Fiedler's Contingency Leadership Model

Contingency Thinking

By: Billy Farber

Contingency Thinking:

Assumes there is no best way to leading an organization

A leadership style is effective in effective in certain situations but not in others

These depend on internal and external factors (Fiedler's Contingency Model, 2015)

Fred Fiedler

Born on July 13th, 1922 in Vienna, Austria

Famous for creating Fielders Contingency Model in 1965 which shows a leaders effectiveness based on the situation

Dependent on two factors: Leadership Style and Situational Favourableness (Vilet, 2013)

Leadership Style

To determine managers leadership style, Fiedler developed a test known as the “Least Preferred Coworker Scale” (LPC). The test is not on the person you dislike personally but the person you have the most difficult getting the job done with.

The objective of this scale is to ask 16 personality traits of the person you least want to work with to determine their nature towards others. The test varies from friendless, efficiency, and being cooperative among others. The scale goes from one to eight, eight being the most favourable. (Least Preferred Coworker Scale, 2015)
Fiedler states that the results is a 73 or higher, you are a relationship-oriented leader. which in that case they put their LPC in favourable terms. These leaders think about the task getting done only after the relationship need is well satisfied. 64 or below you are a task-oriented leader. These leaders want satisfaction from efficiency of the assignment and only after tasks have been accomplished, these leaders work on creating social and interpersonal relationships with their employees. If you are between 65 and 72 you are considered a mixture of both then it is your turn to decide which managerial style you are. (11)
The contingency model, tries to match a leaders style from the results go the LPC scale quiz. Leaders who are prominently task-oriented (which had a low LPC score) are more effective in situations 1,2,3 and 8. People who received a high LPC score (relationship-oriented leader) are most effective in situation 4,5,6 and 7. Fiedler’s Contingency Model implies in which situations the leader will suit them best and not being effective in every situations. (Gupta, 2009)
Application of Fiedler's model involves matching up leadership style with situational favourableness for the most effective results. For example, task-structured leaders who have reward power will be more effective where the group has been assigned a clearly defined job . Relationship-oriented leaders will be more effective where the job is unclear and requires more demands and where the leader does not have reward authority but enjoys positive relationships with her team. (Travis, 2015)

Situational Favorableness
Fiedler determined that a leaders behaviour in a work environment is determined on the factors of the leaders situation.
1. Leader-members relations: The amount of honesty and confidence that your team has in you. How likeable you are to your group members, you allow them to follow whatever you say. A leader who is more trusted and has more power within the group, is in a more positive situation than a leader who is not trusted. (7)
2. Task Structure: The degree of how the leader describe a task to your colleges, structured or unstructured, vague or clear. The amount of clarity can determine the extent to which the task can be carried out.
3. Position Power- Fidler explains power as being strong or weak. The amount of power the leader has within the group to give punishment or reward. The more powerful the leader is in the group, the better the situation you are in to allow group members to accept the direction of the leader. (4) (Fiedler’s Contingency Model, 2015)

Strength and Weaknesses
Strengths:
The model is well thought-out because you need results form the LPC scale and the situation chart to determine a leaders best situation to work in
Model is able to predict, efficiency of the leader was factors are introduced into the workplace
Leaders with good personal relations are matched to a poorly structured task environment and leaders who are impersonal, they are placed in well task structured environment.

This is to increase productiveness.

The theory reduces the expectations from the leader, instead focuses on matching the leader to a task

Weaknesses:

LPC scale is subjective, and characteristics are relative in contexts. When giving how supportive the LPC is, is it for giving bad advice or for ignoring you, the test is unclear.

The LPC scale is debatable, it is difficult to comprehend how evaluating a co-worker can determine someones leadership style(Gupta, 2009)

Those who score in the middle of the LPC scale can not be decisively labeled as task-oriented or relationship-oriented, and the model does not allow for partial styles (Travis, 2015)

Bibliography

2015, Fiedler’s Contingency Model, Retrieved September 26th, 2015, fromhttp://managementstudyguide.com/fiedlers-contingency-model.htm

Vilet, V, 2013, Fred Fiedler, Retrieved on September 27th, 2015, from

http://www.toolshero.com/toolsheroes/fred-fiedler/
2015,Least Preferred Coworker Scale, Retrieved September 26th, 2015, from https://cyfernetsearch.org/sites/default/files/Least_PreferredCoworkerScale.pdf
Gupta,A ,2009, Contingent Leadership, Retrieved September 27th, 2015, from http://www.practical-management.com/Leadership-Development/Contingent-Leadership.html
Travis, E, 2015, Fiedler’s Contingency Theory of Leadership, Retrieved September 26th, 2015, from http://www.ehow.com/info_7756327_fiedlers-contingency-theory-leadership.html
2015, Fiedler’s Contingency Model, Retrieved September 26th, 2015, fromhttp://managementstudyguide.com/fiedlers-contingency-model.htm

Multiple Choice:
1. Who developed the contingency theory of management effectiveness?
Luther Gulick
Fred Fiedler
Peter Senge
Fredrick Taylor
2. What is the used in the contingency theory of management?
PLC
Grams
Hertz
LPC
3. Which of the following are motivations discussed in the theory?
Work and Play
Task and Relations
Work and Relations
Music and Work