CONTINGENCY THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP
CONTINGENCY THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP
Both trait and behavioral theories tried to identify the one best leader or
style for all situations. By the
late 1960s, it became apparent that there is no such universal answer.
Predicting leadership success
involved something more complex than isolating a few traits or preferable
behaviors. It was one thing
to say that leadership effectiveness depended on the situation and another to be
able to isolate
Leadership effectiveness depends on a combination of the:
• Situational factors
During Last 5-6 decades, more than 65 leadership classification systems have
been developed. Most
agree that leadership effectiveness depends on the leader, the followers, and
situation variables. Leaders
in different situations need different interests, values, and skills. A leader
in a bank differs from one in a
factory. Situational factors include the job performed, the workplace culture,
and the overall
Leadership results when… the ideas and deeds of the leader match the needs and
expectations of the
follower in a particular situation e.g. Quaid-e-Azam, Nelson Mandela, Adolf
Hitler, Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan. For leadership to take place, the leader, followers, and situation must
The Contingency Approach is based on four assumptions:
• The appropriate leadership style depends on the requirements of the situation.
• Leadership can be learned.
• Successful leadership involves understanding situational contingencies.
• The match between the leader’s style, personality or behavior, and the
situation leads to
Fielder LPC model
•Leadership behaviour assessment
The Fiedler Model
• This is the first comprehensive
contingency model for leadership.
• Effective group performance depends on
the proper match between the leader’s style of
interaction and the degree to which the situation gives control and influence to
• Fiedler developed an instrument, the
Least-Preferred Co-worker (LPC) questionnaire that
measures the leader’s behavioral orientation— either task oriented or
• He isolated three situational
criteria—leader-member relations, task structure, and position
power—that can be manipulated to create the proper match with the behavioral
of the leader.
• This contingency leadership model is an
outgrowth of trait theory.
• Fiedler, however, attempted to isolate
situations, relating his personality measure to his
situational classification, and then predicting leadership effectiveness.
• Fiedler believed that an individual’s
basic leadership style is a key factor.
• The LPC questionnaire contains 16
contrasting adjectives, asks the respondent to think of
all the co-workers he or she has ever had, and rates that person on a scale of 1
to 8 for each
set of contrasting adjectives.
• What you say about others tells more
about you than it tells about the other person.
• If the least-preferred co-worker was
described in positive terms (a high LPC score), then the
respondent was primarily interested in good personal relations with co-workers.
• If the least-preferred co-worker is seen
in relatively unfavorable terms, the respondent is
primarily interested in productivity and thus would be labeled task oriented.
• Fiedler argued that leadership style is
innate to a person—you can’t change your style.
• It is necessary to match the leader with
the situation based on three criteria.
• Leader-member relations—The
degree of confidence, trust, and respect subordinates
have in their leader.
• Task structure—The degree to
which the job assignments of subordinates are structured
• Position power—The degree of
influence a leader has over power variables such as hiring,
firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.
• The next step is to evaluate the
situation in terms of these three contingency variables.
• The better the leader-member relations,
the more highly structured the job, and the stronger
the position power, the more control or influence the leader has.
• Fiedler concluded that task-oriented
leaders perform best in situations that are very
favorable or very unfavorable to them.
• A moderately favorable situation,
however, is best handled through relationship-oriented
Situational Leadership Theory:
• Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard
developed the leadership model.
• Which is Called situational leadership;
it shows how a leader should adjust leadership style
to reflect what followers need.
• A contingency theory that focuses on the
• Successful leadership is contingent on
the follower’s level of readiness.
• Why focus on the followers? And what do
they mean by the term readiness?
o This emphasis reflects the reality
that it is the followers who accept or reject the leader.
o Regardless of what the leader does,
effectiveness depends on the actions of his or her
• The term “readiness” refers to the
extent that people have the ability and the willingness to
accomplish a specific task.
• Hersey and Blanchard identify four
_ Follower: unable and
– Leader: needs to give clear and
specific directions (Selling).
