Contingency theory in leadership posits that leaders are consistent in their behavior tendencies with differing situations. It suggests that leaders cannot change their behavior/style and instead recommends finding the right leader for the right situation” (PSU WC L. 6 p. 3). This general idea is that some leaders are more inclined to be successful in certain situations, and that just because they were successful in one situation, does not guarantee success in an entirely different situation. Based on the research of F.E. Fielder, it was concluded that certain leadership styles work best in certain types of situations (Northouse, 2007).
I have experienced this theory in action as someone who frequently participates in the hiring process at my current organization. Recently, there has been a job opening for a leadership position in my sales district. This individual would be a peer of mine. My direct manager asked that I take part in the hiring process for this replacement.
To set the stage, the former manager of this sales team was recently terminated. This was a termination that no one saw coming, and the sales team under this individual felt blindsided. This team was very tight knit, in fact the manager often had them over to his house for barbeques, and took them on “team outings” often. This team was in no way high performing but they were known for being very close with each other. When the manager was terminated, the morale within this group was destroyed. They began to not show up to work, calling off, applying for family leave, results dropped. They were in a bad place.
Considering all of the applicants that we were beginning to interview, we had a wide range of individuals to work with. All of them came with great past results on their current sales team. It was when my DM and I began to eliminate individuals that she made a great observation to me. She would need to be very careful who she put into this role based on the delicate state they were in. If she put someone in there that has a tendency to be more aggressive and tough, it could collapse this team. In effect, what she was doing was applying the contingency theory to her hiring decision. She understood that their leadership style would determine success in the role based around the current situation of the sales team. My DM recognized that “effective leadership is contingent on (depends on) matching a leader’s style to the right setting” (PSU WS L.6 p. 3).
Taking into consideration how Fielder evaluated the general styles applied by leaders, this position would be best suited for a leader that is high on the LPC scale. Leaders that rate high here are motivated by relationships, and focus first on building and maintaining relationships with their followers (PSU WC, L6. P. 5). This is one advantage of the application of this theory; it has predictive power (Northouse, 2007 p. 117). Contingency theory can help us predict the success of a leader in certain situations, and in this case, placing a leader with a high priority of tasks versus relationships could be detrimental to both the leader and team success. In fact, placing a leader in a situation not suited to their style can cause stress and anxiety and result in immature way of that leader coping and likely leads to poor decisions (PSU WC L.6 p.5).
There is truly something to be said about placing the right leader in the right situation. While it may not be realistic to remove a leader from a situation their style does not match with, if you play any part in the hiring process it would be wise to consider the situation in which you are placing this leader and examining if their leadership style is best suited to that unique situation. It is much easier to make smarter hiring decisions that it is to fix a bad hiring decision. In fact, “companies should try to place leaders in optimal situations, in situations that are ideal for their leadership style” (Northouse, 2007 p.117).
References
Northouse, Peter Guy. Contingency Theory. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks. SAGE. 2007 1452203407. Pp. 113-126
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). Lesson 6: Contingency & path-goal theories. PSYCH485: Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved May 27, 2019, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/su19/2195min-5376/content/06_lesson/printlesson.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Great post. I understand the concern your DM raised when hiring the replacement manager. She is correct; the loss of morale would need to be addressed by the new leader. Based on your application of the contingency theory to these circumstances, the style of the new manager will be fixed and requires you to choose the leader to fit the situation (PSU WC, 2019, L. 6). A leader with a High LPC (Least Preferred Coworker), a leader whose focus is human relations of the team, could be the right choice for the current state of the group, but will this situation remain constant? One of contingency theory’s limitations is it doesn’t operate with changing variables (PSU WC, 2019, L. 6). Contingency theory can be used to help select what type of leadership behaviors the group currently requires, but if you base the selection of the new manager on relationship skills alone, this will not serve the team to improve performance.
