Situational Leadership Theory. What kind of leadership style should be adopted to lead the employees of a McDonald's restaurant? (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Management Styles, grade: 1,3, University of applied sciences, Düsseldorf, language: English, abstract: Due to the increasing democratic development, it is on the one hand much harder to find employees in the labor market and on the other hand, the employees who already work in the company must be kept. Therefore, care should be taken to keep the existing staff well organized and well led so that tasks can be done efficiently and effectively. In order to be able to lead employees well, however, it is necessary to know the level of development at which these employees are located, since not everyone can handle every task.

In order to find out more regarding leading different people, this assignment deals with the following research question: "Based on Situational Leadership Theory: what kind of leadership style should be adopted to lead the employees of a McDonald's restaurant?"

Firstly, this paper will provide a short introduction about the theoretical background, namely Situational Leadership Theory. Within this, two main tools are introduced:
1. the employees' readiness to fulfill a task
2. the level of development which describes the motivation and willingness of each employee.
This insight is needed to finalize the appropriate leading style in the end. After a short introduction of the McDonald's Company, the theoretical aspects of the Situational Leadership Theory will be transmitted towards it, to get a deeper impression regarding this approach. As a result, a percentage distribution of the different lengths of employment is presented before combining and analyzing these findings with the gained knowledge from the theoretical background. Finally, a conclusion as well as a critical view of the theoretical background and the practical implementation are provided and additionally, some recommendations on how to deal with employees in a different stage are given.