management and leadership contingency theory, chapter 6

crticisms of situational leadership approach

- fails to give complete explanation for why people with specific leadership styles more effective in some situations than others. - a black box problem lefi fiedler due to lvl of mystery remaining regarding why task motivated leaders good in more xtreme settings and relationship motivated leaders in moderately favorable settings. critics dont find the explanation for how these problems can be reconciled to be good enough - problems with lpc scale - fails to appropriately explain what organizations should do when there is a mismatch between leaders and a situation in the workplace it is a personality theory and therefore doesnt advocate teaching leaders how to adapt styles to a variety of situations to improve organizational leadership but advocateds leaders engagement in situational engineering or changing a situation to fit a leader.

relationship motivated leadership style

involves leaders who are mianly focused on developing close intepersonal relationships

contingency theory leemaseh

- can be used to answer many questions about individual leadership in different organizations (e.g. to explain why people are ineffective in specific positions despite the fact that they mb a conscientious, loyal and hardworking manager) - can be used to predict if someone who has worked well in one position in an organization will be =lly effective if moved into a different position in the same co. - can point to changes which upper management may like to make in lower lvl positions to guarantee good fits btw existing managers and speicifc work contexts.

strengths of contingency theory

- has alot of empirical research to back it up (i.e. it has been proven to be valid and reliable) - has broadened our understanding of leadership by focing us to ponder the impact of how situations effect a leader prior to this leadership theories like the trait approach more focused on if their was a single best type of leader but this theory emphasizes the focus on the relationship between the leaders style and the demands of the situtations they find themselves in shifting the emphasis to leadership contexts i.e. link between a leader and their situation - predictive and provides useful info about the type of leadership that will be more effective in specific contexts - doesnt require people to be effective argues that leaders dont need to expect to be effective in all situations like other leadership theories do. - provides date (e.g. through the lpc) on leaders styles which could be useful to organizations when developing leadership profiles

problems with the lpc scale

- not valid ont he sruface because it doesnt seem to correlate well with other standard leadership measures and not easy to complete correctly i) scale measures persons leadership style by asking them to characterize anothers behavior. Because projection involved in the measure tough for respondents to understand how their descriptions of other people on the scale reflect their own leadership style. seems nonsensical on a surfce lvl to measure ones style through evaluations of anothers style. ii) instructions on lpc unclear bc they dont fully explain how respondents select their least preferred coworkers (e.g. some may get confused btw ppl who is there least liked coworker and one who is their least prefered coworker). Since the final LPC score based on whom they choose as the least prefered coworker lack of clear directions regarding who to choose as least prefered makes LPC more problematic iii) lacks face valdiity - hard to use in real world settings because it entails assessing a leaders style and 4 complex situational variables which all require different instruments i) has alot of questionnaires in ongoing organziations which can be tough because it breaks up the nromal flow of organizational communication and operations

main reasons why fiedler believes leaders working in the wrong situation are ineffective

1) leaders with an lpc style that doesnt match a specific situation epxeriences stress and anxiety 2) under stress leaders revert to less mature ways of coping learned in early development 3) leaders immature coping style results in poor decision making resulting in negative work outcomes

positional power variable lefi the contingency approach

amount of authority leaders have to reward or punish their followers. consists of legitimate power individuals acquire as a result of the position they hold in an organization. strong if the leader has authority to hire and fire or give rasies in rak or pay but weak if they dont have such authority

contingency theory

fielders theory of this the one that is the most recognized. - leader match theory that tries to match leaders to appropriate situations. - suggests that leaders effectiveness is depencent on how their leadership style fits a specific context - holds that effect leadership is contingent on matching a leaders style to the appropriate setting - fiedler mainly developed this theory when studying it in military organizations - concerned with styles and situations

leader member relations variable in situations according to the contingency approach

includes group atmosphere and degree of confidence, loyalty and attraction which followers feel for their leader. if the group atmosphere is good and subordinates trust like and get along with their leader then leader member relations are good while if the atmosphere is unfriendly and their is friction in a group then the leader member relations are defined as poor

how does contingency theory work?

involves measuring leaders lpc score and the 3 situational variables that can predict if the leader will be effecitve in different situations. According to the lpc if a leaders style matches a specific category/situation and if not they wont.

3 variables which situations fit into according to the contingency approach

leader member relations, task structure, and positive power

LPC scale

survey developed by fielder to measure leadership styles, the least preferred coworker scale leaders who score high on it described as relationship motivated and those who score low as task motivated. on this scale the three vairbales of the contingency approach used to determine the favorableness of a Variety of situations in an organization.situations rated most favorably ones with good leader follower relations, defined tasks and strong leader position power while those rated least favorably have poor leader follower relations, are unstructured and weak leader position power. moderate ratings fall in btw these extremes. scores people as task motivated (low lpcs), socioindependent (middle lpcs) and relationship motivated (high lpcs)

task structure variable of the contingency approach

tasks completely structured usually give more control to leaders while vague and unclear lessen a leaders control and influence. Tasks are structured when requirements of the task are clearly stated and known by people required to perform them 2) path to accomplishing a task has a couple of alternatives 3) completion of a task can be demonstrated 4) only a limited number of correct solutions to a said tsk exists (e.g. a highly structured task could be cleaning a milk shak machine at a restaurant where rules for it clearly stated to employees, only one way to ddo it if the taskj was completed can be verified if it was dcone correctly and completed easily whereas running a fundraiseer for a volunteer organization mb less structured with less set rules, different ways of doing it and the correctness of how it gets done is less clearly verifiable and their is no specific correct way to get it done)

task motivated leadership style

used by leaders who are mainly focused on reaching a goal