The Contingency Theory

The Contingency Theory

o    The theory is concerned with styles and situations.

o    Many approaches can be called contingency, but the most widely recognized is Fiedler's in 1964, 1967. Fred Fiedler from University of Illinois developed it.

o    This is a leader-match theory which tries to match the right leader for the situation.

o    The approach was developed by studying the styles of many different leaders who worked in different contexts, primarily military.

o    Hundreds of leaders were analyzed who were good and bad.

o    The LPC (Least Preferred coworker) was developed to measure the leaders styles. Leaders who score high or Low are task motivated. The LPC is closely related to the "Semantic differential scales" (The measurement of meaning, book).

o    The LPC scale. Fiedler thought that how a leader feels about people he or she works with might be a good indicator of whether he or she would be effective in dealing with them. In his earliest work Fiedler actually used two scales. He asked his respondents to describe both his or her least preferred coworker and his or her most preferred coworker. Fiedler then calculated the difference between the evaluation of the most preferred coworker and that of the least preferred coworker. He chose to call the resulting score the Assumed Similarity of Opposites (ASO) score. Fiedler later discovered that there was very little variation in the way the most preferred coworker was described by most people. On the other hand, the evaluations of least preferred coworkers varied quite widely. As a result, the only thing that was contributing to the results was the least preferred coworker score.

 

Leader Styles

Task motivated: concerned with reaching a goal

Relationship motivated: concerned with developing close relationships.

 

Situational variables

o    Leader member relations

                      i.            Group atmosphere and degree of confidence, loyalty and attraction that followers feel about their leader.

o    Task Structure

                      i.            The degree to which the requirements of a task is clear and well defined.

                    ii.            Well structured tasks give more control to the leader.

                   iii.            Vague and unclear tasks give less control and influence.

                  iv.            A task is considered structured when

1.       The requirements of the task are clearly stated and structured.

2.       The path to accomplishing the task has few alternatives.

3.       The completion of the task can be clearly demonstrated.

4.       Limited number of correct solutions to the task exist.

                    v.            An example of a structure task is "Cleaning the milk machine at McDonald's"

                  vi.            An example of an unstructured tasks is to run a fund raiser for an organization.

o    Position Power

                      i.            The amount of authority a leader has to reward or punish employees.

 

·         The 3 situational factors determine the favorableness of the situations.

·         The most favorable situations are defined by having a good leader-follower relation, defined tasks, and strong leader position power.       

·         The least favorable situations are defined by having a poor leader-follower relation, unstructured tasks, and weak leader position power.       

·         The theory posits that certain styles be more effective in certain situations.

·         Task motivated individuals are more effective in Very favorable & very unfavorable situations.

·         Relationship motivated individuals are more effective in moderately favorable situations.

  

 

How does the Contingency Theory work?

By measuring the LPC score and the three variables, one can predict whether a leader will be effective in a particular situation. Once the nature of situation is determined, the fit between the leader and the situation can be evaluated. leaders will not be effective in all situations.

 

Contingency  theory  represents    a    major  shift  in  leadership  research  from  focusing  only  on  the

leader to   considering the situational context.  It’s lesson has been to emphasize the importance of

matching  a  leader’s  style with  the demands  of a  situation and wider context.  In  everyday  life we

have noticed that some executives, who may be extremely successful in one organization, can fail in

another organization with a different culture, values and way of operation.

 

The contingency theory has many applications in the real world. It can explain for example why an individual is effective or ineffective in  a certain situation based on the various variables. It can also predict whether an individual was effective in a certain position can be effective in another.

 

Strengths

·         It is supported by a great deal of empirical research

·         It has forced us to consider the impact of situations on leaders

·         It is predictive and provides useful information regarding the type of  leadership that will most

likely be effective in certain contexts

·         It  is  realistic  in  saying  that  leaders  should  not  expect  to  be  able  to  lead  effectively  in  every situation

·         It provides data on leaders´ styles that could be useful to organizations in developing leadership

profiles.

 

Weakness

·         It fails to explain fully, why individuals with certain leadership styles are more effective in some

situations than in others. Fiedler calls this a "Black Box". The theory explains that the low LPCs are effective in extreme situations is that they feel more certain where they have control.

·         The leadership scale, which the model uses, is often criticized. It does not seem valid on the surface.

·         It is difficult to apply in practice. It requires analyzing the leader style and three relatively complex situational variables.

·         It fails to explain adequately what organizations should do when there  is a mismatch between

the leader and the situation in the workplace.

