SLII® – The SLII Experience™

Due to the increasingly fast-paced nature of business, effective leadership has become more vital than ever for leaders. Most often, however, they lack the leadership skills to provide high-performing, agile leadership and find it difficult to connect with their employees.

Contemporary leadership is not lacking in effort or desire. Researchers have found that most leaders employ just one leadership style, which means that they often don’t know how to help their employees maximize their potential.

Adapting leadership their style to the specific situation is a skill they need to master

Adaptability and growth are imperatives for leaders in these uncertain times, which Blanchard’s SLII® helps them achieve. Using 40 years of research and a proven track record of delivering unparalleled results, The SLII Experience™ teaches your leaders how to deal with situations by providing their staff with the right guidance and support at the right time.

Leadership with SLII helps create deeper connections – with customers, employees, and employers – making every day more meaningful, more inspiring, and more motivating.

As one of the Best Management Courses in Singapore, the SLII Experience can be delivered face-to-face, via live virtual methods, or asynchronously. There is a four-part learning path for all delivery formats so managers learn the content and are ready to lead in any situation.

LAUNCH—Learn key concepts with engaging assignments

LEARN—Activities that provide leaders with the skills and language to make informed decisions in any given situation

PRACTICE—Activities that are tailored to each person’s work challenges to foster brand new skills

MASTER—Strategies for establishing SMART goals, diagnosing development levels, and using the right leadership style that are simple yet effective

Blanchard can help your organization grow by improving the skills of its leaders. By partnering with us, you will learn proven methods for increasing your return on investment. Leadership success involves the use of the right framework and tools. Motivated leaders will increase their morale and engagement among employees, team members will feel supported, they will achieve more creative solutions to problems, and productivity will increase.

In 2013, a case study was conducted to evaluate the impact of a leadership training program on leaders and their direct reports as well as the secondary effects of coaching to assist with implementing the concepts covered during the training. At the time of pre-survey, 124 individuals participated, and 78 participated at the time of post-survey.

SLII® program training was provided by The Ken Blanchard Companies® to the control group of managers over a period of two half-days. These leaders’ direct reports were assessed before and after the SLII training.

Managers in the treatment group attended the same two Blanchard® half-day training course in Singapore using SLII and they were coached on how to leverage the concepts of SLII to solve their problems during three monthly sessions. These sessions equipped the managers with various tools required to review assessment reports, identify problems, and brainstorm ways to implement solutions.

During the study, some directive and supportive leader behaviors were examined to determine whether they had an impact on

• A direct report’s emotional state or affect
• Relationship between a leader and their direct report
• Satisfaction with the leader exhibited by the direct report
• The relationship with five specific work intentions: Membership in the organization, endorsement of the organization, commitment to remain a member, carrying out duties, and voluntarily exerting effort on behalf of the organization

Following are the improvements in the assessments of direct reports for the leaders who received both coaching and SLII training:

From 12.5 to 14.8 out of a possible 18 points, direct behavior scores improved dramatically

• The score for supportive behavior increased markedly from 13.3 to 15.6 out of a possible 18 points
• On a scale of 1 to 25, leadership satisfaction shot up from 18.1 to 21.2 points

As a result, both groups experienced improvements, though they were of different kinds. While the control group showed improvement on measures of intentions and positive affect, the treatment group showed improvement on measures of directive and supportive behavior and follower satisfaction. Several factors may have contributed to these differences.

Participants who underwent Blanchard Situational Leadership training and coaching were possibly more focused on demonstrating appropriate directive and supportive behaviors. Our analysis shows that the coaching they received had a profound impact on how they communicated with their direct reports. Additionally, we believe coaching likely contributed to these leaders developing a deeper appreciation and understanding of the qualities of a situational leader. As their coaches may have focused on directing and supporting their people rather than diagnosing, their leaders may have been concerned about developing their people rather than measuring outcomes.

Leaders in the control group were probably more concerned with ensuring the model worked rather than improving employee performance in the group as they only received corporate training in the SLII model but not coaching. It is likely they incorporated SLII’s concepts at a macro level, even though they understood them.

SLII is designed to teach leaders how to maximize the potential of their people. According to the results of this study, SLII can facilitate the development of leadership capabilities and abilities; however, coupled with coaching, SLII can be even more effective in enhancing long-term leader performance.