Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership was introduced in 1964. This model was developed by Fred Fiedler, an Austrian psychologist, and researcher by profession, who studied the characteristics and personalities of leaders from different domains.
In his theory, Fiedler talked about the criticality of the leader’s personality and the situation to figure out the best leadership style. He explained that different situations require different solutions, and leadership methods should be tailor-made for a particular instance.
What is Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership?
Definition: Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership states that there is no single best style of leadership and the most effective leadership style in each situation depends on the leader’s efficiency. The leader’s decisions align with the situation and make the leadership style effective.
Elements of Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership
#1 – Situational Favorableness
An assessment of the situation is the first element of this model. This element states that every situation is unique and requires a different leadership style.
The situational favorableness depends on the influence and power of the leader. The more control the leader has of the situation, the more favorable the situation is and vice versa.
Three factors affect situational favorableness.
- Position Power: Position power refers to the leader’s authority over their team. If the leader can order the team and punish and reward them for their performance, the leader has a strong position. When the team accepts and complies with the leader’s decision, it lets the leader work as per the situation demands.
- Leader-Member Relations: Leader-member relations refer to how much the leader is liked and respected by the team and how much the leader is willing to work to help their team members grow. It is all about mutual trust and the healthy relationship between the leader and team members. The more willing a team is to follow the leader’s guidance, the higher the leader-member relationship degree, leading to a greater situational favorableness.
- Task Structure: Task structure refers to how each task is structured and assigned to the team members. Tasks with precise details provide better understanding amongst the team members and higher situational favorableness as everybody knows what to do and how.
#2 – Leadership Style
Leadership style is the second element in this model. Fiedler developed a model called the Least Preferred Coworker Scale to find one’s natural leadership style.
A leader can determine their score on this scale by describing the coworker they least resonate with and have a minimal preference for working with. The scale ranges from 1 to 8, with 1 being the most unfriendly nature and 8 depicting the friendliest nature.
If the leader rates their least preferred coworker more positively, it indicates that the leader is more relationship-oriented. If they rate coworkers more negatively, the leader is more task-oriented.
Relationship-oriented leaders are better at building strong leader-member relationships and managing conflicts seamlessly to get tasks done.
Task-oriented leaders are better at organizing teams, projects, and gatherings to get a task successfully managed.
The Two Leadership Styles in Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership
#1. Transactional Leadership
Transactional leadership refers to the style of leadership that uses motivation and incentive to motivate team members and get the job done. Such leaders believe in a reward-punishment motivation system. A reward is given to the subordinate when they complete the task as desired, and punishment follows if the team member fails to follow the leader’s command.
A strong focus is on supervision, performance, and organization in transactional leadership, as leaders emphasize short-term goals. Transactional leaders are result-oriented, direct, and action providers. Their relationship with the team members is transitory.
A transactional leader incorporates the following four elements in their leadership.
- Contingent Rewards: The leader ensures that expectations are clear, goals are mutually agreed upon, and necessary resources are given to the team members so that they can achieve what is desired. Various kinds of rewards are given to the team members upon successful performance.
- Ample Opportunities: A transactional leader follows the laissez-faire theory where they provide free space to their team members with an environment with several opportunities to make their choices.
- Active Management: Transactional leaders actively analyze and monitor the team members’ work and performance, look for deviations and take corrective measures whenever needed.
- Passive Management: Transactional leaders only interfere with the team members’ working process when performance does not meet their expectations.
Characteristics of a Transactional Leader
- Highly efficient in guiding team members to increase productivity
- Extremely directive, result-driven and action-oriented
- Holds the ability to make important and tough decisions timely
- Replaces their wants with the wants of the team members
- Makes sure to keep the team self-motivated and driven through a reward-punishment system
- Develops goals, directs the team towards the goals, and strives to control outcomes in their favor
- Has a solid authoritative personality when needed
- They follow “manage by exception,” which refers to not interfering with tasks if everything goes as expected.
Transactional leadership is used in an organization that strictly sticks to rules and procedures. This leadership style focuses less on innovation, creativity, and individual growth. Most big corporations, multinationals, and the military follow transactional leadership.
#2. Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership focuses on working beyond a team member’s self-interest to foster innovation and creativity. A transformational leader works with the team to identify required changes, provides the team members with the path to adapt to the change, and supports them throughout their journey.
