Contingency Leadership Theories and Effective Leadership

There have been numerous theories surrounding leadership, which attempt to explain which form is most effective in the workplace. A universalistic approach was once used to rationalize leadership and it was believed that successful leaders possessed certain common abilities and traits. However, today due to external factors such as globalization and advanced technologies, there has been an evolution towards a new paradigm of leadership. Subordinates want to feel empowered and engaged at the workplace and often the behaviors and relationships between leaders and their subordinates become important to understand in order to fully understand effective leadership. Contingency theories have been developed in which people began to look at the behavior of leaders in specific situations. Two such contingency theories are: Path-Goal and Hershey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory.

Situational leadership focuses on adapting your leadership style or approach based on the situation and the amount of direction and support that is needed by followers. As Jesus trained and equipped his disciples from simple fishermen to fishers of men, who carried on his ministry after he ascended to heaven, he integrated different styles and theories of leadership that best served and supported his followers (Blanchard & Hodges, 2003). Depending on the level of competency and commitment of their people, leaders will adjust their style to provide the necessary support and direction. The core competencies of situational leaders are the ability to identify the performance, competence and commitment of others, and to be flexible (Paterson, 2013). From being highly directive, telling their people exactly what to do and how, to delegating, clearly stating the objective and allowing them to complete the task with little direction and support, situational leaders adapt their approach to the needs of their people and the particular situation.

Due to the path-goal theory being such a broad theory, it encompasses four different styles of leadership. The four leadership styles included are directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership. A directive leader under the path-goal theory will focus on their expectations that they have laid out for their employees, they will provide clear direction and believe that they have more power and information that their subordinates. Under a supportive leader, you will notice that they are concerned for their employees and their needs but also stresses the importance of the organizational tasks at hand. An achievement-oriented leader will focus on seeing their employees achieving results in their job. As mentioned in the Stojkovic book, the leader in this scenario “expects that workers will attempt to do their best and that if goals are set high enough and subordinates are properly motivated, they will achieve those goals.” (Stojkovic, Kalinich & Klofas, 2012, p. 203). Last but not least we have participative leaders, this style of leadership emphasizes collaboration between the leaders and subordinates, they feel they have equal power to their employees and will work with them in order to complete a task.

The communication used by a Situational Leader varies according to the style the Leader has to employ with his follower. The communication is focused on goal achievement when directing, while coaching and supporting tacks on encouragement to reach goals (Northouse). Proper communication is essential during these stages. However, communication is in the follower’s court when the leader is delegating, as “[…] followers take responsibility for getting the job done the way they see fit (Northouse, p. 95-96).

     The situational leadership model is based on certain assumptions. One of these assumptions is that there are different levels (or situations) in which a leadership style is played out. In the same way that there are four different levels of readiness on the part of staff or “followers”, there are also four leadership styles. On the whole it is the level that the followers are to be found that is most important element in the equation when a leadership style is seen to be to be the appropriate style and is chosen from among four possible styles. According to this idea leaders can choose to lead in

While many of my employees know what they need to do and how to do the tasks without my supervision, I have a hard time recognizing that not all of my employees have the same characteristic. I expect that as grown adults that all of my employees can be autonomous when it comes to the tasks that they do or are assigned. This does not always work with all of my employees. The situational leadership theory shows that these employees need either a coaching style or a supporting style of leadership (Situational leadership theory: providing leadership through flexibility,

The four styles within the situational leadership mode are directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating. Once a leader has put together the most qualified team for the goals, directing comes in to learn how each member will be the most productive in the task assigned. A leader has to make sure that a task is assigned to the person who will enjoy achieving the task. If not, this could lead to low motivation and low morale, with a chance of failing the task at hand (Griffith & Dunham, 2015). Being a leader means having knowledge in all aspects of the tasks that needs to be done to reach the end goal successful. The leader has to coach each individual to make sure each task is being done correctly. The leader needs to be involved in all

Situational leadership theory is the theory that not just one style of leadership can work in every situation. Two scientists named Paul Hershey and Ken Blanchard came up with the theory. It was first named Life cycle theory of leadership and then was changed in mid-1970 to Situational leadership theory. When it comes to situational leadership theory we must understand that every situation is not the same and that every situation cannot be handled the same way. You cannot lead a group the same way all the time (Blanchard, 2001).

During the course of research, various theories appeared in literature on situational leadership. In some instances, situational leadership is part of a broader theory and vice versa. Related theories include transformational and transactional leadership, contingency theory, path-goal theory, and personality theories. Life Cycle Theory was not included since situational leadership originated from Life Cycle Theory.

The path-goal model is based on the assumption that each leadership style will be effective in different

The model uses least preferred co-worker questionnaire as an instrument that purports to measure weather a person is task or relationship oriented. It then matches the leader with the situation. Fiedler identified 3 dimensions which are leader member relations, task structure, and position power. For effective leadership it must change to a leader who fits the situation or change the situation variable to fit the current leader. Other theories in contingency theory is situational leadership theory which focuses on follower’s readiness, path-goal theory, and leader- participation model.

The contingency approach to leadership is the need for the leaders to be formable in their superior choice of leadership styles based on their situation thus if the leaders first attempt is to influence the group is failed ,the next suggested action will be to adopt a different style of leadership which is more compatible with the situation. Current theories and models of leadership explain the influence of position upon the satisfaction and performance of employees. While dissenting with one another, the theories share certain assumption that the style of leadership is likely to be effective may change according to the situation. Some leadership styles will be indifferent to the situation however certain organizational variables and individual task act as ‘substitutes of leadership’ contradicting the hierarchical superior ability to exert either positive or negative influence over subordinates attitudes and effectiveness. This report examines the nature of the contingency approach to strategic leadership and the implications of the main contingency models on different management.

The first comprehensive contingency model for leadership was developed by Fred Fiedler. The Fiedler contingency model proposed that effective group performance depended upon properly matching the leader’s style and the amount of control and influence in the situation. The model was based on the premise that a certain leadership style would be most effective in different types of situations. The keys were:

Depending on this theory, the leader should adopt or combine above four leadership styles base on different situations. Path goal theory gives an expanded framework for combining the earlier works of expectancy theory, and contingent leadership. A leader has very clear and practical roles in this theory. Unlike Fiedler’s contingency theory, in which the leader’s style is assumed to be fixed and only the environment can be changed, the path-goal theory underlines the importance of varying one’s style, depending on the situation.

This style of leadership requires immediate attention of the whole team in achieving a goal. The targets are fixed at a very short period of time. The leader’s experience and learning as well as decision making abilities helps to lead the team and in most of the cases, the goals are achieved. The leadership style is useful for small to medium sized organizations or where the nature of the task is very simple to understand. The tasks are easily broken into well-defined subtasks and the same can be executed by the team members. (Metarasa, 2017)