Interaction of Leadership Style with Situational Control According to Fiedler's Contingency Model

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 and Authentic leadership are increasingly important skills to possess in today’s era of technological changes and availability and flow of information we have in this day and age. Leaders today must be able to adjust their leadership styles to the whatever situation arises as well as to the people who they are leading. Leaders are not limited to just use one style in one situation, being able to adapt appropriate styles to different situations will influence and help a leader succeed. A leader’s judgement, intelligence, cultural awareness, and self-control plays major roles in helping them choose the proper style and appropriate technique for the task at hand (Lau & Cronin, 1998).

In followership there needs to be a leader that inspires and bonds followers together as a unit moving in one direction. Today’s leader has to be more than someone that was placed in a position of authority, a person with a title and a higher salary level. A real leader is found when the behaviors and attitudes of their

Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal. The article “Leadership That Gets Results” by Daniel Goleman is an article that helps readers understand that there is not only one way of becoming a successful leader. Research indicates that leaders with best results do not rely on only one leadership style. Goleman, describes leaderships styles as array of clubs in a golf pro’s bag. Over the course of the game, the pro picks clubs based on the demands of the shot. Thinking is involved during the selection, but usually it is automatic. The pro is aware of the challenge ahead, quickly utilizes the right tool, and puts it to work. It has also been found that emotional intelligence

Effective followership is an essential component of effective leadership in that, without good followers, the leader’s work is difficult and cumbersome. The role of the follower is many times understated. As illustrated by Kelley (1998), “effective followers are thinkers; energetic and assertive, self-starters, independent problem solvers, and carry out their tasks with these characteristics (p. 143). Effective followers also are characterized by their ability to perform tasks with little supervision, their intelligence, and ability to think for themselves. We are all followers, even those who consider themselves leaders; so to encourage this effectiveness in others; we must be role models for those under us, so that they may also be effective at following. Chaleff (2009) observed that “all important social accomplishments require complex

Followers help leaders manifest their vision. Successful followers (supporters or team members) come in a wide variety of personal characteristics. There are people who may be good followers who do not make good leaders or even want to be leaders, but there are no good leaders who are not good followers. A good leader was once a follower. Without followers there is no leadership in any organization. Leaders can develop effective followers as followers develop effective leaders. The performance of followers and leaders of an organization are variables that depend on one another. Both roles are proactive together they can

In the research carried out by Bass (1990), they found out that trait leadership theory believes some people are born to lead because of their personal qualities, while others are not. Trait theory also suggests that leadership is only accessible to the chosen ones and not available to all. In the past researchers focused on traits that were able to measure such as physical characteristics, aspects of personality and aptitudes. The current trait research has pointed the focus to more specific traits like stress tolerance, energy level, emotional maturity, integrity and self-confidence. Reviews of the trait research have found all of the above traits to be related to managerial effectiveness Bass (1990) and Marques (2010). When looking at the results of

Both Fiedler’ model and LMX theory have strength and weakness. Fiedler’ model emphasizes the importance of both situation and leader’s characteristics in determining leader effectiveness. It stimulates a great deal of research and inspires the formulation of alternative contingency theory. On the weak side, the Fiedler model sometimes fails to reflect the personality traits that it intends to reflect. It has also gained criticism because of its implications on replacing the leader as the only way to solve the mismatch between leader orientation and unfavorable situation. The method of measuring

The trait leadership theory focuses on the individual leader’s personal characteristics as the basis of its investigations. It is one of the earliest leadership theories upon whose tenets many researches on leadership have been done. Although it is not very coherent, its heuristic nature has contributed to its significance in leadership research. Zaccaro and Klimoski (2002) define traits of reference to leadership as the stable personality characteristics, which result in a consistent leadership performance pattern, given different scenarios and groups. They include individual personalities, temperament, rationale, prowess, as well as cognitive abilities. Initially, the theory explored both physical and psychological characteristics that tell apart leaders from non-leaders.

The contents and assignment in this course has helped me understand the various theories of leadership and how different leadership styles can have a negative or positive effect on followers and organizations. The leadership theories helped me understand the concept of leadership better because it educates me on the different leadership options that are available. Leadership and followership is not based on specific characteristics. Leaders must draw from things and approaches to find the right style. A follower’s attitude determines the way a leader leads. According to Johnson (2011) “Being a good follower means ensuring your boss is supported, but only if he is making optimum decisions”.

Leadership has become overly romanticized by popular culture, leaving little research and attention to followership (Meindl). This focus on leadership has left a deficit in the development of

Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) asserts that a leader’s effectiveness is dependent upon the readiness, or ability and willingness, of the leader’s followers to complete a task. This leadership style is an amalgamation of task-oriented and relationship-oriented characteristics that are employed depending upon the situation and the followers involved. According to the SLT, as followers increase in readiness the leader’s style is to adapt accordingly (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009).

The article of Leadership That Gets Results provides the six leadership styles for individuals to understand how leadership styles influence on an organization’s climate. Furthermore, the six leadership styles are consisted of the emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill. Therefore, these three concepts, such as the six leadership styles, the elements of emotional intelligence, and an organization’s climate, will influence each other because the research found that individuals with different emotional intelligence competencies will have distinct leadership styles. Subsequently, with the distinct leadership styles, leaders will utilize their own leadership styles to lead their group, team, division, or corporation. Thus, it will bring about a unique impact on an organization’s climate and in turn, on its financial performance (Goleman, 2000, p.79). Moreover, leaders with their own emotional

The Contingency Theory applied to factors unique to each situation to determine whether specific leader characteristics and behaviors will be effective. Researched findings credit Fiedler 's contingency theory as the first to specify how situational factors interact with leader traits and behavior to influence leadership effectiveness. This theory suggests high interest in the situation determines the effectiveness of task- and person-oriented leader behavior.

Leadership has been a topic that has been researched for a long time in many disciplines. Leadership as a personality focuses on the characteristics of an individual that gives them power to act as leaders. There is leadership as an attribution this approach views leadership as phenomenon that causes group of followers to have outcomes.(Wu et al, 2010, 90).Researchers have used the following approaches to study leadership; they are mainly trait, behavior, power influence, situation and integrative approaches. Trait approaches focuses on the characteristics, values, skill and personality of leaders. Behavior approaches is focused on the leaders behaviors, differentiating between the behavior of ineffective and effective leaders. Integrative approach combines all the approaches to have a holistic picture of the process, outcomes and determinants of leadership. The approach that this paper uses is situational approach that is not leader centered but more on the significance of the context as an influence of leadership. Leaders should be able to choose the leadership quality appropriate to a particular situation.