Contingency Approach to Leadership:

Introduction: Leadership is the ability to influence a group towards the achievement of a vision or set of goals through different source in an organisation. Contingency means influencing present action. Contingency approach to leadership was first developed comprehensively by Fiedler. In this contingency approach model proposes that effective group performance depends on the proper match between the leaders style and the degree to which the situation gives control to the leader. Fiedlers model consists of 3 primary elements.
1. Leadership style. 2. Situation. 3. Relationship between style and situation.

These 3 elements are further described below:

1. Leadership style:

Fiedler believes that a key factor in leadership success is the individuals basic leadership style and thus he identifies the two dimension of leadership style- i.e. Task oriented & Human relationship oriented. a. Task oriented style is primarily concerned with the achievement of task performance. b .Human-relation oriented is concerned with achieving good interpersonal relation and achieving a position of personal performance. To find out that basic style Fiedler created the Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) questionnaire for the purpose to measure whether a person is task oriented or relationship oriented. The LPC questionnaire contains set of 16 contrasting questions as pleasantunpleasant, efficient-inefficient, supportive-hostile etc. it asks the respondents to think of all the co-workers they have ever work and to describe the person they least enjoyed working with by rating that person on a scale of 1-8 for each of the 16 set of contrasting questions to determine the leadership style of an individual, i.e. if the least preferred co-worker is described in relatively positive terms (a high LPC score) then the respondent is primarily interested in good personal relationship with the co-worker i.e. if you describe the person you are least able to work with in favourable terms then Fiedler would level you relationship oriented. In contrast if the least preferred co-worker is seen in relatively unfavourable terms (a low LPC score) the respondent is primarily interested in productivity and would be levelled task oriented.

Thus Fiedler assumes that an individuals style is fixed, and it is important because if a situation requires a task oriented leader and the person in that position is relationship oriented then either the situation has to be changed or the leader has to be replaced in order to achieve optimal effectiveness. 2. Defining Situation: After an individuals basic leadership style has been assessed through LPC, now it is necessary to match the leader with the situation. In this case Fiedler identifies 3 contingency factors which are the key situational factors that determine leaders effectiveness. They are: 1. Task Structure: It is the degree which the job assignments are procedures i.e. structured or unstructured. 2. Position Power: It is the degree of influence a leader has over power variable such as hiring, discipline, promotion and salary increase. 3. Leader Member Relationship: It is the degree of confidence, trust and respect shown by the member to their leaders. The next step in the Fiedler model is to evaluate the situation in terms of these 3 contingency variables i.e. leader-member relation is either good or bad, task structure is either high or low and position power is either strong or weak. Fiedler states that the better the leader-member relationship the more highly structure the task is and the stronger the position power the more control the leader has. For example: in a very favourable situation (in which the leader has the great deal of control) might involve a payroll manager who is well respected and whose employees have confidence in their (good leader member relationship) activities as wage computation, check writing, report writing etc. are specific and clear (high task structure) and the job provides considerable freedom to reward or punish the employees (strong position power). However an unfavourable condition might be the leader has a very little control. Altogether by mixing the 3 dimension there are potentially 8 different situation in which leaders could find themselves.

LEADER MEMBER RELATION TASK STRUCTURE POSITION POWER CATEGORY

GOOD

POOR

HIGH STRONG WEAK 1 2

LOW STRONG 3 WEAK 4 STRONG 5

HIGH WEAK 6

LOW STRONG 7 WEAK 8

3. Relationship between style and situation:

With knowledge of an individuals LPC score and assessment of the 3 contingency dimension, the Fiedlers model matching them up, to achieve maximum leadership effectiveness. He concluded that task oriented leader tend to perform better in situation that are very favourable to them instead of unfavourable condition so, Fiedler predict that when task oriented leader faced with category 1,2,3,7,8 situation perform better. Relationship oriented leader however perform better in moderately favourable situation with category 4,5,6. Thus we can say task-oriented leader perform best in situation of high and low control while relationship oriented leaders perform best in moderate control situation.

TASK

RELATIONSHIP

FAVORABLE

MODARATE

UNFAVORABLE

CATEGORY

Implications of Fiedlers Model: Fiedlers model offers a number of implications. The model provides a promising breakthrough in leadership research. Fiedlers contingency model provides two implications: 1. No leadership style is appropriate for all situations. Thus manager can adopt the leadership style according to the requirements of the situation. 2. There is a need for matching leaders and job situations to achieve organisational effectiveness. Fiedler says that if we wish to increase organisational and group effectiveness, we must learn not only how to train leaders more effectively but also how to build an organisational environment in which the leader can perform well.

Book referred: 1. 2. Organisational Behaviour by Robbins. Organisational Behaviour by L.M Prasad.