Dr. Paul Hersey and Situational Leadership®

In this episode, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith discusses Situational Leadership® and the legacy of Dr. Paul Hersey, founder of The Center for Leadership Studies.

Episode Transcript

Introduction

Welcome to The Center for Leadership Studies podcast, an exploration of contemporary leadership issues with experts from a variety of fields and leadership backgrounds. In this episode, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith discusses Situational Leadership® and the legacy of Dr. Paul Hersey, founder of The Center for Leadership Studies. For The Center for Leadership Studies, here’s your host, Sam Shriver.

Sam Shriver
One person we both have in common that had a lot of influence on both of our careers was Dr. Paul Hersey.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
I would have to say there’s no way I would have achieved anything I achieved without him. He really was a key to my life. I met Paul when I was in my twenties, and he was kind enough to let me follow him around to go to his programs. And I just tried to learn what he did. Then, one day he became double booked. So he calls me and says, Marshall, can you do what I do? I said I don’t know. He said, well, I need help. Can you do this? I said I don’t know. He said I’ll pay $1,000 for one day. I was making $15,000 for one year. That was 39 years ago. I was 28 years old. You know what I said? Sign me up, Coach. So I go did a program for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

They were very angry when I showed up because I wasn’t him. But I got ranked first place out of all the speakers. And then Paul called me up, and he called them up and just getting ready to get his butt handed to him. But they said, well, we were very angry. But Marshall got ranked first place of the speakers. Do you want to send him to do another one? So Paul says, do you want to do this again? I said, Paul, sign me up. Sign that’s how I got into executive education and then eventually went to work for him. And I have to say, the stuff he taught me, I use every day. So the essence of Situational Leadership® and the way you guys teach it, I use that all the time in my coaching. I use it when I explain it to people.

It’s just been something that’s very helpful for me that I’ve carried around throughout my life.

Sam Shriver
I can reflect on it myself, but I’m interested. The first time you saw the Situational Leadership® model?

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Yeah, no, I can remember it very well. I was at a program with Paul. And I remember because I had some very good teachers at UCLA, but I had no teachers that were like him. So I thought, this guy as a teacher is just a different level. And it was so interesting and so much fun. And the thing I love about Situational Leadership®, and especially the way you guys teach it, is to me, Paul always said it’s organized common sense. It’s impossible to argue with to me. It just makes so much sense. Yet there’s a difference between common sense and common practice. So it’s common sense. It’s far from common practice. So I love the way that it’s designed. I think it’s the most practical model you’d ever get for leadership. It’s something that you can use for the rest of your life.

So when you guys train people on how to use this, it’s something they can take with them, not just in a program; it’s something they can use the rest of their lives.

Sam Shriver
It’s really easy to understand, which is the benefit of it. And as you’re saying, it’s far more difficult when you get into it, and you really start to practice it and to use it. But I, too reflect on the first time I saw the doc teaching Situational Leadership®. And I’d just come out of an MBA program and had a series of professors, and there really was magic that he could do in front of the room with, at the time, five blank flip charts. It was almost like you wanted to go up, which many people did. Can you autograph this for me? And I think, at least from my perspective, I’d be interested in your opinion on this. He was really a smart guy, but what he had the ability to do was to integrate things that, up to that point in time, had never been integrated.

I mean, the first 50 years of organizational behavior in general, leadership development in particular, right? It was like there were studies on leaders, and then there were studies on motivation. And he was one of the original contingency leadership gurus that kind of put apples together with oranges and came up with a very simple, practical language.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

That is still imminently useful today. That is still imminently useful today. And it’s amazing how Situational Leadership® has withstood the test of time. And to me, so practical and so much common sense. And it’s good for leaders at all levels, too. It’s good for first-line supervisors. It’s good for a CEO. It’s good for everyone to know and understand. So I think it’s just a great idea. I think what you guys are doing is great because you’re out there trying to help a lot of people get better.

Sam Shriver
What he did in the early 1970s, I mean, The Center for Leadership Studies was a global organization long before everybody had a focus there. But he actually went out and taught around the world with all of the focus today on globalization and generational differences. It really is a model that has transcended that since the early 1970s. It’s a small, medium, large, for-profit nonprofit, wherever you happen to be, and again, multiple generations.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Well, let me give you an example, a couple of examples of leaders I’ve worked with. My friend Alan Malali is a great believer in Situational Leadership®. Well, he was ranked the number one CEO in America number three greatest leader in the world behind Pope and Angela Merkel, and he’s a believer. And Frances Hesselbine, Peter Drucker said, the greatest leader he’d ever met in his life. She loved situational leadership, a great believer in the model, and used it in the Girl Scouts to really try to help the Girl Scouts get better. And so these are some of the greatest leaders who’ve ever lived. And so I’d say they’re wonderful proponents of situational leadership and great believers in the idea.

The idea of just analyzing a person’s readiness level and then picking the style that fits the readiness level makes so much sense, yet again, is often not done.

Sam Shriver
Yeah. From your experience and again, speaking right now about folks at the base of an organization, is it better for them to have managed people for a while, made some mistakes, and had some victories before they go through Situational Leadership®?

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
I think it’d be great to train Situational Leadership® to kids. I’m just a believer. I don’t think you can be too young to learn this. And I think even learning it before management could be good. Here’s why I think it’d be good to learn it before you become a manager. Then, after you become a manager, you start trying it out, then go back and say, now talk about the application of what’s it like to apply. So, to me, it’s a great thing for high-potential leaders, too. They’re not even in a leadership role yet because it’s a great way to look at getting started. And it just makes so much sense. And it’s something that they probably haven’t thought of because the sort of more naive mindset might be, well, delegation is good. Well, I should just delegate things. Well, no, delegation is not always good.

Sam Shriver

It can be.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

But you delegate to somebody who has no idea what they’re doing and how to do it right. Well, that’s not good. It does more harm than good. So delegation is not a uniform good in and of itself. It could be good. If you delegate to the right person, it could be a disaster. So, a lot of people have some very naive views about leadership that kind of sound good on paper but don’t work well. The nice thing about Situational Leadership®, it works.

Conclusion

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is one of the world’s leading executive educators, coaches, and authors. He’s a pioneer in helping successful leaders get even better. His books Triggers Mojo. And what got you here won’t get you there. Are New York Times bestsellers. Marshall has been ranked by Thinkers 50 as the number one leadership thinker in the world and the number one executive coach in the world. Thank you for listening to The Center for Leadership Studies podcast. Through its innovative leadership development programs, The Center for Leadership Studies has helped millions of individuals across the globe become more effective leaders and has helped thousands of organizations build more productive and engaged workforces. For additional information on our services and products, please visit situational.com or call 919-335-8763. The Center for Leadership Studies, the global home of Situational Leadership®.