The Fiedler’s Contingency Model recognizes that leaders have general behavioral tendencies and specific situations where certain leaders may be more effective than others. Determining the right kind of leader for a certain situation or changing situation to match their style is important. It is the oldest and most well-known contingency theory and is often seen as the “opposite of situational leadership theory” (PSU, Lesson 6).
At the organization where I worked, the IT person would circulate the office on a daily basis to check on staff workers to make sure nobody had computer problems. She earned the reputation of someone who is not well liked and difficult to work with. The office manager was not fond of her either, however, she was responsible to oversee the IT worker’s work performance.
According to Northouse (2016), Fiedler developed the “Least-Preferred-Coworker” scale (“LPC”) to determine a leaders’ general style. The scale tells a leader to think of the single individual with whom they have had the greatest difficulty working with, which in this case would be the IT person, and then to describe that individual in terms of a series of bipolar adjectives (PSU, Lesson 6). Those ratings are then converted into a numerical score. The score represents something about the leader, not the specific individual the leader evaluated.
Fiedler describes, “Situational Favorability” as the amount of control the leader has over the followers, from the leader’s perspective. The more control the office manager has, the more favorable the situation (PSU, Lesson 6). Accordingly, by measuring and evaluating the office manager’s LPC score and the 3 situational variables (leader-member relations; task structure; and position power), one can predict whether or not she will be an effective manager to oversee the IT person. The outcome may indicate an ineffective match, in which the office manager should consider consulting with the managing partner to find a more appropriate leadership match to manage the IT person more effectively.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Penn State World Campus (n.d.). Leadership in Work Settings. [Commentary]. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1834747/modules/items/21827866
cpb147 says
This post has a special significance for me because I was an IT professional and have worked in technology for many years. My studies in leadership and psychology have brought me to an understanding of people in the technology realm. The Fiedler (1967 as cited in PSU WC, L6, 2017) model is based on determining the leader’s score for the least-preferred-coworker scale that will determine if they derive more satisfaction from tasks or relationships. Northouse (2007) discusses the characteristics of this model that include leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. The varying levels of these three also contribute to the favorableness of the leader to efficiently manage the follower in the given situation.
When it comes to the people I have had the privilege to work with, leaders or managers who do not have a similar mindset will find it difficult to manage technical people. I have not studied these personalities to be able to say what other professions where these types may have worked, but I can testify that they have a culture and behavior that is unique to the profession. My experience has been that these technical people are very sociable with other technical people and have difficulties communicating about normal social issues. This is not because they are socially inept, it is purely due to their spending so much time on technology related topics which they are extremely passionate about. Their reward system is almost purely intrinsic much like artists. Yet, artistic creativity is not one of their strong suits, however, building robots is.
These personality types will spend countless hours, often without sleep, to learn about a new technology or to play with a new technology. They would rather spend time building something just because they can rather than to use existing technology. My own example is when I was first learning programming. I was presented with a problem and there was a simple solution. I kept forgetting to pick up my daughter from school. I would get caught up in programming and writing code that I would lose track of time. I could have just set a reminder on the computer or set an alarm clock, but what was the fun in that? I spent nearly 24 straight hours learning how to interface with my computer’s modem so I could write a program that would page me when it was time to get her. Yes, this was a long time ago when we were still using dial-up internet and pagers.
Needless to say, technical people may benefit more from the relationship oriented manager. The manager needs to know that the reward system is different as well. The manager can still fire and hire, which gives them power, but they also have even more power knowing that simply not giving the IT person a fun task is punishment and allowing them free time to write their own programs is more than enough reward.
References
Contingency and Path Theories. (2017). Leadership in work settings – PSYCH 485. Online Course Lesson. Penn State University World Campus. The Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1834746/modules/items/21755128
Fiedler, F. E. (1967). Cognitive resources and leadership performance. Applied Psychology: An International Review 44(1), 5-28.
Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks. Sage. Retrieved from https://reserve-libraries-psu-edu.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/psy/532/53201.pdf