 

Leadership Instrument

The LPC scale is used in the contingency theory. It measures your style by having you describe a coworker with whom you have difficulty completing a job. The scores are indicated by three categories (Low LPC, Middle LPC, and High LPC). Low LPCs are task motivated. High LPCs are relationship motivated, and Middle LPCs are socio-independent.

 

 

Historical overview of the leadership theory

Basketball teams and surveying teams. Based on his study of the literature on leadership, Fiedler predicted that people who describe their least preferred coworker in positive terms would make better leaders. Such people, he theorized would be able to get along with a wider variety of people. To test this idea he decided to measure the LPC of some leaders and correlate their scores with the success of the group. For this purpose he needed groups for which a clear indication of success was possible. He chose boys' high school basketball teams in the state of Illinois. At the beginning of the season he went to a number of teams and had each team member complete the LPC scale. He also asked each boy to nominate those on the team they liked, those they looked up to, those they hung out with, etc. These are called sociometric questions. Using his results, Fiedler was able to determine who the informal leader of the team was. At the end of the season he correlated the informal leader's LPC score with the team's winning percentage and found a result that surprised him. There was a quite substantial and statistically significant negative correlation. The leaders with low LPC scores tended to be on winning teams. Since he had made the opposite prediction, he felt it was necessary to replicate those results before publishing the results. With another set of high school basketball teams he found the same results. He replicated the research with three-person surveying teams from engineering classes, using the instructor's grade on their practice surveys as his measure of success. Again he found that low LPC informal leaders had more successful teams.

 

Bomber crews are not basketball teams. Convinced that he had found an important factor involved in leadership, Fiedler expanded his horizons. He obtained a research grant to study leadership effectiveness in Air Force bomber crews. Using very similar techniques to those he had used with the basketball teams he obtained LPC scores and bombing run scores for a substantial number of bomber crews. He tested all crew members, but correlated the plane captain's LPC score with the crew's bombing run scores. To his shock and dismay, the correlation was not significant. Determined to understand what had happened he tried to determine what differences existed between the bomber crews and the basketball teams. He though that one important difference might be that in the basketball teams the leaders were emergent, nominated by the team members, while the plane captains were assigned. Going back to his data he determined that most plane captains would qualify as informal leaders using the same criteria he used with the basketball teams. He then dropped the captains who did not qualify as informal leaders and recalculated the correlation. With this selected sub sample the correlation was now significantly negative, that is the low LPC captains tended to have crews with higher bombing run scores. The correlation, however, was substantially lower than those he had found in his previous studies. So he began searching for another difference between bomber crews and basketball teams and found one. While all the players on a basketball team must work hard and play together to win games, the same was not true of bomber crews, at least not on practice bombing runs. He determined that on a bombing run there is one key member of the team whose actions determine how high the score will be. On daylight bombing runs this was the bombardier, on nighttime runs it was the radar operator.

 

The first contingency. Armed with this information Fiedler began to look at how the dynamics of the relationship between the captain and his key man might be involved in the failure to find strong support for the relationship of low LPC with effective leadership. Since Fiedler had obtained sociometric nominations from the bomber crews, he was able to determine how each captain felt about his key man. Some plane captains had named a key man as someone they liked to work with and some plan captains had not named a key man as someone they liked to work with. Fiedler then divided the sample up into those captains who felt positively toward a key man and those who did not. He then correlated the captains' LPC scores with the bombing run scores within each of those two groups. The results were striking. In the group of crews where the captain felt positively about the key man, the correlation was substantial, significant and negative. As with the basketball teams, plane captains in that subsample with low LPC scores had high bombing run scores and those with high LPC scores had low bombing run scores. Surprisingly, in the subsample of crews where the plane captain had not voiced positive feelings for the key man, the correlation was significant, substantial and positive. In that subsample, plane captains with high LPC scores had high bombing run scores and captains with low LPC scores had low bombing run scores. In the bomber crews the relationship between leader's LPC score and team success was contingent on the kind of relationship between the captain and the key man on the team.

 

Fiedler interpreted these results to mean that there was an optimum distance that needed to be maintained between a leader and his/her followers. He felt that low LPC leaders tend to be somewhat distant because of their basic leadership style. He also proposed that when a leader nominated a key man as someone he liked to work with, that leader tended to have a more close relationship with that man. On the other hand, when the leader did not feel that the key man was someone he liked to work with, that leader tended to have a more distant relationship with that man. The explanation went as follows. A low LPC leader tends to be somewhat distant by nature. When this low LPC leader chooses the key man as someone he likes to work with, the distance is not increased and they work productively together. When the low LPC leader does not like to work with the key man, the distance is further increased to a level too great for a productive working relationship.

