1. Contingency Theories of Leadership13
Contingency Theories of Leadership
Chapter
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”
~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

2. Summary The five contingency theories of leadership:
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)
Normative decision model
Situational leadership model
Contingency model
Path-goal theory
They specify that leaders should make their behaviors contingent on certain aspects of the followers or the situation.
All theories implicitly assume that leaders can accurately assess key follower and situational factors.
They are all fairly limited in scope.

3. Introduction
Leadership is contingent upon interplay of all three aspects of the leader-follower-situation model.
Similarities between the theories:
They are theories rather than personal opinions.
They implicitly assume that leaders are able to accurately diagnose or assess key aspects of the followers and the leadership situation.
With the exception of the contingency model, leaders are assumed to be able to act in a flexible manner.
A correct match between situational and follower characteristics and leaders’ behavior is assumed to have a positive effect on group or organizational outcomes.

4. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)
Leadership relationship develops over time.
Leaders do not treat all followers the same:
“In group” – high quality exchange relationship that goes beyond what the job requires
“Out group” – low quality exchange limited to fulfilling contractual obligations
Role-taking (leader offers opportunity)
Role-making (role created on trust, betrayal)
Routinization (established relationship)

5. The Normative Decision Model
The level of input subordinates have in decision-making can, and does vary substantially depending on the issue.
Vroom and Yetton maintained that leaders could often improve group performance by using an optimal amount of participation in the decision-making process.
The normative decision model is directed solely at determining how much input subordinates should have in the decision-making process.

6. Decision Quality and Acceptance
Vroom and Yetton believed decision quality and decision acceptance were the two most important criteria for judging the adequacy of a decision.
Decision quality: Means that if the decision has a rational or objectively determinable “better or worse” alternative, the leader should select the better alternative.
Decision acceptance: Implies that followers accept the decision as if it were their own and do not merely comply with the decision.

7. Factors from the Normative Decision Model and the Interactional Framework
FIGURE 13.2 Factors from the Normative Decision Model and the Interactional Framework

8. The Situational Leadership Model – Leader Behavior
Task behaviors: The extent to which the leader spells out the responsibilities of an individual group.
Relationship behaviors: How much time the leader engages in two-way communication. Relationship behaviors include:
Listening, encouraging, facilitating
Clarifying, explaining why the task is important, giving support
The relative effectiveness of the two behavior dimensions often depends on the situation.

9. The Situational Leadership Model – Follower Readiness
Follower readiness: A follower’s ability and willingness to accomplish a particular task.
It is not a personal characteristic, but rather how ready an individual is to perform a particular task.
Readiness is not an assessment of an individual’s personality, traits, values, age, etc.
Any given follower could be low on readiness to perform one task but high on readiness to perform a different task.

10. Prescriptions of the Model
While combining follower readiness levels with the four combinations of leader behaviors, four segments along a continuum emerge.
Along this continuum, however, the assessment of follower readiness can be fairly subjective.
A leader may like to see followers increase their level of readiness for particular tasks through implementation of a series of developmental interventions to help boost follower readiness levels.

11. Concluding Thoughts about the Situational Leadership Model
The only situational consideration is knowledge of the task, and the only follower factor is readiness.
Situational Leadership is usually appealing to students and practitioners because of its commonsense approach as well as its ease of understanding.
It is a useful way to get leaders to think about how leadership effectiveness may depend somewhat on being flexible with different subordinates.

12. Factors from the Situational Leadership® Model and the Interactional Framework
FIGURE 13.4
Factors from the Situational Leadership ® Model and the Interactional Framework

13. The Contingency Model
Although leaders may be able to change their behaviors toward individual subordinates, leaders also have dominant behavioral tendencies.
The contingency model suggests that leader effectiveness is primarily determined by selecting the right kind of leader for a certain situation or changing the situation to fit the particular leader’s style.
To understand the contingency theory, one must look first at the critical characteristics of the leader and then at the critical aspects of the situation.

14. Least-Preferred Coworker Scale – Motivational Hierarchies for Low- and High-LPC Leaders
FIGURE 13.5
Motivational
Hierarchies for
Low- and High-LPC
Leaders

15. Hoosers:

16. Situational Favorability
Situational favorability: Amount of control the leader has over the followers.
The more control a leader has over followers, the more favorable the situation is, at least from a leader’s perspective.
Three sub-elements in situation favorability:
Leader-member relations (most powerful, relies on loyalty)
Task structure (quality of task completeness)
Position power (title, rank, authority)

17. Factors from Fiedler’s Contingency Theory and the Interactional Framework
FIGURE 13.8 Factors from Fiedler’s Contingency Theory and the Interactional Framework

18. The Path-Goal Theory
The underlying mechanism of the path-goal theory deals with expectancy, a cognitive approach to understanding motivation where people calculate:
Effort-to-performance probabilities
Performance-to-outcome probabilities
Assigned values to outcome
Path-goal theory uses the same basic assumptions as expectancy theory.

19. Interaction between Followers’ Locus of Control Scores and Leader Behavior in Decision Making
FIGURE 13.9 Interaction between Followers’ Locus of Control Scores and Leader Behavior in
Decision Making. Source: Adapted from T. R. Mitchell, C. M. Smyser, and S. E. Weed, “Locus of
Control: Supervision and Work Satisfaction,” Academy of Management Journal 18 (1975), pp. 623–30.

20. Factors from Path-Goal Theory and the Interactional Framework
FIGURE 13.11
Factors from Path–Goal Theory and the Interactional Framework