Contingency Theory & Situational Theory:

Contingency Theory:
The Fiedler contingency model is a leadership theory developed by Fred Fiedler based on the study of leadership styles and behaviors rather than traits and personal characteristics of leaders.  His work suggests that “the leader’s effectiveness is based on ‘situational contingency’ which is a result of interaction of two factors: leadership style and situational favorableness.”

Fiedler created the Least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale, an instrument for measuring an individual’s leadership orientation.  The LPC scale asks a leader to recall their least preferred co-worker and score them “using a series of bipolar scales of 1 to 8, such as the following: Unfriendly v. Friendly, Hostile v. Supportive, Guarded v. Open.

“The responses to these scales (usually 18-25 in total) are summed and averaged: a high LPC score suggests that the leader has a human relations orientation, while a low LPC score indicates a task orientation.” Leaders who receive a higher LPC score are assumed to be relationship motivated and tend to describe their least preferred co-workers in a more favorable light.  Leaders who are task motivated have a strong approach when scoring their least preferred coworker and receive lower LPC scores.

The second factor in Fiedler’s theory is situational favorableness.  “According to Fiedler, there is no ideal leader. Both low-LPC (task-oriented) and high-LPC (relationship-oriented) leaders can be effective if their leadership orientation fits the situation. The contingency theory allows for predicting the characteristics of the appropriate situations for effectiveness.

Three situational components determine the favorableness of situational control:

-          Leader-Member Relations, referring to the degree of mutual trust, respect and confidence between the leader and the subordinates.

-          Task Structure, referring to the extent to which group tasks are clear and structured.

-          Leader Position Power, referring to the power inherent in the leader's position itself.

When there is a good leader-member relation, a highly structured task, and high leader position power, the situation is considered a "favorable situation." Fiedler found that low-LPC leaders are more effective in extremely favorable or unfavorable situations, whereas high-LPC leaders perform best in situations with intermediate favorability.”

There is no universal or “best” way to manage; nor is there a perfect leadership style.  This theory suggests that the success of a leader is dependent upon different situational variables, the qualities of the followers and that improving effectiveness requires changing the situation to fit the leader, known as "job engineering."

Situational Theory:
The Situational Leadership Theory, is a leadership theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  Much like the contingency theory, the foundation of the Situational Leadership Theory is there is no solitary "best" style of leadership. Managers must use different leadership styles depending on the situation. It also supports the idea that “effective leadership is task-relevant and that the most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the Maturity ("the capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility for the task, and relevant education and/or experience of an individual or a group for the task) of the individual or group they are attempting to lead/influence. That effective leadership varies, not only with the person or group that is being influenced, but it will also depend on the task, job or function that needs to be accomplished.”

The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory rests on two fundamental concepts:

-          Leadership Style

-          The Individual or Group's Maturity Level

Their model allows you to analyze the situation using their levels of maturity, competency and commitment to decide on which Leadership Behavior/ Style would be most appropriate. Your leadership style will vary from one person to another depending on followers’ competencies and commitment in their task areas. 

“Hersey and Blanchard characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of Task Behavior and Relationship Behavior that the leader provides to their followers. They categorized all leadership styles into four behavior types, which they named S1 to S4:

S1: Telling - is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of the individual or group and provides the what, how, why, when, and where to do the task

S2: Selling - while the leader is still providing the direction, he or she is now using two-way communication and providing the socio-emotional support that will allow the individual or group being influenced to buy into the process.

S3: Participating - this is now shared decision making about aspects of how the task is accomplished and the leader is providing less task behaviors while maintaining high relationship behavior.

S4: Delegating - the leader is still involved in decisions; however, the process and responsibility has been passed to the individual or group. The leader stays involved to monitor progress.

Of these, no one style is considered optimal for all leaders to use all the time. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation.

Maturity Levels

The right leadership style will depend on the person or group being led - the follower. The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory identified four levels of Maturity M1 through M4:

M1 - They generally lack the specific skills required for the job in hand and are unable and unwilling to do or to take responsibility for this job or task.

M2 - They are still unable to take on responsibility for the task being done; however, they are willing to work at the task.

M3 - They are experienced and able to do the task but lack the confidence to take on responsibility.

M4 - They are experienced at the task, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. They are able and willing to not only do the task, but to take responsibility for the task.

Maturity Levels are also task specific. A person might be generally skilled, confident and motivated in their job, but would still have a Maturity level M2 when asked to perform a task requiring skills they don't possess.”

This model has four development levels of the follower.  This information should be used in order to establish the most appropriate leadership style that should be used.

D4: High competence and high commitment- experienced at the job, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. May even me more skilled than the leader.

D3: High competence and low/variable commitment- experienced and capable, but may lack the confidence to do it alone, or the motivation to complete the job quickly and efficiently.

D2: Low competence and high commitment- may have some relevant skills, but won’t be able to do the job without help.  The task or the situation may be new to them.

D1: Low competence and low commitment- Generally lacking the specific skills required for the job in hand, but has the confidence and/ or motivation to tackle it.

Both Fiedler’s Contingency Theory and Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory suggest that there is not one universal style of leadership that works in every case.  A leader’s behaviors should match the situation at hand.  The Contingency Theory focuses more on the leaders personality and how they respond in certain situations.  Whereas the Situational Theory focuses on the leader transforming their leadership style to the situation and their followers.

"According to Fiedler, a task-orientated style of leadership is more effective than a considerate (relationship-orientated) style under extreme situations, that is, when the situations, is either very favorable (certain) or very unfavorable (uncertain)" (Gannon 361). Task-orientated leadership would be advisable in natural disaster, like a flood or fire. In an uncertain situation the leader-member relations are usually poor, the task is unstructured, and the position power is weak. The one who emerges as a leader to direct the group's activity usually does not know any of his or her subordinates personally. The task-orientated leader who gets things accomplished proves to be the most successful. If the leader is considerate (relationship-orientated), he or she may waste so much time in the disaster, which may lead things to get out of control and lives might get lost.”

A personal example of a task-oriented leader would be dealing with a group of individuals for a group project.  During my IDS class we were assigned a group for our semester project.  I didn’t know any of my group members prior to this project.  Without knowing each other’s strengths, weaknesses, skills or personality, we were asked to assign a group leader.  There was one guy in our group who I found to be completely arrogant and insisted that he should be our group leader and be in charge of delegating tasks rather than doing research or preparing a section of the project.  We agreed to let him be the leader due to his persistence and undying self-confidence.  It wasn’t until a few weeks had passed that I realized we hadn’t met as a group to discuss the different parts of our project.  We didn’t have a timeline and not all of the sections had been assigned to group members yet.  The amount of work that had to go into this project was outrageous and I was beginning to think we wouldn’t have enough time to finish it.  With my GPA on the line and a group who was becoming increasingly discouraged with the project, I stepped in.  I am usually a very relationship oriented leader but when this situation occurred, I was forced to check my emotions at the door and not worry about hurting feelings. I assigned the “group leader” a section of the project, sent out an email with all the assignments listed and due dates for each section.  I asked for schedules and set up meeting dates and booked a room in the library for each week leading up to our project due date.  I much prefer to be the one who connects with my group members but in this instance a task-oriented leader was what our group needed.

An example of the situational theory would be a captain of a dance team.  There is always going to be diversity in teams.  It is important to evaluate the maturity and competency of each member and analyze how to address the team as a whole as well as how to address each individual on the team.  I would not expect a first year member to know everything that a 4 year member would know.  In order to be a successful leader you must know who you are leading and understand the different levels of competency, commitment and maturity.