 

A high LPC leader, on the other hand, tends to maintain quite close relationships with people because of his basic nature. When the high LPC leader chooses the key man as someone he likes to work with, the naturally close relationship becomes perhaps even closer, too close for a good leader-follower interaction. In these conditions the leader may fail to be as critical and demanding as a leader needs to be in order to get the best productivity from a follower. When a high LPC leader does not meet a key man with whom he likes to work, he creates enough distance to maintain a productive working relationship. This conclusion suggests an interesting application. If you are a high LPC person (that is you describe your least preferred coworker in very positive terms) then you should try to work with people you don't particularly like if you want to be productive. On the other hand if you are a low LPC person (you describe your least preferred coworker in quite negative terms) then you should try to work with people you like and respect. Fiedler abandoned this social distance interpretation when he developed the full contingency theory.

 

The contingency theory. Fiedler and his associates conducted many research studies on LPC and leader effectiveness over the next several years. In that period he discovered two other contingencies that had a moderating effect on the relationship between LPC and leader effectiveness. Eventually he arranged the three contingencies he had found in the manner shown in figure 6.1 on page 111 of the textbook. By dichotomizing each of the contingencies, he produced eight combinations arranged in the order shown. As the textbook author points out, the contingency combinations going from left to right are considered also to be from most favorable to least favorable for the leader. Thus we can see that the most important contingency is leader-member relations, because a situation with good leader-member relations is always considered better than a situation with poor leader-member relations regardless of the nature of the other contingencies. We can also see that task structure is more important than leader position power, since a high structure situation is always better than a low structure situation regardless of the amount of position power.

 

Fiedler then surveyed the research that had been done to that time using LPC and placed each study into a category based on leader-member relations, task structure, and position power of the leader. In seven of the eight categories there were at least a few studies relating leader LPC to performance of the group. In the three most favorable categories on the left (octants 1, 2 and 3) the average relationship was quite substantially negative and almost all the studies produced a negative relationship between leader LPC scores and performance. Surprisingly, in octant 4 (good leader-member relations, low structure and weak position power) the relationship shifted in the opposite direction. In octant 4 the average relationship between LPC and performance was substantially positive, meaning that in these conditions high LPC leaders tended to have groups with high performance and low LPC leaders tended to have groups with low performance. Nearly all the studies that fell into octant four produced positive relationships between LPC and group performance. The studies in octant five produced results similar to those in octant four. Fiedler actually had no studies where the conditions fell into octant six when he first proposed the contingency theory in 1964. In octant seven the average relationship between LPC and performance was positive but low. In octant eight the average swung quite sharply again. In the conditions of octant eight, where none of the contingencies were favorable for the leader, the average relationship was substantially negative and almost all of the studies produced a negative relationship. In these worst conditions for a leader, low LPC leaders were again clearly more effective in producing results. Subsequent research predicts which kind of leader is likely to be more effective for each octant. There is still some doubt, however, whether a clear prediction can be made for octant seven.

 

Fiedler's interpretation of the theory. In his many publications on the model, Fiedler proposes that the low LPC leader who is effective in promoting productivity in both the three most favorable contingency situations (octants 1, 2 and 3) and the most unfavorable situation (octant 8) does not behave the same in the favorable and unfavorable circumstances. He has suggested that all leaders prioritize what they try to accomplish. For a low LPC leader, the main focus is goal achievement and task accomplishment and the secondary focus is building good relationships and developing followers. The reverse is true of the high LPC leader. His or her main goal is building good relationships with the secondary goal of task accomplishment. In situations which are moderately to very difficult for the leader, most of his or her efforts go into promoting the main goal--task accomplishment for the low LPC leader, and relationship building for the high LPC leader. According to contingency theory, in the worst conditions for a leader (octant 8), working for task accomplishment at all costs is apparently the best thing to do. In this unfavorable situation, the low LPC leader shines. In moderately difficult situations (octants 4, 5 and 6), it appears that a strong, driving task orientation on the part of the leader does not work very well. In those moderately difficult situations, the high LPC leader is more successful.

 

In the three most favorable contingency situations (octants 1, 2 and 3), the leader has the luxury of taking it easy on his/her main goal and putting effort into the secondary goal. The high LPC leader may press harder for task accomplishment in these situations feeling that the goal of relationship development does not require so much attention. The low LPC leader on the other hand, backs off from so much pressure on task accomplishment and puts more effort into relationship building. Fiedler has indicated that he has evidence that low LPC leaders engage in more relationship behaviors than high LPC leaders in these situations that are favorable for the leader.