This leadership style inspires and encourages positive change in the working environment, enabling employees to grow and transform. Transformational leaders are enthusiastic, optimistic, energetic, passionate, and always willing to adapt to newness.
These leaders are involved with team members and help them succeed. They are team players and walk with team members.
Four Components of Transformational Leadership
- Inspirational Motivation: Leaders with a transformational vision ensure that they articulate their vision to the team members clearly. They help team members develop the same motivation to fulfill long-term and short-term goals by inspiring, encouraging, and supporting them.
- Intellectual Stimulation: Transformational leaders are big on encouraging creativity amongst their team members. They challenge each individual’s status quo, work along with innovation, explore new methodologies and encourage team members to grab every new opportunity that comes their way.
- Idealized Influence: This refers to transformational leaders acting as role models for their team members through their sheer passion and commitment to the work and their followers.
- Individualized Consideration: Transformational leaders support team members individually. They provide team members with personalized solutions so that each member can rise above standards and succeed further. This helps build supportive and strong relationships and leads to seamless communication. Team members become more open to sharing ideas and discussing challenges that lead to successful teamwork.
Characteristics of a Transformational Leader
- Always open to new thinking, innovations, and working processes
- Constant opportunity grabbers for themselves and team members
- Helps team members broaden their perspective about themselves, others, and the work overall
- Encourages active listening and brings proactive solutions to the table
- Always listens to ideas with an open mind and tries incorporating them wherever possible
- Holds enormous tolerance for risks that can lead to high rewards
- Completely trusts their team members and their abilities to perform a task successfully
- Highly optimistic about the success of a task
- Holds the strength to accept responsibility at the time of failure
- Transformational leaders are self-managers with a clear vision and set direction
- Acts as a big inspiration for the team members by conveying the right ideologies
- Understands the collective consciousness of the organization they work in and shares the same ideas that help the organization grow
Transformational leadership is used in organizations that are open to change, adaptability, and newness. Such organizations support innovation, creation, and technology to the best of their ability and ensure that the company never falls behind the changing dynamics.
Amazon is an ideal example when discussing transformational leadership. Amazon has created several short-term goals that boil down to its mission statement: “To serve consumers through online and physical stores and focus on selection, price, and convenience.”
Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos ensures that innovation, advancement, technology, and creativity are always at par with Amazon’s employees. Each person grows to the best of their abilities while working towards uplifting the organization.
Guide to Applying Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership
#1 – Leadership Style Analysis
Once a leader has identified their natural leadership style through the LPC scale by answering questions, it is also essential to check how much their leadership style suits the current situation.
Let’s say that the scores tell the leader that their LPC score is low (below 54), making them a task-oriented leader, but the current situation suggests that their team is in dire need of building strong relations. In this case, a hybrid leadership model should be executed.
On the contrary, if a leader’s LPC scores are high (above 73), they are a relationship-oriented leader, but their team requires a greater focus on task fulfillment. A hybrid model containing both leadership styles is the right way to proceed.
#2 – Situation Analysis
Here, the leader analyzes the team’s situation to decide on the right leadership style. Situational favorableness can be determined by asking these three questions:
- Where do the leader-member relations stand?
- Are the leader’s influence and authority over their team members strong or not?
- Are tasks conveyed clearly with a proper structure?
Assess the answers and take an average. Negative answers will scale between 0 to 5, whereas positive answers range between 5 to 10.
#3 – Leadership Decision
A task-oriented leader best suits jobs in which decisions related to highly favorable and unfavorable situations are involved. Such leaders perform well in extreme situations. However, relationship-oriented leaders are best suited to lead in situations with moderate favorability and are not too severe in nature. Leaders must decide which situation is the right task for them.
#4 – Delegation
Leadership styles are fixed. If the leader is not suitable for the situation, management must delegate authority to the right person.
#5 – Situational Change
If a leader believes that their leadership style does not fit the situation in the best way possible, it is recommended to try and change the situation. Situations can be altered by clarifying tasks, improving internal relations, amplifying authority, or delegating within the team.
Conclusion
Choosing the right leadership style is important if the leader and team want to succeed. Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership provides a straightforward method to check if the leader is the right fit for the situation. The model does not only help build impactful leaders but also helps them recognize potential leaders.