Costco Wholesale Corporation is a company that uses the situational leadership approach. In order to promote and encourage business growth a leader must adapt his or her personal style to the demands of different situations (Northouse, p. 99). Over the years, lots of work has gone into studying, researching, and developing models of leadership. Many theories have been submitted, examined, applied, and been determined whether or not they were useful. Despite all this effort, there is still not one "perfect" method of leadership. Every group and situation is different, therefore, a good leader must be flexible and ready to adapt to different situations. The best model of a leader is one that incorporates different models into his or her leadership style and is aware that the only constant is change. A situational leader/leadership style is capable of realizing advantages and disadvantages within the business and the changing things in order to move forward successfully. .
Mr. Jelinek is a leader who displays strong leadership qualities. He is willing to go the extra mile to teach the employees things that will help them in the long run. He teaches his subordinates to learn from each situation and to run the business as if it were their own. Because of this, Costco has a 90% retention rate for employees and the higher management team has worked their way up from within the corporation.
Philosophy.
Mr. Jelinek truly believes that staff retention is essential to the success of a business. He states, "I think the key is that we retain our talent so the positive of that is that the next level down completely understands the culture of the company. Along with the culture, they know it and understand it. We don't have people from the outside in senior positions that need to learn who we are" (http://www.worldofceos.com/dossiers/w-jelinek). He also emphasizes the need to have smart employees who can think for themselves.
