Path Goal Vs. Situational Leadership Theories

The situational leadership theory is one of the theories that consider the leader function which suggests that there is no “one size fits all” approach to leadership. Depending on the situation, varying levels of “leadership” and “management” are necessary. However, leaders must first identify their most important tasks or priorities. Second, leaders must consider the readiness level of their followers by analysing the group’s ability and willingness. Depending on the level of these variables, leaders must apply the most appropriate leadership style to fit the given situation. Among the theories that suggest the role of a leader to promote the organisational group behaviours the Fred Fielder model which has introduced in 1960s and called the ‘contingency theory of leadership” in which the main idea of this early theory is that leadership effectiveness (in terms of group performance) depends on the interaction of two factors: the leader 's task or relations motivations and aspects of the situation. This is measured through the Least Preferred Co-worker scale (LPC) which has been set up to measure the leaders to identify a an individual they work with least well and to characterize this individual with ratings on a series of 8-point bipolar

The Path-Goal Theory works well by first identify the goal. Once the goal is established the manager is responsible to remove any roadblocks or obstacles that stand in the way of the employee success. There are also incentives that the manager can offer along the way.

The contingency model of leadership is based upon the relationship between three aspects of leader-follower-situation model. Apart from this contingency model, leaders are assumed to act in a flexible manner.

Path Goal Leadership is a theory that states that a leader's behavior is contingent to the satisfaction, motivation and performance of her or his subordinates. This is to say, a leaders behaviors will directly influence those of the people below him or her. Additionally, a leader is responsible for providing the information, support and resources necessary for employees to complete tasks. It is broken up into 4 styles. (McShane, Steen, 2012, p. 335). The first style related to this theory is directive path goal leadership. This involves a leader carefully and with detail informing employees what it expected of them, and how to carry out and perform these tasks. This is most successful when tasks are not routine, and guidance is often needed to work

Path-goal theory has four different leadership characteristics. However, these leadership characteristics are only effective based on the followers’ characteristics and the details of the task being completed. The four leaderships characteristics for this theory are: (1) directive, (2) supportive, (3) participative, and (4) achievement-oriented (Northouse, 2016). Path-goal theory suggest that the leader needs to understand the follower and the task that is being completed, to determine the type of leadership characteristic to fit that need. To describe further, a directive leader provides clear rules and standards to a follower that is authoritarian while completing an ambiguous type of task (Northouse, 2016). A supportive leader

One theory based change that I can make is to reduce the amount of authoritative leadership that I express. As a situational leader, there is a time and place to use the authoritative leadership trait. The situational leadership theory suggests that a coaching approach is best to use with employees that are less motivated but capable of accomplishing a task (Situational leadership theory: providing leadership through flexibility, 2016). There have been many times where a task is assigned but does not get completed or is completed half-way. As an example, I assigned one of my more challenging employees to clean up and sweep a particular area of my warehouse. The employee only accomplished cleaning up the area but did not attempt to sweep. I know that I was clear with my directions and expectation when assigning this person the task. In this situation using a coaching style of leadership would have prevented the task from not being fully completed to my satisfaction. Conducting spot checks to ensure the task is being accomplished and coaching the employee on what remains to be completed would have been the best course of action because the task would have been completed as instructed.

Contingency theory indicates that appropriate leadership relies both on the leading style and the capacity to control a given situation (Williams, Ashill, & Naumann, 2017). It includes categories like the system environment, tasks, behavioralism and organizational integrity that a leader must value. Strategic contingency theory demonstrates the need for appropriate leader-member association and responsibilities with precise

I have been working in my family’s business since I was 12 years. I come from a business-oriented family, both my sister and I have worked the family business. Through sheer hard work, I have been able to rise up to a management position by virtue of being made an assistant store manager. In my life as a leader, I have always strived to apply the path-goal leadership theory, by Northouse (2013). I have come up with a clear-cut leadership model. I have learned what works best, what works and does not work for the family business. I continually emphasize to the employees the importance of working together as a team and try as much as possible to be a role model to other workers. I continually encourage other workers to do their best and be

Leadership is a subject that has gained substantial attention in pretty much every field. There have been a number of studies done on leadership, which has resulted in a number of different theories. Situational and Contingency are two theories that are most commonly used in leadership training. Both fall under the contingency theory umbrella and are also commonly used interchangeable and often consider as one theory. Situational and Contingency theory are identical but they are two very different methods. This paper explains the concept of Situational and Contingency leadership theories and compares and distinguishes the two theories.

Leaders must face various situations effectively. How leaders address the situation is an area of leadership with a lot of theories and research. One of those theories is Hersey-Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory. “Situational Leadership Theory proposes that effective leadership requires a rational understanding of the situation and an appropriate response” (McCleskey, 2014, p. 118). The Life Cycle of Leadership was the original term for Hersey-Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (Thompson and Glasø, 2015). Because of the need to apply the proper response to a situation, it is no surprise that situational leadership includes four leadership styles (Thompson and Glasø, 2014). However, the theory continues to expand as more research is gathered. For example, situational leadership theory began as a task-oriented versus people-oriented leadership style (McCleskey, 2014, p. 118). As a task-oriented versus people-oriented leadership style, situational leadership is a behavioral theory, which states that no leadership style is the best; instead, the style must reflect the readiness of the subordinates in a given situation (Mehta, 2012). Furthermore, there are four levels of readiness (Mehta, 2012). The goal of situational leadership is to create a leader-follower match based on leadership styles and subordinate readiness (Luo and Liu, 2014). According to Furtado, Barista, and Silva (2011), the components of

The Contingency approach identifies the success of the leader as a function of various contingencies

Building on the idea of Behavior Theories, Contingency Models of Leadership take in to account mitigating circumstances

The Path-Goal model is a theory based on specifying a leader 's style[1] or behavior that

Overall, the path-goal theory, path-goal theory of leader effectiveness, or path-goal model can be considered as a variant on Transactional Leadership Theory, where the leader clearly is directing activity and the only factor that varies is the manner in which this is done. There are some aspects of Contingency Theory, as well, where various means of application vary with the situation. The leader sees a path that needs to be tread, one leading to the accomplishment of a goal and she or he attempts to clear it and get the group members to tread on it. The leader may cajole command, reward or punish, get suggestions from the group, or sugar coat the tasks, if necessary, but it is clear that democracy is not the hallmark of this method. The Path-goal of Leadership Effectiveness was created to rectify prior research and anomalies resulting from empirical investigations of the effects of leader/task orientation and leader/person orientation/relationship on worker satisfaction and performance (House 1971).

One attraction of the contingency approach among theorists and practitioners alike is its situational perspective. Those interested in research issues regarding organization and management can use the contingency perspective to explain why some factors influence situations in one setting but have virtually no influence in another setting. Indeed, one objective of research within the contingency framework is to specify those dimensions and conditions that do affect a situation and those that do not. For the manager, the requirement from the contingency perspective is to identify which technique will, in a particular situation, best contribute to the attainment of organizational goals. For instance, under some circumstances, an authoritarian leadership style may be more appropriate than a leadership style that tries to get workers internally motivated.tuation. While the contingency approach is useful in recognizing that the complexity involved in understanding human and organizational systems makes it difficult to develop universal principles of management, there have been several criticisms of the approach. For one, it has been pointed out that the logical extension of the contingency approach is that all situations are unique. If this is true, then management can be practiced only by intuition and