The Center for Leadership Studies Releases Situational Conversations™

The Center for Leadership Studies (CLS), the global home of the Situational Leadership^® Model, announced today the release of Situational Conversations™, a flexible, multimodal program that enables leaders to drive success and engagement through meaningful conversations.

Conversations are a daily part of the human experience and play a critical role in the workplace. They can be spontaneous or planned, informative or enlightening, encouraging or challenging. No matter the intent, topic or parties involved, conversations all have one thing in common—they are situational! However, many leaders are struggling. Sixty-nine percent of managers say that they’re often uncomfortable communicating with employees¹ and 91% of employees feel their managers lack effective communication skills.² Situational Conversations™ enables leaders to take their Situational Leadership^® skills to the next level through effective performance conversations that foster trust by leveraging a whole-person approach.

“Situational Conversations™ leans into the human element of leadership,” said Suzie Bishop, VP of Product Development at The Center for Leadership Studies. “It teaches the diagnostic skills that managers need, especially in a remote and hybrid environment, to know what their team is working on, their ability and willingness to do it and how that’s impacted by what’s going on inside and outside of work.”

Because conversations are fluid with multiple factors constantly at play, the new program introduces participants to the Situational Conversations™ Framework, a flexible blueprint for applying Situational Leadership^® skills to preplanned and in-the-moment conversations. Leaders learn to acknowledge these ever-changing dynamics and consistently adapt to the needs of the performer.

“When leaders take a holistic view of their team members for who they are as people, it develops trusting and long-lasting relationships,” said Maureen Shriver, CEO at The Center for Leadership Studies. “Despite AI and other advancements in technology, conversations will continue to be a critical for creating connection.”

Conversations play a critical role in the workplace to provide information, drive performance, enhance engagement, forge connections and so much more. When done poorly, organizations suffer. According to SHRM, large-scale companies lose $62.4 million on average every year due to poor communication, and smaller companies often lose up to $420,000.³ The value of effective conversations can’t be overlooked.

Situational Conversations™ features consistent learning outcomes across four critical modalities: in-person instructor-led training (ILT), virtual instructor-led training (vILT), digital blended and self-paced. This enables organizations to leverage the modalities that are most impactful to their learners and increase the scale and speed of their leadership training to develop more leaders in less time.

Situational Conversations™ offers a flexible design that includes accessibility compliance, impactful paced lessons, multifaceted collaboration, reflection, discussion and application activities, as well as video case studies that reflect today’s modern and dynamic workforce.

Situational Conversations™ is available as a public workshop and a private workshop. Client trainers can be certified to deliver the program across all modalities through the streamlined, single workshop certification process, making it easier to ramp up internal training teams.

A participant who recently completed the program shared, “Personally, the relationship-building segment put the program over the top for me. It’s a serious breakthrough for the way Situational Leadership^® practices regard the whole person.”

Another participant said, “I’m having such rich and transparent conversations with my team using the skills I gained in this course. Morale and trust are up, and direct reports are more engaged with each other and their tasks."

For more information, visit https://situational.com.

About The Center for Leadership Studies

For more than 50 years, The Center for Leadership Studies, founded by Dr. Paul Hersey, has been the global home of the original Situational Leadership^® Model. With more than 15 million leaders trained, Situational Leadership^® is the most successful and widely adopted leadership model available. Deployed in more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies, the Situational Leadership^® Model and influence-focused courses enable leaders to engage in effective performance conversations that build trust, increase productivity, and drive behavior change. CLS services customers both domestically and internationally through an extensive network of more than 200 learning professionals in more than 25 languages. Visit https://situational.com/ to learn more.

¹ Solomon L. Two-thirds of managers are uncomfortable communicating with employees. Harvard Business Review. October 25, 2017. https://hbr.org/2016/03/two-thirds-of-managers-are-uncomfortable-communicating-with-employees. Accessed December 12, 2023.

² Schwantes M. 91 percent of 1,000 employees say their bosses lack this 1 critical skill. inc.com. August 10, 2017. https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/survey-91-percent-of-1000-employees-say-their-boss.html. Accessed December 12, 2023.

³ Buhler P M, Worden J D. The cost of poor communication. SHRM. April 11, 2018. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/organizational-employee-development/cost-poor-communication. Accessed December 12, 2023.

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