A scenario was given to me recently that demonstrated where the situational management style would be required. It is Monday morning. You come into the office to a barrage of phone calls. You receive a phone call from your customer stating that he has just spoken to a clerk at the warehouse. The manager is not there to tell him whether he can deliver his inventory and the clerk cannot tell him if there is enough room for the additional inventory. Your customer goes on to tell you that the clerk will not authorize the deliveries. Just as you hang up the phone, your client calls. She wants to know why her customer (also your customer) cannot deliver the inventory to your warehouse. You hang up with your client and you find that your boss is holding on the other line. He also wants to know what you are doing about the situation!
This is a prime time for the situational management style to come to the surface. Being that you have the above-mentioned qualities, you should follow a pattern something like this.
You would tell each person you spoke to that you would call them back shortly with an answer once you have had a chance to check into the situation. You would then call the clerk and find out how much room you have for incoming inventory. You should authorize the clerk to accept an amount of inventory that you feel that clerk can manage comfortably. Remember, you need to keep the clerk's confidence level up during this process because he needs to be able to function with little or no direct supervision for now.
You then immediately call the customer back and inform him that you have authorized a certain amount of deliveries for now, and will keep in touch with him about future deliveries. Once this is done, you call the client and tell her what you have told your customer.
