The Contingency Theory is explained as a leader-match theory (Northouse 2013). Essentially the most effective leadership style for success is determined by the specific setting in question. According to the text “Leadership Theory and Practice”, the leadership styles noted of task motivated or relationship motivated are gauged against the situational characteristics of leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. The LPC (Least Preferred Coworker) Scale is used in this method to pinpoint where a leader falls between task motivated and relationship motivated (higher scores mean relationship motivated, lower scores mean task motivated). (Northouse 2013)
Position power is an area that stood out the most to me due to previous experience I have had with this being an issue in a failed leadership situation. Position power being defined as “the amount of authority a leader has to reward to punish followers”. (Northouse 2013) I didn’t realize exactly what the problem was at the time of the incident I’m going to describe, but after reading about the Contingency Theory and Position Power I realize this is what was causing the problem. At a previous job problems began to develop where a group of us employees who were assigned to perform the same kind of work, were not all on the same page and we were all doing different things. So a weekly training meeting was put in place to point out what kinds of things were being done inconsistently and how they should have been being done.
The training meeting was to be headed by an individual who had no authority and held the same position as those of us that she was to be training, on a weekly basis. From day one of the meeting her direction was met with resistance and blatant lack of respect for her authority (looking back, probably because she had none). After only the third meeting the discord became so bad it turned into an hour long meeting of simply argumentative situations, and very little information being taught or learned. Not only were those who were the “followers” in the situation being oppositional, but the “leader” of the meeting was not getting a handle on it and in fact returning the negativity and escalating that discord. It was a set up that didn’t work in the slightest way and an end was put to the meetings (even though they were clearly something that the group of us needed to be more efficient, the setup just wasn’t productive).
The way these meetings developed followed suite with the in text description on what happens when the wrong combination is in place:
a. A leader whose LPC style does not match a particular situation experiences stress and anxiety
b. Under stress, the leader reverts to less mature ways of coping that were learned in early development; and
c. The leader’s less mature coping style results in poor decision making, which results in negative work outcomes. (Northouse 2013)
The leader in this situation was visibly shaken during the turmoil of the meeting she was running, and she responded with attitude and comments that just created more tension and resistance.
It appears clear based on this framework that where she would fall on the LPC was not a match for the situation. The contingency model states that a low LPC score would be effective in both favorable and unfavorable situations (this was a clearly unfavorable situation). I took the LPC test for how I saw her at the time and in my calculations she was a 67, high LPC score, which would be effective in moderately favorable situations. The situation at hand was an unfavorable situation due to lack of position power, and therefore the result of this situation seems to go along consistently with the framework of the Contingency Theory.
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications