Contingency Theories of Leadership

Contents • Contingency Theories of Leadership • • • •

Path-Goal Theory Situational Leadership Theory Substitutes for Leadership Fiedler’s Contingency Theory

Contingency Theories of Leadership • The “Interaction” Perspective of Leadership • Path-Goal Theory • Situational Leadership Theory • Substitutes for Leadership • Fiedler’s Contingency Theory

Path-Goal Theory • Leaders Influence Satisfaction and Performance • Increase Subordinate Outcomes By: • Clarifying Path to Goals • Reducing Roadblocks to Goals • Increase JS on the Way

• Links to VIE

• Inclusion of Task Characteristics and Subordinate Characteristics • 4 Types of Leaders • • • •

Supportive (Boring) Directive (Unstructured) Participative (Complex) Achievement-Oriented (High nACH Employees)

• Mixed Results

Causal Model for Supportive Leader on Subordinate Effort Reduce boredom Make more tolerable

Increase intrinsic Value of work Increase effort

Supportive leadership

Increase confidence And lower anxiety

Increase effort-performance expectation

*Yukl (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Causal Model for Directive Leadership on Subordinate Effort

Directive leadership

Reduce role ambiguity

Increase effort-perform expectation

Increase incentives

Increase valence for task success

Strengthen reward contingencies

Increase perform-reward expectation

*Yukl (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Increased effort

Situational Leadership • Hersey & Blanchard (1977) • Leadership Depends of “Maturity” of Followers • Job Maturity (KSAs) • Psychological Maturity (Self-Efficacy)

• Minimal to Moderate Maturity = Supportive • Moderate to Maximum Maturity = Directive • Developmental Interventions • Simple vs. Contingency Contracting

Amount of Behavior

Much

Hersey & Blanchard’s Model

Little

Directive Supportive

M1

M2

M3 Follower Maturity

*Yukl (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

M4

Substitutes for Leadership • Kerr & Jermier (1978) • Identify Aspects of Situation that Minimize Need for Leaders • Substitutes (Task, Organization, Roles, Subordinate Characteristics) • Neutralizers (Reward, Authority, External)

• Substitutes Make Leaders Redundant • Strong Support for Substitutes and Neutralizers

Summary of Substitutes Model Substitute or Neutralizer

Supportive Leadership

Instrumental (Directive) Leadership

A.

Subordinate Characteristics

1.

Experience, ability, training

2.

Professional orientation

Substitute

Substitute

3.

Indifference toward reward

Neutralizer

Neutralizer

Substitute

B. Task Characteristics 1.

Structured, routine

2.

Feedback provided by task

3.

Intrinsically satisfying

Substitute Substitute Substitute

C. Organization Characteristics 1.

Cohesive workgroup

Substitute

Substitute

2.

Low position power

Neutralizer

Neutralizer

3.

Formalization

Substitute

4.

Inflexibility

Neutralizer

5.

Dispersed worksites

Kerr & Jermier (1978)

Neutralizer

Neutralizer

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory • Fiedler (1964, 1967) • Situation Moderates Leader Effectiveness and Subordinate Traits • Based on “Least Preferred Coworker” (LPC) • Indicates Leader’s Motive Hierarchy (nAFF) • High LPC is Considerate • Low LPC is Directive

• Based on Situational Favorability • Leader-Member Relations, Position Power, Task Structure

Fiedler’s LPC Model

Leader’s LPC

Group performance

Leader-member relations Leader position power Task structure

*Yukl (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.