environments as well as attributes of individual leaders. These approaches tend
to accommodate the recognition that different types of leadership can contribute
effectively in different contexts (situations) and that the choice of leadership
approach can depend (be contingent) on a wide range of variables.
2.3.3 Situational or contingency approaches
The situational or contingency approaches reflect the emergence of more
pluralistic approaches and explicitly account for a range of ‘situational’ or
‘environmental’ variables – sometimes referred to as ‘situational moderators’.
Put another way, it was recognised that leadership effectiveness may be
‘contingent’ on a variety of factors aside from leaders’ traits or behaviours.
Basing their argument on a selection of five journal papers published during the
1990s, Judge et al. (2004: 37) suggest that most researchers consider the
initiating structure/consideration dichotomy (the behavioural approach) of leader
behaviours to be outmoded and go on to write (also acknowledging Korman
(1966)) that:
Given the inconsistencies in the validity of Consideration and Structure
that were concluded to exist, researchers have argued that a way to
advance the literature is to investigate situational moderators
Judge et al. (2004: 37)The LPC Contingency theory
Fiedler (1964, 1967, 1971) developed the LPC (Least preferred co-worker)
Contingency Model which is concerned with improving organisational performance
by focussing at the level of the leader. Fiedler identified leader-member relations,
task-structure and the leader’s position power as determinants of effectiveness of
leadership style. The least preferred co-worker measurement scale is used to
provide an indicator of leadership style and a central tenet of the model is that
individual leader’s styles are relatively fixed and it is the ‘situation’ or
organisational context which needs to adapted to effect improvements in
performance.