Fiedler’s Contingency Leadership Theory

The Fiedler’s contingency model proposed that effective group performance depends on the proper match between the leader’s style of interacting with his or her followers the degree to which the situation allowed the leader to control and influence. According to Fiedler, three major elements are said to determine whether a given situation is favourable to a leader or not. They are:

How to improve a leader’s relations with members, task structure and position power ?

As suggested by Fiedler in his contingency theory, there may be  a need to change the situation for the leaders style. Fiedler offers some pragmatic procedures for improving a leaders relation, task structure and position power.

Leader- member relations

Could be improved by restricting the leader’s group of subordinates to be more compatible in background, education level, technical expertise or ethnic origin. Restricting the group may be extremely difficult if the group is unionized because the union leaders will interpret restructuring as a move to weaken the union.

Task structure

Can be modified in either way, it can be made more structured by spelling out the jobs in greater detail or it can be made less structured by providing only general directions for the work to be accomplished.

Position power

Can be modified in a number of ways

1)   A leader can be given a higher rank in the organization or more authority to do the job.

2)  A memo can be issued indicating the rank change or the authority a leader now possesses.

3) A leader’s reward power can be increased if the organization delegates authority to evaluate the performance of subordinates.

Limitations of Fiedler’s Contingency Theory

1)  Fiedler’s suggestions to improve leader effectiveness by bringing in a new leader whose style better fits the situation or by changing the situation to fit the leader, may not be feasible in every organization.

2) There were problems with the LPC and the practicality of it needed to be addresses.

3)  It is probably unrealistic to assume that a person can’t change his or her leadership style to meet the needs of a particular situation.

4) The contingency variables were complex and different for practioners to assess.

5)   It was often difficult in practice to determine how good the leader-member relations were, how structured the task was and how much position power the leader had.