Organizational Behavior (Stephen Robbins)

• When people don’t know what to do or individuals don’t have the knowledge
  or skills to do the job, it’s more important for leaders to be production ori-
  ented than people oriented.

This chapter’s CBC Video Case Incident gives you an opportunity to further explore the
behaviours of leaders and their implications.

Contingency Theories: Does the Situation Matter?

As research on leadership developed, it became clear that
predicting leadership success was more complex than sim-
ply isolating a few traits or preferable behaviours. Starting
in the 1960s, leadership theories began to examine the
situational factors that affect a leader’s ability to act. This
research pointed out that not all leaders can lead in every
situation.^16 This was clearly illustrated by the failure of
President George W. Bush, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, and New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin to demonstrate leadership during the Hurricane Katrina crisis. Their
leadership skills might have been better displayed in other types of situations.
Situational, or contingency, theoriesof leadership try to isolate critical situational
factors that affect leadership effectiveness. The theories consider the degree of structure
in the task being performed, the quality of leader-member relations, the leader’s posi-
tion power, group norms, information availability, employee acceptance of leader’s
decisions, employee maturity, and the clarity of the employee’s role.^17
We discuss four situational theories below: the Fiedler contingency model, Hersey and
Blanchard’s situational leadership theory, path-goal theory, and substitutes for leader-
ship. All of these theories focus on the relationship of the leader to followers, and there
is broad support for the idea that this relationship is important.^18

Fiedler Contingency Model
The first comprehensive contingency model for leadership was developed by Fred
Fiedler.^19 The Fiedler contingency modelproposes that effective group performance
depends on the proper match between the leader’s style and the degree to which the sit-
uation gives control to the leader.
Fiedler created the least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaireto determine whether
individuals were mainly interested in good personal relations with co-workers, and
thus relationship-oriented,or mainly interested in productivity, and thus task-oriented.
Fiedler assumed that an individual’s leadership style is fixed. Therefore, if a situation
requires a task-oriented leader and the person in that leadership position is relationship
oriented, either the situation has to be modified or the leader must be removed and
replaced for optimum effectiveness to be achieved.
Fiedler identified three contingency dimensions that together define the situation a
leader faces:

• Leader-member relations.The degree of confidence, trust, and respect members
  have in their leader.


• Task structure.The degree to which the job assignments are procedurized (that
  is, structured or unstructured).


• Position power.The degree of influence a leader has over power variables such
  as hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases.

Chapter 8Leadership 263

situational, or contingency,

theories Theories that propose

that leadership effectiveness

depends on the situation.

Fiedler contingency model A

theory that proposes that effective

group performance depends on the

proper match between the leader’s

style and the degree to which the

situation gives control to the leader.

Have you ever

wondered if there

was one rightway to

lead?

*

How Bad Is Your Boss?