Fielder Contingency Theory Analysis

4.2 The Contingency Theories of Leadership.

Contingency theories of leadership evolved in response to the failure of ‘universalistic’ approaches to leadership and the realization that the situation in which leadership occurs also impacts leadership effectiveness (House 1996; Keller, 1973; Miner 2011) The basic premise of these theories is that each organisation is unique, and exists in a distinctive environment. Factors such as the organization’s size, scope of work, technology employed as well as the physical and cultural environment, together create ‘contingencies’ or situations that impact the leader’s leadership style. As a consequence, successful leadership must take into consideration interactions between all factors making up the general

Unlike the Fielder model, the Path-Goal model considers leaders to have some flexibility in moderating their leadership styles in response to changing situations (University of Leicester 2011). Nevertheless, despite the identification of behaviours and contingency moderators that can improve leadership in a given situation, practicing that behavior ultimately depends upon the abilities and social skills of the leader. In terms of the Fielder contingency model (University of Leicester 2011), since it was not possible to have the MD retrospectively and remotely provide an LPC score at this time, it is assumed that, if he were he able to, the MD would have scored high on the LAC as not only was his style more relationship-oriented than task-oriented, but at this stage of his career, he was undoubtedly confident in his abilities . Given his personality, his leader member relationship was also likely to be generally advantageous as he had put a lot of effort into building trusting relationships across the bank. However, since the organizational goals were new and the management was new, the task structure would have been ambiguous and therefore disadvantageous. Further, while

Likewise, no changes would have ensued to work-group characteristics or the authority system (except for any employees who shifted positions and consequently changed authority levels). The new leader however caused a positive shift in the expected behavioural norms as the bank had been under autocratic management with the previous MD. In all therefore, the model predicted that the high levels of supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership displayed by the MD, suited the interactions expected between the subordinate and environmental contingencies, especially at the A/B levels of