Fiedler’s “contingency theory is a leader-match theory that suggests that a leader’s effectiveness depends on how well the leader’s style fits the context.” (Northouse, 2007, p.113) This theory works as a guide to understanding which leadership styles will be effective in which situations and vice versa. This theory can help explain how a leader who is successful in one position (or situation) within a company may be ineffective in a different position. To illustrate how this theory works we can look at an example of a leader I worked under for several years who was successful in her position as an assistant customer service manager, but didn’t find the same success after she was promoted to assistant store manager.
Contingency theory asserts that a leaders styles are either task motivated or relationship motivated. Task-motivated leaders are concerned primarily with reaching a goal, whereas relationship motivated leaders are concerned with developing close interpersonal relationships. (Northouse, 2007, p.114) In order to evaluate a leader based on style “Fiedler developed the Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scale. Leaders who score high on this scale are described as relationship motivated, and those who score low on the scale are identified as task motivated.” (Northouse, 2007, p.114) Similarly this theory “suggests that situations can be characterized in terms of three factors: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power.” (Northouse, 2007, p.114) Leader-member relations refers to “group atmosphere and the degree of confidence, loyalty, and attraction that followers feel for their leader, task structure is the degree to which the requirements of a task are clear and spelled out, and is the amount of authority a leader has to reward or to punish followers.”
“By measuring a leader’s LPC score and the three situational variables, one can predict whether the leader is going to be effective in a particular setting.” (Northouse, 2007, 116) Fiedler’s LPC score, or Least Preferred Coworker score, asks leaders to evaluate their views of the coworker with which they are the least successful at working with in various categories on a scale of 1-8. The higher the LPC score the more relational the leader’s style is, and the lower the LPC score is the more task motivated the leadership style. This manager’s high LPC score coincides with her style as a relationship motivated leader meaning that she focused on developing close interpersonal relationships instead of tasks and goals. In the position of assistant customer service manager the group atmosphere was positive being that her followers liked, trusted and admired this her. After her promotion the group atmosphere remained mostly the same. She was still liked and trusted by her employees who viewed her as easy to get along with, and felt that she truly cared about each of their lives. She maintained her commitment to getting to know each and every employee even after she was promoted and became responsible for double or triple the number of workers. The second variable, task structure, can be measured on a continuum from highly structured to highly unstructured. “A task is considered structured when (a) the requirements of the task are clearly stated and known by the people required to perform them, (b) the path to accomplishing the task has few alternatives, (c) completion of the task can be clearly demonstrated, and (d) only a limited number of correct solutions to the task exist.” (Northouse, 2007, p.114) The structure of the situation relating to her first managerial position was mostly unstructured and focused on intangible results like making customers happy which can be accomplished in a myriad of ways. On the other hand as an assistant manager her focus was on accomplishing goals like minimizing profit loss and building sales so tasks were highly structured and success or failure could be measured using numbers. Position power, the final situational variable, refers to “the amount of authority a leader has to reward or to punish followers. (Northouse, 2007, p.115) Position power is strong if a person has the authority to hire and fire or give raises in rank or pay; it is weak if a leader does not have the right to do these things. (Northouse, 2007, p.115) In her initial position this manager had weak position power, she was not in charge of hiring and firing employees in her department, or evaluating them for raises in rank or pay. In the position of assistant manager she had strong positional power as she had the authority to hire, fire, promote etc. “By measuring a leader’s LPC score and the three situational variables, one can predict whether the leader is going to be effective in a particular setting.” (Northouse, 2007, p.116) People who are relationship motivated (high LPC score) are effective in moderately favorable situations, that is, in situations in which there is some degree of certainty but things are neither completely under their control nor out of their control. (Northouse, 2007, p. 115)
According to the contingency theory the first situation consisting of good leader-member relations, low structure, and weak power would coincide with number 4 in the chart below, which shows us that leaders with a high LPC score would be successful. In the position of assistant customer service manager, this leader’s high LPC score coupled with a moderately favorable situation translated into success
. In contrast when her high LPC score was paired with a highly favorable situation the outcome was not the same. In her position as assistant store manager the leader-member relations remained good however the other two variables changed. Suddenly she was leading in a situation where tasks were highly structured and she possessed strong power in the company. This situation would coincide with number 1 on the chart, a highly favorable environment, which coincides with low or middle LPC scores. Her skills in building interpersonal relationships no longer served her well and other members of management began feeling forced to take on more responsibility to make up for the lack of organization and task completion. During the first 3 quarters following her promotion inventory discrepancies had risen, payroll for stockers and department heads weren’t being properly controlled, and profits were being diminished as a result of poor inventory control. She was criticized for spending too much time developing schedules based on an unprecedented number of specific requests from employees whom she tried to please in her relationship oriented leading style. In general the specific and detail oriented tasks that make up most of an assistant manager’s job description weren’t being handled in an organized manner. The skills that served her well in her initial position lead to failure rather quickly after she was promoted. In the end she only survived in this position for 18 months after which she accepted a position in human resources where her skills in building relationships would serve her much better.
“It is important to point out that contingency theory stresses that leaders are not effective in all situations.” (Northouse, 2007, p.116) In this particular example the leadership style that made this manager successful in her first leadership role lead to failure when she was promoted into a situation with different variables. Because of the highly structured tasks required of assistant store managers her relational style hindered her in many ways including a failure on her part to lead her employees toward successfully completing tasks in order to accomplish very specific goals.
References
Northouse, Peter Guy. Contingency Theory. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks. SAGE. 2007. 1452203407. Pp. 113-126.