If an employee’s performance is permanently lacking, it may be due to one of the
following reasons, in which case the leader should be held responsible (see
Sprenger 2002a, pp. 180–208):
The manager has failed to establish a culture of feedback, so that problems are not
openly discussed together, but instead are ignored until they can hardly be
resolved.
The expectations and standards have not been discussed and agreed upon, as a result
of which everyone only thinks they know what the other one wants, can and
should do.
The employee is not sufficiently educated or trained for the job.
The employee is a notorious “slacker.” The manager was mistaken to hire them, did
not intervene early enough, or lacks the courage to lay them off.
Making personal responsibility the basis of the relationship between leader
and led is an option that can be pursued at any time. The leader need only decide
to do it – they must choose personal responsibility, concludes Sprenger.
By discussing the subjects of trust and responsibility we have now come close to
the content of the fourth and last category of leadership approaches, which answer
the question of what good leadership depends on by applying the question to the
concrete leadership situation.
2.4 The Leadership Situation
Good leadership is always determined by the specific situation.Thesituationists, as Kets de Vries calls them, do not consider leadership to be the
product of certain traits of the leader, specific needs of the subordinates, or the right
methods and tools, but of the relationships and patterns of activity of a group. This
means that the leadership will change with the current situation. The person with
the best solution to a problem or for the task at hand takes the leading position. Or,
from a different perspective: a successful manager may adapt to the current situa-
tion and select the appropriate leadership style from their repertoire.
In combination with the persons involved, the situation is decisive in determin-
ing leadership behavior and the success or failure of the leader. This can also mean
that a manager with optimal conditions and personality still might fail in a very
specific culture or in a particular market. In brief: “Nobody is always and under all
circumstances a good leader” (Sprenger 2004b).
2.4.1 The Parties
“The situation and the individual must fit” in order for leadership to work, writes
Sprenger, a good introduction to this chapter. And further: “A good manager is a
2.4 The Leadership Situation 105