside.
Exercise 12-7: The Low Wall. In this 35 minute experiential exercise, students are asked to lock elbows
Exercise 12-8: Values and Organizational Culture. In this exercise, student teams collect data about an
organization’s espoused values and then interview an employee to determine its culture and values in
action. They then determine if there are any gaps between the organization’s stated values and its culture
and do a 10 minute presentation on their findings.
Case Studies: The minicase, “Innovations at IKEA” at the end of Chapter 12 provides good material for
discussing the situational factors affecting leadership.
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Sample Lesson Plans for Chapter 12
Lesson 1: 60 minutes
Pre-work: Students should be instructed to read the IKEA minicase at the end of the chapter as well as
Lesson Plan: The goal of this lesson is to provide students with the opportunity to apply the chapter
material to a realistic case study.
• Divide the class into small groups (ideally 5 groups—or multiples of 5).
• Based on the information in the case and from the web site, each group should be assigned one of
the following tasks (10 minutes):
o Assess/evaluate IKEA’s organizational culture (using Highlight 12.6 and Table 12.2).
Lesson 2: 60 + minutes (depending on the number of group presentations)
Pre-work: Exercise 12-8, Values and Organizational Culture. Provide students with an overview of the
Lesson Plan: The goal of this lesson is to demonstrate the interconnected nature of values and
organizational culture.
• Student groups deliver their presentations one at a time—the presentations should be 10 – 15
minutes and the presenters will be expected to answer 5 minutes of questions from other students
Chapter 12 – The Situation
Minicase, “Innovations at IKEA,” Sample Answers
Question 1: Discuss the environment, resources, and history as they apply to the success of
IKEA.
Environment: Consists of anything and everything that is occurring outside of the
organization (i.e., shift to information age; market changes; governmental regulations and
laws; societal shifts; competitors; technological complexity; environmental uncertainty;
etc.).
The primary element here is the market conditions and how they have changed. Consumers
Resources: Anything the organization can use to its benefit (this can be material resources
as well as intangible elements—i.e., perceptions of product quality).
With respect to resources, there is a balance between tangible and intangible that is driving
IKEA’s success. On the tangible side, increased sales, profits, and market share offer
History: Includes both the recent past as well as the myths about the organization’s
origins—this also plays into the organizational culture!
The recent past (1993 – 2007) has seen IKEA’s sales triple. This has occurred even as the
worldwide economy has been slow to sluggish. High quality performance offers the firm a
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Question 2: Consider Schein’s Four Key Organizational Culture Factors as described in
Highlight 12.6. What examples can you identify within the IKEA organization that
contribute to the company’s strong corporate culture?
Key definitions:
Organizational culture: System of shared backgrounds, norms, values, or beliefs among members of
a group.
Question 3: Based on the level of technological complexity and the degree of environmental
uncertainty present at IKEA, what type of organizational structure would you expect?
Key Definitions:
Technological complexity: An environmental variable that determines the role workers can play by
modifying their behavior—in low complexity they can change behavior depending on the situation,
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With respect to the stability of the environment, the current minicase is one that is somewhat
uncertain and requires the furniture maker to be flexible enough to continue to adapt to changing
conditions—be they market changes, consumer demand changes, or more pressure from the
customers.
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Chapter 12 Exercises & Instructions
Exercise 12-1
Exercise Title: Task Factors in the Sport of Your Choice
Purpose: To understand how the seven task factors apply to different sports.
Summary: Distribute the handout to either individuals or separate the class into groups. Students or
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Task Factor Handout
1——–2——– 3———- 4———- 5
Low Average High
Sport: ___________________________
Skill Variety: The extent to which individuals _____
employ a variety of skills.
Autonomy: The degree to which the activity provides the
individual with control over what he or she does and how
they do it. _____
Feedback: The degree to which the individual gets information
about task performance. _____