Situational ITSM Leadership. Situational ITSM Leadership

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1 Situational ITSM Leadership Written By : Troy DuMoulin Version : 1.0 Date : October 2009

2 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION DEFINITIONS THE ITSM APPLICATION THE RIGHT LEADERSHIP STYLE AT THE RIGHT STAGE... 7 Situational ITSM Leadership Page 2 of 8 Pink Elephant, The contents of this document are protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in any manner. ITIL is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

3 1. INTRODUCTION A consistent observation someone can make about human nature is that we tend to lean heavily on what we know works for us and avoid areas where we are less sure or comfortable. Of course there are those rare individuals that throw caution to the wind, damn the torpedoes and throw themselves at new challenges, methods and approaches without blinking an eye. However, for most of us, our personalities, culture, environment and past experiences shape how we look at life and become the filter by which we make decisions and take on new tasks. Each of these elements contribute to and mold a person s primary leadership style or at least the default way we try to influence the behaviors of others. The challenge with this concept is that our default leadership style, while effective in certain circumstances, will backfire in others. Unless we recognize this challenge, the project or opportunity will have a limited chance of success and you may not even realize why. This leadership challenge is the basis of Ken Blanchard s model called Situational Leadership The premise of Blanchard s model is that at various points in a team s evolution a different type of leadership approach is required. This article will provide an example of this model in light of an IT Service Management (ITSM) Transformation project. Situational ITSM Leadership Page 3 of 8 Pink Elephant, The contents of this document are protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in any manner. ITIL is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

4 2. DEFINITIONS First let s start with a few definitions from Situational Leadership: Leadership A process by which a person works to influence others; working with people to accomplish their goals and the goals of the organization. Leadership Style A pattern of behaviors you use with others as perceived by them. Directive Behavior Telling rather than asking; focused on structure, goal setting, organizing and asking others to follow. Supportive Behavior Enabling others; focused on taking time to explain and facilitate the learning and growth or your team(s). Enthusiasm The level of openness and excitement a person has for a task or responsibility. Capability The level of skill, competency, history and experience a person has for a specific task or responsibility. Four Leadership Styles: 1. Directing high directive, low supportive behaviors 2. Coaching high directive, high supportive behaviors 3. Supporting low directive, high supportive behaviors 4. Delegating low directive, low supportive behaviors

5 3. THE ITSM APPLICATION Now that the basic definitions are out of the way, now view the model and how it applies to transformation projects and specifically ITSM initiatives. The Story You have been asked to take on an ITSM Improvement Project and been provided with a team of people to participate in the process design and tool configuration work. You have had an inhouse training session and now everyone is on the same page about what ITSM is all about and the basic elements of a specific process such as Incident or Change Management. Though they have taken the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL ) class, they still don t have the practical experience of ever attempting a project such as this. They know enough to be Enthusiastic Beginners about the task but not much more. At this point they think that in a few weeks after designing the process and configuring the tool they will all be done and happily return to the lives they knew before. Your team naively believes this should be a walk in the park and maybe even a welcome break from their routine work. At this point their enthusiasm is high but their capability is low. However, after a few weeks of facing both passive and active resistance to changing anything let alone adopting this foreign concept of common process begins to take the shine off their naivety. They now begin to understand that there is a lot more that has to be done other than documenting processes and implementing tools. They now begin to see that what they have been assigned to is a transformation project targeting the heart of the current IT culture and accepted values and beliefs. What at first looked like an interesting project now looks almost impossible and they still don t really know how to get it done. Your enthusiastic team now has become Disillusioned Learners and start looking for ways to transfer out of their current tour of duty. When it becomes apparent that they are in this for the long haul they begin to roll up their sleeves and begin learning the trade of ITSM improvement projects. Some things they intuit, others they get outside help for and some things they learn the hard way by making mistakes and having to re-do it the right way. Slowly but surely the team begins to regain some of their initial enthusiasm as they see successes and their capability for certain tasks grow. However give them a new hurtle to cross which they have not seen before and they quickly revert to the previous stage. Your team has now become Capable But Cautious and will veer up and down on the enthusiasm and capability scale depending what you have asked them to do and their perceived ability to achieve the specific task or responsibility. Eventually, if you have been able to sustain the initiative and keep a hold of your team members, you will have weary but hardened set of process improvement veterans who have come out the other side of your ITIL project as survivors with many lessons learned and the scars to show for it. That being said they now are subject matter experts on the specific ITIL process you have adopted and have learned the skills required to navigate the transformation jungle. They in

6 essence have become change agents and process advocates and can now be viewed as Self- Reliant Achievers capable of being told to head in a certain direction and take that hill while leading others over the perilous terrain. Situational ITSM Leadership Page 6 of 8 Pink Elephant, The contents of this document are protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in any manner. ITIL is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

7 4. THE RIGHT LEADERSHIP STYLE AT THE RIGHT STAGE The key message of Situational Leadership is that you need to apply the right leadership style at each stage of your team evolution through distinct development phases. Apply the wrong style at the wrong time, at your peril, if not the project s likelihood of success. For example, if you naturally have a delegation approach to leadership They are professionals and should be able to figure this out on their own and you apply this to a team that is at a stage 1 or 2 then they will simply stand there looking at you with a lost look in their eyes. For early development stages you need to be directive, giving clear directions and A-B-C steps for the team to move. At this point they don t know what they don t know. Once they hit stage 2 you still need to be directive, but also need to turn up the empathy putting your arm around their shoulder as their counselor and tell them that it really is possible to get there from here laying out clearly the step-by-step approach. Eventually they begin to gain individual capabilities and increased enthusiasm. At this point you need to be the sports coach operating from the side lines calling the general direction of the play but leaving the actual means to execute in the hands of your team members. They begin to charge off and get things done even when not specifically directed to. That being said, there will still be points where they hit new tasks and you will have to revert to a supportive model. Finally, once they have each been through the first three stages and they are the hardened and grizzled veterans, you can use the delegation model of leadership, knowing that you just need to set the direction and your team will blaze the way forward while you focus on other areas. At this stage, if you use directive leadership your team will be resentful of what they perceive as lack of trust or micro-management. Try being supportive and they won t think you re condescending and overly concerned with the details.

8 The key point of this article is that while each of us will have a default leadership style that comes naturally to us based on our personalities and history, we still need to recognize the situation we are dealing with and learn to apply different styles at different times of our team s evolution. Situational ITSM Leadership Page 8 of 8 Pink Elephant, The contents of this document are protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in any manner. ITIL is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

Situational Leadership Case Studies

Situational Leadership Case Studies Read each case study and determine what action you think would be most appropriate for the leader to take in the situation. Rank your answers from 1-4 with #1 being