As you mentioned in your post, the team was not a high performer and it seems the organization could benefit from a new leadership approach. Perhaps the path-goal theory is a more appropriate approach for the new manager to use. A supportive leadership style could be used initially, according to Northouse (2016) supportive leadership is focused on relationships and attending to the needs of their followers; attempting to make the followers’ work environment pleasant (Northouse, 2016). The path-goal approach would allow the new manager the flexibility to change behaviors based on the team’s needs as they can change over time and can be modified to meet the needs of individual team members.
References
Northouse, Peter G. (2016) Leadership, Theory and Practice, 7th ed., Sage Publications.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2019). PSYCH 485: Leadership in work settings. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1985970/modules/items/26589495
Terry,
Contingency theory provides a satisfying, intuitive understanding of leadership and leadership failures. The right leader with the right style in the right situation will obviously do well; a mismatch of those will lead to failure. Northouse (2007) does, however, discuss several weaknesses to the theory: the LPC score is a complicated diagnostic and uses a hard to explain methodology, it fails to explain why some people are good in certain situations and bad at others, and that it lacks a corrective mechanism. Personally, I think the theory also ascribes too much to the identity and core of the leader. This could lead to a categorical error, where we ascribe behaviors to our understanding of people’s intentions, character, and identity (Brown, 2012). People are capable of changing behaviors and even changing how people perceive them.
Situational theories of leadership, like Situational Leaderhip II, combine the personality of a leader, the style of leadership, and the needs of the followers (Northouse, 2016). Your former colleague, based on your description of their behaviors was displaying a country-club leadership style, which is a high people, low production focus (PSU WC, 2019, L. 5). As you said, the team got along great but failed to meet objectives. This shows how the style was mismatched to the situation. I’m not sure if the team lacks confidence in their abilities to achieve their goals or the technical competence to do the job, but situational leadership would tell us that we should consider those in selecting an appropriate style (Northouse, 2016). A tweak to a leader’s behaviors can make huge changes in the outcomes of their teams. Let’s assume that they were confident but not competent. Maybe a little more directive leadership from your former colleague could have changed the situation.
This is not to say that your former colleague was capable of doing that. Personality factors are always present and comfort with certain leadership styles varies from person to person. The difference between situational or style based theories of leadership and contingency theories of leadership is how much emphasis they put on the characteristics and personality of a leader.
Ascribing the entirety of leadership to the person is a categorical error. Certainly, the person failed to achieve objectives, but it isn’t necessarily a failure of the person. On the other hand, if the team achieved its goals, it wouldn’t be the singular achievement of the leader. This is not to say that leaders shouldn’t be held to account or sometimes fired. I think, though, that considering a non-person based perspective may help your firm with a search. Maybe searching for people who can express some concern for people and some concern for production would help, as the middle-of-the-road style describes (Northouse, 2016). This style could help maintain excellent team unity and push them towards growth. But I wouldn’t stop there, this person should also be able to adapt. If the team does fall apart and needs to be reformed, they will have to exhibit different behaviors. It’s hard to find the perfect leader for a situation because situations are dynamic.
Contingency theories get us to the same place, as you described but their focus on the person makes it easy to ascribe failures and successes to the individual. That’s the danger in the categorical error. Situational and style theories help us understand the process of leadership a little more holistically than contingency theories. All three combined, I think, give us a very good insight into leadership: a person’s capacity to exhibit behaviors, their ability to adapt to a situation, and their ability to modulate behaviors to affect a style is a pretty good description of what makes an effective leader.
References
Brown, A. M. (2012). Know your fallacy: category error. Blue Magic Smoke. Retrieved June 1, 2019, from http://www.aaronmbrown.net/blog/2012/04/know-your-fallacy-category-error/
Northouse, P. G. (2007). Contingency theory. Leadership theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Pennsylivania State University World Campus. (2019). PSYCH485: Leadership in work settings. Retrieved June 1, 2019, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1985970