You have been asked to conduct a workshop on group leadership for a major corporation in your city. You have selected the contingency approach to leadership as the focus of your workshop. The corporation has asked that your workshop contain several activities to give the participants “hands-on” experience with current thinking about group leadership. You have decided that one of those activities will involve application of the contingency model to several different kinds of groups. Your task now is to construct the activity. To do so, you need the materials to set up the activity and the answers to the activity.
You first will ask the participants to create a matrix that lists the four Hersey and Blanchard leadership styles (participating, selling, delegating, and telling) across the top. Under each style, list the contingencies that make that style appropriate, along with how each contingency is likely to affect the style. Next, you will give participants a list of situations and ask them to determine what style is most appropriate using their matrix. The list of situations includes the following:
• A group of college students studying together for a final exam 

• A heart transplant team 

• A task force of neighbors trying to rid the neighborhood of drug dealers 

• A group of student senators planning the senate agenda for the following month 

• A self-managed work group of employees assembling an automobile 

• A group of four grown children planning their parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary party You will ask participants to use their matrix to determine the appropriate style for each of these. To be prepared to direct discussion after the participants have finished this part of the activity, you must first participate in the activity yourself.
1. Construct the matrix, as you will ask the participants to do.
2. Apply the matrix to the six situations listed.