Fiedlers Contingency Theory

Let’s take a look Fiedler’s contingency theory. Fiedler’s contingency theory states that in order to maximize work group performance, leaders must be matched to the right leadership situation.

More specifically, the first basic assumption of Fiedler’s theory is that leaders are effective when the work groups they lead perform well. So, instead of judging leaders’ effectiveness by what they do (that is, initiating structure and consideration) or who they are (that is, trait theory). Fiedler assesses leaders by the conduct and performance of the people they supervise.

Second, Fiedler assumes that leaders are generally unable to change their leadership styles and that they will be more effective when their styles are matched to the proper situation. This explains why company founders are not always the best suited to lead their companies.

When Fiedler refers to leadership style, he means the way that leaders generally behave toward their followers.Do the leaders yell and scream and blame others when things go wrong? Or do they correct mistakes by listening and then quietly but directly make their point?

Fiedler uses a questionnaire called the Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scale to measure leadership style. When completing the LPC scale, people are instructed to con-sider all of the people with whom they have ever worked and then to choose the one person with whom they have worked least well.

Fiedler assumes that leaders will be more effective when their leadership styles are matched to the proper situation. More specifically, Fiedler defines situational favorableness as the degree to which a particular situation either permits or denies a leader the chance to influence the behavior of group members. In highly favorable situations, leaders find that their actions influence followers.

Three situational factors determine the favorability of a situation: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. The most important situational factor is leader-member relations, which refers to how well followers respect, trust, and like their leaders.

Relationship-oriented leaders with high LPC scores were better leaders (that is, their groups performed more effectively) under moderately favorable situations. In moderately favorable situations, the leader may be liked somewhat, tasks may be somewhat structured, and the leader may have some position power.

By contrast, task-oriented leaders with low LPC scores are better leaders in highly favorable and unfavorable situations. Task-oriented leaders do well in favorable situations where leaders are liked, tasks are structured, and the leader has the power to hire, fire, reward, and punish. In these favorable situations, task-oriented leaders effectively step on the gas of a well-tuned car.

Finally, people with moderate LPC scores, who can be somewhat relationship-oriented or somewhat task-oriented, tend to do fairly well in all situations because they can adapt their behavior. Typically, though, they don’t perform quite as well as relationship-oriented or task-oriented leaders whose leadership styles are well matched to the situation.