A511.2.4.RB - Reflection Blog: Leadership Analysis

Take the opportunity to reflect specifically on Yukl's material on pages 63 through 72, Supportive Behavior.
Assuming that these leadership behaviors are appropriate at all levels of organizations, do you use these behaviors in your work with others? Subordinates? If so, how are they effective in producing results? If not, could they be added to your personal repertoire of leadership behaviors?

Supportive leadership is something that I find highly useful when case managing my clients. Many of them have, or have had, things that are holding them back from achieving goals. Specifically, I am there to help them gain meaningful employment but to do so I often have to help them with other issues as well.

For the most part, no one winds up at my desk if everything in their life is going peachy. They typically are seeking help and they've exhausted any other option; or never had other options. Either way, they come to me for some sort of guidance. In a way, I do become a mentor and a leader. I try to establish trust over a couple of meetings and then see where I can be of help. In a way I use Yukls' guidelines for supportive leadership with great frequency. A list of the most common guidelines I use would be:


1. Show concern for each person's development
2. Help the person find ways to improve performance
3. Be patient and helpful when providing coaching
4. Provide helpful career advice
5. Provide opportunities to learn from experience

These five guidelines are taken from Gary Yukl's Leadership in Organizations 8th Edition and are very useful to me in my daily activities.

No offense to Gary, but I was doing this before I read his book and I learned the hard way about negative leadership traits. As a new NCO I wasn't as supportive as I should have been and I created a bit of animosity between myself and subordinates. After not getting the results I needed I went back and re-evaluated my leadership style and found out that I was not very effective so I took the opposite tack. What I came up with was similar to Yukl's guidelines and I have had much better results. I think supportive leadership is a great way to let subordinates know that their needs and desires are important to you. By doing this they stay engaged in the developmental process.