Situational leadership in change management for different generations

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the universe is in a constant state of formation and change. Naturally, change affects the social, political and economic systems and the companies develop strategies in order to keep up with change as a part of the whole and need change leaders to lead them. It is observed that companies are able to utilize one third of the human resources at best in researches conducted. It is accepted that the change teams generally consist of the persons who are committed to their jobs and naturally, the lowness of this ratio decreases the speed of change of the companies. According to the results of a research conducted within the workforce, the percentage of persons who are most willingly committed to their jobs has been determined as 27 % even for the United States of America, where the percentage is the highest, and as 6 % for Singapore, where the percentage is the lowest. These results may indicate that the leaders have a lot of tasks to carry out either with respect to change or to commitment to work. As already known, the literature suggests that, successful leadership implementations can be achieved through an appropriate style of leadership behaviour. Today, it is accepted that there are four generations with different characteristics and needs sharing the same workplace. These are the Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. It is discussed in this article that the direction of individuals with different behaviour patterns upon considering the generational differences during company change processes helps the change process to be faster and the change to be more productive. It is predicted that the implementation of Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership behaviour can have a huge contribution.