Skip to content
Fiedler’s Leadership Contingency Theory
- Initiated the situational contingency approach in the mid-1960s.
- Fiedler’s approach emphasized that group effectiveness depends on an appropriate match between the leader’s style and situational demands.
- Key variables in Fiedler’s contingency model.
- Situational control.
- The extent to which a leader can determine what his or her group is going to do as well as the outcomes of the group’s actions and decisions.
- Is a function of:
- Leader-member relations.
- Task structure.
- Position power.
- Least preferred co-worker (LPC) score reflects a person’s leadership style.
- High-LPC leaders have a relationship-motivated style.
- Low-LPC leaders have a task-motivated style.
- Implications of Fiedler’s contingency model.
- Task-motivated leaders have more effective groups under conditions of low or high situational control.
- Relationship-motivated leaders have more effective groups under conditions of moderate situational control.
- Fiedler’s cognitive resource theory.
- Cognitive resources are abilities or competencies.
- A leader’s use of directive or nondirective behavior depends on:
- The leader’s or subordinates group members’ ability or competency.
- Group support of the leader.
- Directedness is most helpful for performance when the leader is:
- Otherwise non directedness is preferred.
- Evaluation and application of Fiedler’s contingency theory
- Controversy regarding what LPC actually measures
- Leaders match training
- Leaders are trained to diagnose the situation to match their LPC scores with situational control.
- Also shows how situational control variable can be changed to obtain a match.