Leadership Chapter 6 - Contingency Theory

Although several approaches to leadership could be called contingency theories, the most widely recognized is Fiedler’s (1964, 1967; Fiedler & Garcia, 1987). Contingency theory is a leader–match theory (Fiedler & Chemers, 1974), which means it tries to match leaders to appropriate situations. It is called contingency because it suggests that a leader’s effectiveness depends on how well the leader’s style fits the context. To understand the performance of leaders, it is essential to understand the situations in which they lead. Effective leadership is contingent on matching a leader’s style to the right setting.

Fiedler developed contingency theory by studying the styles of many different leaders who worked in different contexts, primarily military organizations. He assessed leaders’ styles, the situations in which they worked, and whether they were effective. After analyzing the styles of hundreds of leaders who were both good and bad, Fiedler and his colleagues were able to make empirically grounded generalizations about which styles of leadership were best and which styles were worst for a given organizational context.

In short, contingency theory is concerned with styles and situations. It provides the framework for effectively matching the leader and the situation.

Leaderhip Chapter 7 - Path-Goal Theory

Path–goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path–goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation.

In contrast to the situational approach, which suggests that a leader must adapt to the development level of subordinates (see Chapter 5), and unlike contingency theory, which emphasizes the match between the leader’s style and specific situational variables (see Chapter 6), path–goal theory emphasizes the relationship between the leader’s style and the characteristics of the subordinates and the work setting. The underlying assumption of path–goal theory is derived from expectancy theory, which suggests that subordinates will be motivated if they think they are capable of performing their work, if they believe their efforts will result in a certain outcome, and if they believe that the payoffs for doing their work are worthwhile.

For the leader, the challenge is to use a leadership style that best meets subordinates’ motivational needs. This is done by choosing behaviors that complement or supplement what is missing in the work setting. Leaders try to enhance subordinates’ goal attainment by providing information or rewards in the work environment (Indvik, 1986); leaders provide subordinates with the elements they think subordinates need to reach their goals.

Leadership Chapter 4 - Style Approach

          The style approach emphasizes the behavior of the leader. This distin-guishes it from the trait approach (Chapter 2), which emphasizes the per-sonality characteristics of the leader, and the skills approach (Chapter 3), which emphasizes the leader’s capabilities. The style approach focuses exclusively on what leaders do and how they act. In shifting the study of leadership to leader style or behaviors, the style approach expanded the study of leadership to include the actions of leaders toward subordinates in various contexts.

          Researchers studying the style approach determined that leadership is composed of two general kinds of behaviors: task behaviors and relationship behaviors. Task behaviors facilitate goal accomplishment: They help group members to achieve their objectives. Relationship behaviors help subordi-nates feel comfortable with themselves, with each other, and with the situ-ation in which they find themselves. The central purpose of the style approach is to explain how leaders combine these two kinds of behaviors to influence subordinates in their efforts to reach a goal.

          Many studies have been conducted to investigate the style approach. Some of the first studies to be done were conducted at The Ohio State Uni-versity in the late 1940s, based on the findings of Stogdill’s (1948) work, which pointed to the importance of considering more than leaders’ traits in leadership research. At about the same time, another group of researchers at the University of Michigan was conducting a series of studies that explored how leadership functioned in small groups. A third line of research was begun by Blake and Mouton in the early 1960s; it explored how managers used task and relationship behaviors in the organizational setting.

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Notes:

Red      = Indowebster (fast for indonesia region)

Green   = Ziddu

Yellow = Ubuntu One

Leadership Chapter 5 - Situasional Approach

One of the more widely recognized approaches to leadership is the situational approach, which was developed by Hersey and Blanchard (1969a) based on Reddin’s (1967) 3-D management style theory. The situational approach has been refined and revised several times since its inception (see Blanchard, Zigarmi, & Nelson, 1993; Blanchard, Zigarmi, & Zigarmi, 1985; Hersey & Blanchard, 1977, 1988), and it has been used extensively in organizational leadership training and development.

As the name of the approach implies, situational leadership focuses on leadership in situations. The premise of the theory is that different situations demand different kinds of leadership. From this perspective, to be an effective leader requires that a person adapt his or her style to the demands of different situations.

Situational leadership stresses that leadership is composed of both a directive and a supportive dimension, and that each has to be applied appropriately in a given situation. To determine what is needed in a particular situation, a leader must evaluate her or his employees and assess how competent and committed they are to perform a given task. Based on the assumption that employees’ skills and motivation vary over time, situational leadership suggests that leaders should change the degree to which they are directive or supportive to meet the changing needs of subordinates.

In brief, the essence of situational leadership demands that leaders match their style to the competence and commitment of the subordinates. Effective leaders are those who can recognize what employees need and then adapt their own style to meet those needs.

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Notes:

Red     = Indowebster

Green  = Ziddu

Yellow = Ubuntu One

Leadership Chapter 3 - Skill Approach

Like the trait approach we discussed in Chapter 2, the skills approach takes a leader-centered perspective on leadership. However, in the skills approach we shift our thinking from a focus on personality characteristics, which usually are viewed as innate and largely fixed, to an emphasis on skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. Although personality certainly plays an integral role in leadership, the skills approach suggests that knowledge and abilities are needed for effective leadership.

Researchers have studied leadership skills directly or indirectly for a number of years (see Bass, 1990, pp. 97–109). However, the impetus for research on skills was a classic article published by Robert Katz in the Harvard Business Review in 1955, titled “Skills of an Effective Administra-tor.” Katz’s article appeared at a time when researchers were trying to identify a definitive set of leadership traits. Katz’s approach was an attempt to transcend the trait problem by addressing leadership as a set of develop-able skills. More recently, a revitalized interest in the skills approach has emerged. Beginning in the early 1990s, a multitude of studies have been published that contend that a leader’s effectiveness depends on the leader’s ability to solve complex organizational problems. This research has resulted in a comprehensive skill-based model of leadership that was advanced by Mumford and his colleagues (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000; Yammarino, 2000).

In this chapter, our discussion of the skills approach is divided into two parts. First, we discuss the general ideas set forth by Katz regarding three basic administrative skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Second, we discuss the recent work of Mumford and colleagues that has resulted in a new skills-based model of organizational leadership.

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Notes:

Red     = Indowebster

Green  = Ziddu

Yellow = Ubuntu One