Organizational Behaviour - Leadership in Organizations - Case Study Example

Introduction Leadership in organizations is considered as one of the hotly debated topics in academic as well as professional literature due to its significance towards the overall success of any organization. It's due to this significance that many attempts have been made in order to determine the sources of the emergence of leadership. From where leadership emerges is one of the key questions which is being extensively discussed and debated over the period of time. Various theories and models were put forward to discuss the exact nature of leadership and how it emerges within the organizations. These theories discussed different styles of leadership also which include leadership styles such as situational, transformational, servant-leadership etc. The topic of this essay is to discuss the contingency model of leadership and the subsequent changes which took place over the period of time in the concept and theoretical foundations of the concept. However, before discussing the concept, it is important that a comprehensive look at what the leadership is and how it emerges must be taken into account. What is leadership As discussed above that there were different attempts being made in defining the process of leadership and how it emerges. Leadership has typically been defined as the process of influencing others in order to accomplish some objectives through others. Leaders often achieve this through their personal attributes such as values, knowledge, ethical considerations as well as character. However, on an organizational level, leadership is more concerned with organizational functioning as well as coordination of various activities in order to achieve the intended objectives. Recent advances in the literature however, clearly indicate that leadership is not just limited to the concept of accomplishing tasks through personal attributes rather it is more of a collaborative effort which does not rely on the leader but on followers also. This leadership is therefore a two way concept involving both the leaders and followers to accomplish any given task. A historical look at the development of leadership theories would suggest that it started with the emergence of Great Man theories which emphasized the in-born capabilities of the leaders. Such theories highlighted that great leaders are born leaders and leadership is something which cannot be acquired or developed over the period of time.(Horner,1997). The next generation of change in leadership theories focused on the contextual relationship of the leadership with the organization. The situational leadership theories therefore concentrated on studying the influences of external environment on the behavior of the leaders and attempted to define external environment as an influential factor on the overall shaping of the leader. Situational theories are based on the assumption that leaders emerge either due to the economic condition of the country, group dynamics, threats which are external to the organization as well as the different organizational culture prevailing in organizations. The situational leadership is therefore considered as the result of a leader's reaction towards the different external settings and influences faced by the organization. (Hollander, 1971). Fiedler's contingency model is part of this school of thought about leadership. Fielder's Contingency Model Fielder's contingency model is based on the assumption that the group performance is "contingent upon favorableness of the group -task situation for the leader" (Fishbien et. al, 1969). This assumption suggested that a leader is bound to perform better if the situation is favorable to the leader otherwise leaders may not deliver. The contingency model put forward by Fiedler was based on two major assumptions. It assumed that Group performance is dependent on: 1. Leadership style 2. Situational Favorableness Fiedler's basic assumption was that the leadership style is dependent on the situational contingency. A leader will perform better if the situation is more favorable to the leader and many not perform better if the situation is not his favor. Based on his extensive research and studies, he concluded that the situational favorableness is dependent on three components.(Bryan,1986). These three components are: Leader member relations This component of the situational favorableness refers to the nature of the relationship between the members and the leaders. If the relationship between the leader and follower are cordial and better than leader may not face any difficulty in executing the tasks and getting the desired output from the followers. The degree of better relationships also provides followers an opportunity for accomplishing the tasks with more ease. Task Structure This component of the contingency model is based on the assumption that the tasks of the leaders may become easier and smooth if tasks faced by the leader are smooth and uncomplicated. Leaders become more successful when they are faced with the tasks which are more structured as it provides leaders an opportunity to exactly know what has to be done under the situation. Further, the task structure also provides followers a better opportunity to accomplish the tasks because like leader, they also know what need to be done. Position Power This component of the model suggests that a leader is bound to succeed if the leader can punish and reward the followers. If this position is weak or leader has the lesser ability to control and administer the rewards and punishment within the organization than the leader may not command recognition from his followers due to leader's inability to reward the better performance and punish the bad performers. Considering the above discussion, Fielder's model is based on the relation between the personality of the leader and the situation faced by the leader. What is also most important is the fact that Fielder does not formally put a person into the position of a leader but the model basically declares any person as a leader who carries out the tasks related activities when there is no formal leader in place How Fiedler's Model changed It has been successfully demonstrated that the Fiedler's model does not satisfy some of the empirical assertions and the subsequent meta-analysis on the data suggested results which were not in conformity with the basic assertions of the model. (Miner, 2002). Based on such analysis, subsequent changes were made to the model. One of the important additions to this model has been the introduction of the concept of instrumental leadership since when subordinates are faced with the unstructured tasks they may experience role ambiguity therefore in order to avoid such role of ambiguity, it is critical that an instrumental leadership must emerge whose performance is not largely dependent on the certain task situations and favorableness. Fiedler's model also suggested that relation oriented followers tend to perform better in conditions which are highly favorable to them however, subsequent research suggested that relation oriented followers only tend to perform better in moderately favorable conditions. This extension of the Fiedler's model indicated that the relation of follower or leader with the external as well as internal environment may vary and that this relationship is not rigid in its entirety. (Miller et. al. 2004). Conclusion Fiedler's contingency model is one of the earliest attempts to define leadership on more structured basis. This model outlined that the nature of leadership largely depends upon the personality of the leader as well as the situation at hand thus the leadership is contingent and its different styles vary according to the different situations faced by the organization. The subsequent changes in the model are mostly based on the empirical analysis of the data and the later improvements only differed on some of the empirical parameters of the model and did not effectively change the basic structure of the model. References 1. Horner, Melissa. (1997). Leadership theory: past, present and future. Team Performance Management. 3 (4), 270-287. 2. Hollander, Edwin P. (1971). Style, Structure, and Setting in Organizational Leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly. 16 (1), 1-9. 3. Bryman, Alan (1986). Leadership and Organizations. New York: Routledge. 126. 4. Fishbein, Martin, Landy, Eva and Hatch, Grace. (1969). A Consideration of Two Assumptions Underlying Fiedler's Contingency Model for Prediction of Leadership Effectiveness. The American Journal of Psychology. 82 (4), 457-473. 5. Miner, John B. (2002). Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. Oxford: Oxford University Press US. 888. 6. Miller, Richard L., Butler. Jeanne, Cosentino, Charles J.. (2004). Followership effectiveness: an extension of Fiedler's contingency model. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. 25 (4), p362 - 368. Read More