 

The effects of training and experience on leader effectiveness. Some of the most interesting and provocative aspects of contingency theory involve ideas about the effect of training and experience on leader effectiveness. According to contingency theory, training and experience allows the leader to give more structure to his or her work situation. In other words, if a leader is working in a situation where the task has low structure, such as octants 3 and 4 and octants 7 and 8, as he or she gains experience or is given good training the task becomes more structured. Thus a leader in a situation like octant 4, with good leader-follower relations, low structure and weak power, would with training and experience change to a situation like octant 2, with good leader-follower relations, high structure and weak power. At first glance, this should be a good thing, transforming a moderately difficult situation into one that is much more favorable for the leader. But wait. If the leader in question is high LPC, he or she was likely quite effective working in the octant 4 situation. Shifting this leader to octant 2, according to contingency theory, would result in lowered effectiveness. However, if the leader were low LPC the shift from octant 4 to octant 2 should increase effectiveness.

 

In another example, if the leader starts in octant 8, with poor leader-follower relations, low structure and weak power, and is able through training and experience to bring structure to the task, he or she would end up in octant 6. In this case we would expect improved performance from high LPC leaders and reduced performance from low LPC leaders. In other words the effectiveness of training and experience in improving leader performance depends on the LPC scores of the leaders you train and the contingency situation in which they are now working. This conclusion suggests that in some situations a little (or a lot) of training can be a dangerous thing. Fiedler has even suggested that some leaders be rotated back into more unfavorable circumstances when their experience has allowed them to improve the situation by imposing greater structure.

 

Martin Chemers, at the University of Utah, conducted a fascinating study that demonstrated the differential effect of training based on the LPC of the leader and the contingencies of the situation. The study was conducted at the height of the Viet Nam war. At that time students at most universities, including the University of Utah, felt quite negatively about the government, the military, and the war. Chemers used Army ROTC cadets from the university as his leaders. The study was conducted on days when they would be wearing their uniforms. The other students in the groups were not ROTC cadets, creating conditions where the leader follower relations would likely not be very good. The task the groups were given was to decode messages. The groups were not given any training or instruction in how to go about breaking these codes, guaranteeing that the task was quite unstructured. Since these groups met in a lab as volunteers for a psychology experiment and were given credit for just showing up, the leaders had no position power over the other group members. The situation was set up to be an octant 8 combination of contingencies. Half of the ROTC student leaders were high LPC based on an earlier test, and half were low LPC. Finally, half of the ROTC student leaders were given a short training session prior to the group meeting on how to go about breaking codes, and half were given no training at all.

 

Ordinarily, we would expect all groups whose leaders had been given training in how to break codes to do better than all groups whose leaders had not been given any training. On the other hand, contingency theory says that in the worst situation for a leader, octant 8, low LPC leaders should have groups that perform better than those of low LPC leaders. If the training changed the situation to octant 6, we would expect the trained high LPC leaders to do better than the trained low LPC leaders. This was exactly what happened. The groups with trained, low LPC leaders solved fewer codes than the groups with untrained, low LPC leaders. The groups with trained, high LPC leaders performed better than the groups with untrained, high LPC leaders. In other words, the training helped the leader be more effective if he was high LPC, but made his performance worse if he was low LPC.

 

Where does contingency theory fit?

The situational leadership has passed the test of the market. It is very popular with organizations but has very little research validation. Contingency theory has passed the test of research. It literally grew out of research relating leadership style with follower productivity. The contingency model is reproduced in every organizational and industrial psychology textbook, but has made very little impact on the leadership training of business organizations. Fiedler, Chemers, and others have attempted to apply the theory through their Leader Match training programs, but these have not been very popular. The problem seems to be with the basic idea of how much leaders can change their behavior. Situational leadership seems to make the assumption that an intelligent person can easily change his or her behavior to match the demands of the situation. All they have to learn is how to diagnose the development level of their followers. Contingency theory seems to argue that leaders can't really change. They are effective or ineffective depending on the situation they are in and whether it matches their own nature. The truth of the matter is likely somewhere in between. Leaders may be able to make some changes in their behavior, but these changes will be difficult, and require considerable training and effort. It is also likely that organizations could benefit substantially from devoting more attention to matching the styles of their leaders to the demands of the situation and moving leaders around to enhance the match.