LearnaBytes

INTRODUCTION

We’ve been exploring situational leadership and in a previous post (here) we looked at the four leadership styles. In this post we will discuss four development levels. Each leadership style is appropriate for a certain development level. We will now discover what the development levels are.

FACILITATION

• Display the next slide titled – EXPLORING THE FOUR DEVELOPMENT LEVELS.

• Use the information on the slide to set them up to do a group activity where they will read about the development levels and summarise them back to the group.
• Give them 10-minutes for the activity.
• When the 10-minutes is up, stop them and bring everyone back to the main room.
• Then ask each group to present back their summary starting from the group in room 1 through to the group in room 4.
• When they finish presenting their summaries, thank them for doing the activity and display the slide titled – THE FOUR DEVELOPMENT LEVELS.

• Tell them that:
  • To summarise what you’ve just spoken about, there are four development levels which are determined by a person’s level of competence and commitment.
• Click on the slide once to display the first development level – D1. Tell them that:
  • The first development level is D1.
  • It is a combination of low competence and high commitment.
  • A person at this development level is low on skills, knowledge and experience in relation to the job role or task but high on motivation or confidence or both.
  • This is a characteristic you may find in people who are new to a job role.
  • They are excited and motivated about the role and willing to take on the tasks but may need a certain degree of direction and support to help them develop the necessary skills, knowledge and experience.
• Click on the slide to display the second development level – D2. Tell them that:
  • People at this development level have low to some competence. They have some skill, knowledge and experience in relation to the job role or task.
  • They also have low commitment which means either low motivation or low confidence or both.
  • This can happen to people who are working on a challenging task for which they have some competence but have become demotivated because they are struggling with the task.
• Click on the slide to display the third development level – D3. Tell them that:
  • People at this development level have moderate to high competence but their commitment varies.
  • They have a good level of competence and struggle with their commitment levels.
  • This can be a characteristic of someone who has been in the same role for a long time. They are highly committed but beginning to become demotivated because they are not challenged by the work anymore.
• Click on the slide to display the last development level – D4. Tell that:
  • A person with this development level has both high competence and commitment.
  • They have a high level of skills, knowledge and experience and are also highly motivated with good self-confidence.
  • When a person is working on a task or project that they are highly competent in and are excited and enthusiastic about, they will operate at this development level.
• Click the slide again to display an arrow beneath the development levels table indicating that the development levels go from developing to developed starting from D1 to D4.
• Tell them that:
  • As you move from D1 to D4, the development levels move from least developed which is D1 to most developed which is D4.
• Display the next slide titled – FACTS ABOUT DEVELOPENT LEVELS.

• You will need to click on the slide four times to display all the information. Each time you click, some information is displayed which you should read out to the delegates.
• After that ask them for any questions and/or comments they have about what you’ve discussed so far.
• Listen to any comments and/or questions they have and respond appropriately.
• Then stop for a 10-minutes break.

In the next post we will look at how to match leadership styles to development levels.