What is the best leadership style? By now, you must have
realized that this may not be the right question to ask. Instead, a
better question might be: Under which conditions are certain
leadership styles more effective? After the disappointing results
of trait and behavioral approaches, several scholars developed
leadership theories that specifically incorporated the role of the
environment. Specifically, researchers started following a
contingency approach to leadership—rather than trying to identify
traits or behaviors that would be effective under all conditions,
the attention moved toward specifying the situations under which
different styles would be effective.
Fiedler’s Contingency Theory
The earliest and one of the most influential contingency
theories was developed by Frederick Fiedler (Fiedler, 1967).
According to the theory, a leader’s style is measured by a scale
called Least Preferred Coworker scale (LPC). People who are filling
out this survey are asked to think of a person who is their least
preferred coworker. Then, they rate this person in terms of how
friendly, nice, and cooperative this person is. Imagine someone you
did not enjoy working with. Can you describe this person in
positive terms? In other words, if you can say that the person you
hated working with was still a nice person, you would have a high
LPC score. This means that you have a people-oriented personality,
and you can separate your liking of a person from your ability to
work with that person. On the other hand, if you think that the
person you hated working with was also someone you did not like on
a personal level, you would have a low LPC score. To you, being
unable to work with someone would mean that you also dislike that
person. In other words, you are a task-oriented person.
According to Fiedler’s theory, different people can be effective
in different situations. The LPC score is akin to a personality
trait and is not likely to change. Instead, placing the right
people in the right situation or changing the situation to suit an
individual is important to increase a leader’s effectiveness. The
theory predicts that in “favorable” and “unfavorable” situations, a
low LPC leader—one who has feelings of dislike for coworkers who
are difficult to work with—would be successful. When situational
favorableness is medium, a high LPC leader—one who is able to
personally like coworkers who are difficult to work with—is more
likely to succeed.
How does Fiedler determine whether a situation is “favorable,”
“medium,” or “unfavorable”? There are three conditions creating
situational favorableness: leader-subordinate relations, position
power, and task structure. If the leader has a good relationship
with most people and has high position power, and the task at hand
is structured, the situation is very favorable. When the leader has
low-quality relations with employees and has low position power,
and the task at hand it relatively unstructured, the situation is
very unfavorable.
Figure
12.9 Situational Favorableness
Situational favorableness |
Leader-subordinate relations |
Position Power |
Task structure |
Best Style |
Favorable |
Good |
High |
High |
Low LPC Leader |
Good |
High |
Low |
Good |
Low |
High |
Medium |
Good |
Low |
Low |
High LPC Leader |
Poor |
High |
High |
Poor |
High |
Low |
Poor |
Low |
High |
Unfavorable |
Poor |
Low |
Low |
Low LPC leader |
Sources: Based on information in Fiedler, F. E. (1967).
A theory of leadership effectiveness. New
York: McGraw-Hill; Fiedler, F. E. (1964). A contingency model of
leader effectiveness. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, vol.
1 (pp. 149–190). New York: Academic
Press.
Research partially supports the predictions of Fiedler’s
contingency theory (Peters, Hartke, & Pohlmann, 1985; Strube
& Garcia, 1981; Vecchio, 1983). Specifically, there is more
support for the theory’s predictions about when low LPC leadership
should be used, but the part about when high LPC leadership would
be more effective received less support. Even though the theory was
not supported in its entirety, it is a useful framework to think
about when task- versus people-oriented leadership may be more
effective. Moreover, the theory is important because of its
explicit recognition of the importance of the context of
leadership.
Situational Leadership
Another contingency approach to leadership is Kenneth Blanchard
and Paul Hersey’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) which argues
that leaders must use different leadership styles depending on
their followers’ development level (Hersey, Blanchard, &
Johnson, 2007). According to this model, employee readiness
(defined as a combination of their competence and commitment
levels) is the key factor determining the proper leadership style.
This approach has been highly popular with 14 million managers
across 42 countries undergoing SLT training and 70% of Fortune 500 companies employing its use.
The model summarizes the level of directive and supportive
behaviors that leaders may exhibit. The model argues that to be
effective, leaders must use the right style of behaviors at the
right time in each employee’s development. It is recognized that
followers are key to a leader’s success. Employees who are at the
earliest stages of developing are seen as being highly committed
but with low competence for the tasks. Thus, leaders should be
highly directive and less supportive. As the employee becomes more
competent, the leader should engage in more coaching behaviors.
Supportive behaviors are recommended once the employee is at
moderate to high levels of competence. And finally, delegating is
the recommended approach for leaders dealing with employees who are
both highly committed and highly competent. While the SLT is
popular with managers, relatively easy to understand and use, and
has endured for decades, research has been mixed in its support of
the basic assumptions of the model (Blank, Green, & Weitzel,
1990; Graeff, 1983; Fernandez & Vecchio, 2002). Therefore,
while it can be a useful way to think about matching behaviors to
situations, overreliance on this model, at the exclusion of other
models, is premature.