Situational Leadership

Situational leadership is a style of leadership where the leader responds to his/her employees depending on the situation. There are four types of situational leadership: telling, selling, participating, and delegating. These four types are determined by the maturity of the group. Group members that need telling are the members that are less mature; no this does not mean less mature in personality necessarily, but it does mean members who have not gained the experience to be able to work on their own. As members become more mature they move through selling and participating in order to get to delegating. As a leader if your team reaches the delegating point, the leader becomes more of a group member as well.
Now as I was reading this, I thought that it sounded like a good form of leadership. You earn your way up by working hard and being responsible and you should hopefully make it to the point where tasks are being delegated to you. Well as the book points out, there are three flaws of situational leadership. The first is that this style doesn't provide a way to choose leaders who are flexible and able to adapt. The second problem is that it does not identify a way to choose people who can communicate with diverse people. The third problem is that it lacks motivation and inspiration.