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Contingency Leadership TheoryTrait Theory | Situational Leadership TheoryProposed by the Austrian psychologist Fred Edward Fiedler (1922- ). Fiedler's theory posits two classifications of leaders: (1) those motivated by the need to accomplish assigned tasks (task-orientated); (2) those motivated by close and supportive relations with members of the group (people-orientated). The effectiveness of the leader is contingent upon both the leader's personality and the characteristics of the leadership situation. This leadership model has generated considerable controversy and led to the development of more than 120 published tests, many of which are in commercial use. Additional ResourcesWhen students of business management first hear of Contingency Theory, they usually think of the common use of the word "contingency". In other words, they expect that a contingency is an unexpected event or something which is dependent or caused by another event. Leadership, relationships, or groups of people, rarely come to mind. And yet, at its very root, the word contingent means a group of people in contact with each other, with dependence or connection between leaders and followers. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, industrial and business psychologists such as Woodward and Fiedler began to study the behavior and leadership styles of managers. Previously, industrial psychologists focused on the personal traits of successful leaders and believed in an ideal science of organization. They felt there was a best way to run a company or group which produced the best decisions and most effective business practices. The importance of contingency theories is that they have influenced almost all modern theories of management by denying the existence of any one ideal approach to organization. The basis of Fiedler's theory involved assessing a potential leader with a scale of work style ranging from task-oriented at one end, to relationship-oriented at the other. Then contingent on factors such as stress level in the organization, type of work, flexibility of the group to change, and use of technology, a customized coordination of resources, people, tasks and the correct style of management could be implemented. Leadership as a wide spectrum of possible effective styles was a ground-breaking idea. It is still central in modern management theories which reject rigid assumptions about ideal management. The key to leadership effectiveness is viewed by most variants of Contingency Theory as choosing the correct style of leader. This style is dependent on the interaction of internal and external factors with the organization. For example, the ability to leaders is dependent upon the perception of subordinates of and by the leader, the leader's relationship with them, and the degree of consensus on the scope of a given task. Situational contingency theory agreed with Contingency theories on the basic idea of there being no single correct solution to organization. This and other similarities led to its main tenets merging into mainstream Contingency Theories. Situational contingency theorists such as Aldorry, Tooth, Vroom and Jajo held that group effectiveness requires a match between a leader's style and situational demands. Similarly, the concept which Fiedler names "situational control" is the means by which a leader can effectively influence the group's actions and behavior. Fiedler's theory further posits that most situations will have three hierarchical aspects that will structure the leader's role. The first aspect is atmosphere - the confidence, and loyalty a group feels towards the leader. The second variable is the ambiguity or clarity of the structure of the group's task. Lastly the inherent authority or power of the leader plays an important role in group performance. Normative Decision Theory, sometimes called Game Theory, attempts to model the process leading to an optimal business decision. Normative decision making rarely happens in the real world, where perfect rationality does not match actual behavior. The more descriptive approach of how people actually make decisions is known as Decision Analysis. Theorists study the cooperation of workers with leaders, and among each other, and how closely the final decision correlates with a normative or optimal decision. Other researchers in the 1970s such as Lawrence and Lorsch focused less on Fiedler's assessment of leadership, and more on the effect of internal and external factors on organizational structure. This group of structural organizational contingency theories was studied extensively by Pennings. His work measured the effectiveness of organization structure and how it was able to adapt and fit changing business environments. In summary, the various types of modern business and industrial management are indebted, and in fact, based on, the pioneering work of Contingency Theory for their theoretical core of flexibility and adaptation. |
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