MGT506 - Strategic Leadership, Mod 2 Case Assignment Essay

MGT506 - Strategic Leadership, Mod 2 Case Assignment - Essay Example The success behind such unprecedented growth of SAS is attributed to the CEO of the company, Jim Goodnight. Jim Goodnight has been with the company for more than 35 years and ensured that the company grew each year without having to face any layoffs. Jim Goodnight strived for an open system for the organization with a flat structure to ensure efficient working of the company. Jim Goodnight has been considered to be one of the greatest American business leaders of the 20th century by Harvard Business School in 2004 (Stamper, 2010). The paper attempts to shed light on the leadership qualities of Jim Goodnight as a situational leader. This paper will analyze how SAS is able to prosper and continuously show growth on account of having a leader such as Jim Goodnight. Lastly, the paper would discuss whether situational leadership style is bred or born. Situational Leadership style was another style of leadership developed by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard. As the name implies, leaders falling in this category take action according to the situation. They combine elements of both autocratic and participative styles in order to achieve the desired results. This leadership style takes into account that there is no best leadership style but the best leaders are those that understand that core of the issue and take action accordingly. Thus situational leadership relies on the external environment heavily which includes not just the people within the team but also the task they have to accomplish. Hersey and Blanchard use the four quadrant model of Situational leadership to properly explain the characteristics of such leader and the action they take given the situation. The Situational leadership model as presented by Hersey and Blanchard is: Structuring: Leaders need to adopt this approach in the bleakest situation, that is, the morale of the employees in not just low, they also do not have the ability to deal