_ Follower: unable but
– Leader: needs to display high task
orientation and high relationship orientation.
_ Follower: able but
– Leader: needs to use a supportive and
participative style. (participating)
_ Follower: both able and
– Leader: a lenient approach will work
The most effective behavior depends on a follower’s ability and motivations.
• If a follower is unable and unwilling,
the leader needs to display high task orientation.
• At the other end of the readiness
spectrum, if followers are able and willing, the leader
doesn’t need to do much.
• Situational leadership has an intuitive
appeal—it acknowledges the importance of followers and
builds on the idea that leaders can compensate for the lack of ability and
motivation of their
• Research efforts to test and support the
theory have generally been mixed.
1. One of the most respected approaches to
leadership is path-goal theory.
2. Developed by Robert House, a contingency model of
leadership that extracts key elements
from the Ohio State leadership research and the expectancy theory of motivation.
3. The essence of the theory: the leader’s job is to
assist followers in attaining their goals and
to ensure that their goals are compatible with the overall objectives of the
4. A leader’s behavior is acceptable to employees to
the degree that they view it as an
immediate source of satisfaction or as a means of future satisfaction.
5. A leader’s behavior is motivational to the degree
a) Makes employee need-satisfaction contingent on
b) Provides the coaching, guidance, support, and
reward necessary for effective
6. House identified four leadership behaviors;
a) The directive leader tells employees what is
expected of them, schedules work, and
gives specific guidance as to how to accomplish tasks. It parallels initiating
b) The supportive leader is friendly and shows
concern for the needs of employees. It is
essentially synonymous with the dimension of consideration.
c) The participative leader consults with
employees and uses their suggestions before
making a decision.
d) The achievement-oriented leader sets
challenging goals and expects employees to
perform at their highest levels.
7. In contrast to Fiedler, House assumes that leaders
a) Path-goal theory implies that the same leader can
display any or all leadership styles,
depending on the situation.
8. path-goal theory proposes two classes of
a) Those in the environment that are outside
the control of the employee (task structure,
the formal authority system, and the work group).
1) Environmental factors determine leader behavior required if employee outcomes
are to be maximized.
b) Those that are part of the personal
characteristics of the employee (locus of control,
experience, and perceived ability).
1) Personal characteristics determine how the environment and leader behavior
c) The theory proposes that leader behavior will be
ineffective when it is redundant to
sources of environmental structure or incongruent with subordinate
9. Research to validate path-goal predictions is
encouraging, although not all is found
The majority of the evidence supports the logic underlying the theory.
Path-Goal Leadership Model
A Brief History of Leadership Theory:
I. A Trait Approach (1900-1950s): Leaders are born, not made.
• The focus of early leadership research was to find personal traits that
• The search was not successful--100s of studies lead to the conclusion that
there was no such set
of personal characteristics that by themselves distinguished leaders from
non-leaders. A few
traits such as above average intelligence, responsibility, self confidence, and
associated with leaders, but they are not sufficient explanations.
• Later studies of leadership characteristics led to the conclusion that there
were a few general
traits that were associated with effective leadership such as self-confidence,
emotional maturity, and integrity--but again no trait or set of traits
by itself guaranteed leader
• Both the situation and skill also have a lot to do with leadership
II. A Situational Approach: Leaders are made, not born.
• For a short time in the 1950s
sociologists tried to demonstrate that the situation determined
leadership, but they too were unsuccessful.
• Like the trait approach, the situational
approach was doomed to failure because it was too
narrow in its view.
• Most contemporary leadership theories
now subscribe to the position that traits, behaviors, and
situation interact to determine the effectiveness of a leader.
III. A Contingency Approach
Contemporary approaches to leadership acknowledge the importance of matching
the traits and
leadership behavior to situations to maximize effectiveness.
But the thorny questions are what traits or styles with what situations.
What are the basic situations?
What are the basic styles?
What are the matches that lead to effectiveness?