Organisation Behaviour - Coursework Example

267404 Organisation Behaviour Discuss and explain the Fiedler contingency model. How has the Fiedler model changed over time? The Fiedler contingency model was an important stage in the development of leadership theories related to business studies and also organisation behaviour. The American academic Fred Fiedler created the Fiedler contingency model back in 1958 as he sought to make the subjects of business studies and also organisation behaviour more scientifically based. The Fiedler contingency model that quickly became established as one of the most popular and well-used model within the study of organisation behaviour. When it was first developed the Fiedler contingency model was widely perceive to offer a great deal of advantages for anybody seeking too effectively analyses organisation behaviour (Fiedler,1958). The Fiedler contingency model although originally put forward in 1958 has been altered and further developed by Fiedler himself since then. Not everybody interested in studying leadership theories has wholeheartedly supported every single aspect of the Fiedler contingency model (Fiedler et al. 1994). Since personality is relatively stable according to Fiedler, the Fiedler contingency model originally suggested that the objective of significantly improving over all levels of organisational effectiveness fundamentally require changing the situation to fit the leader. Within the framework of the Fiedler contingency model this change is referred to as ‘job engineering’ (Fiedler et al. 1994). Through the use of job engineering the Fiedler contingency model implies that the organization or the leader may increase or decrease task structure and position power, also training and group development may under certain circumstances improve leader-member relations. In his book ‘Improving Leadership Effectiveness: The Leader Match Concept, originally published during 1976 Fiedler (alongside co-writers Martin Chemers and Linda Mahar) actually offers a self paced leadership training programme for managers. The Fiedler contingency model and this specific programme were specifically developed in order to help leaders alter the favourableness of their workplace situation, or to obtain situational control. According to the Fiedler contingency model adopting a task-oriented leadership style would be advisable in natural disaster, like a flood or fire. In an uncertain situation the leader-member relations are usually poor, the task is unstructured or becomes that way, and the position power is generally weak and getting weaker. The one who emerges as a leader to direct the organisations activities or decisions frequently does not personally know any of their immediate subordinates personally. The task-oriented leader who gets things accomplished proves to be the most successful. If the leader is considerate or relationship-oriented to use the same term as Fiedler, they could actually waste so much time in the subsequent fiasco, which could easily lead to things to get out of control and lives could even be lost (Fiedler et al. 1994). Blue-collar or manual workers it is often argued generally want to know and understand exactly what they are supposed to do when carrying out their job roles at work. Therefore, their work environment is usually highly structured. The leaders position power within any company or organisation is strong for as long as management backs their own decision. On the other hand if the senior management no longer support the decisions of the leader then that leader will not unsurprisingly lose their authority as well as control over their subordinates. With or without referring to the Fiedler contingency model everybody will understand that any leader that has lost their authority is no longer a leader in practice has they have lost power inside their respective organisation (Fiedler et al. 1994). Finally, even though the leader may not be relationship-oriented, leader-member relations may be extremely strong if they are able to gain promotions and salary increases for subordinates. Generally under these types of situations it is usually the task-oriented style of leadership, which is preferred over the more considerate relationship-oriented style of leadership (Fiedler et al. 1994). The considerate or relationship-oriented style of leadership can be appropriate in an environment where the situation is moderately favorable or certain (Fiedler et al. 1994). For instance, firstly when leader-member relations are good, or secondly when the task is unstructured, and finally when the leaderships position power is weak or ineffectively used. Situations like this exists with research scientists, who do not like superiors to structure the task for them. They prefer to follow their own creative leads in order to solve problems. In a situation like this a considerate style of leadership is preferred over the task-oriented (Fiedler and Garcia 1987). It is Cognitive Resource Theory (CRT) that when published altered aspects of Fiedler’s basic contingency model by adding extra character traits to that of the leader (Fiedler and Garcia 1987). Thus the CRT seeks to identify the conditions under which leaders and group members will use their intellectual resources, skills as well as knowledge effectively (Fiedler et al. 1994). While it has been generally assumed that more intelligent and more experienced leaders will perform better than those with less intelligence and experience, this assumption is not supported by Fiedler’s research (Fiedler and Garcia 1987). Fiedler through his model contends consistently through his articles and books that in fact stress is a key determinant of leader effectiveness (Fiedler and Garcia 1987; Fiedler et al. 1994). Stress can make, or indeed it can break leaders. The leaders that thrive upon stressful personal or work situations are in fact the most likely to succeed in maintaining their power and position within their own organisations (Ashour, 1973). In the Fiedler contingency model a distinction is made between stress related to the leader’s superior, and stress related to subordinates or the situation itself. In stressful situations, leaders dwell on the stressful relations with others and cannot focus their intellectual abilities on the job. Thus, intelligence is more effective and used more often in stress-free situations (Fiedler and Garcia 1987). Fiedler has according to his own research found out that instead of helping organisations that experience actually impairs performance in the great majority of low-stress conditions yet conversely experience contributes positively to over all levels of performance under high-stress conditions (Fiedler et al. 1994). As within other situational factors, for stressful situations Fiedler recommends altering or engineering the leadership situation to capitalise on the leader’s strengths, and therefore cut out their weaknesses. Despite all the criticism it has gone on to receive, Fiedlers leadership theory remains an important theory due to the Fiedler contingency model going on to establish a brand new perspective for the study of leadership (Bass, 1990). Many approaches to leadership theories and organisational behaviour after the Fiedler contingency model was put forward have adopted the contingency perspective in one guise or another (Fiedler and Garcia 1987). Fred Fiedler’s situational contingency theory holds that group effectiveness depends on an apt or appropriate match between the specific leader’s style, which is basically a measure of personality traits as well as the particular demands of any given situation (Fiedler et al. 1994). Fiedler considers through his concept of situational control the actual or practical extent to which a leader can determine what his or her group is going to do to be the primary contingency factor in determining the effectiveness of leader behavior (Bass, 1990). To put it in other words the best leaders are the ones that are able to persuade their subordinates to carry out their instructions effectively, quickly, and with no disruption to the organisation at all (Fiedler et al. 1994). The critics of the Fiedler contingency model have often suggested that it is a model that is too complicated to be user friendly for anybody that wants to understand leadership theories. In many respects Fiedler has altered and further developed the Fiedler contingency model over the decades in order to seem more straightforward to use or understand for the great majority of people that are not actually experts on leadership theories or organisational behaviour (Fiedler et al. 1994). Other critics of the Fiedler contingency model have complained that the model itself is not adaptable enough to enable people to evaluate and to fully understand organisational behaviour and allow its leadership theories analyse different management situations (Bass, 1990). To a very large extent the ways in which Fiedler and his various co - authors have altered the Fiedler contingency model enough to make it one of the most comprehensive analysis frameworks within organisational behaviour and leadership theories. Besides most theoretical frameworks and models have to have a certain degree of rigidity in order to be of any practical use as analytical tools in the first place (Fiedler and Garcia 1987). The Fiedler contingency model has been an analytical framework that has been around for decades because the ways in which it has been amended and updated. Added together it means that it remains capable of allowing organisational behaviour and leadership problems to be understood clearly that need to do so (Fiedler et al. 1994). Fiedler has altered and further developed the Fiedler contingency model over the decades in order to seem more straightforward to use or understand for the great majority of people that are not actually experts on leadership theories or organisational behaviour. After all to a very large extent the ways in which Fiedler and his various co - authors have altered the Fiedler contingency model over the years have assisted in making it one of the most comprehensive contemporary analysis frameworks within organisational behaviour and leadership theories. Added together it means that it remains capable of allowing organisational behaviour and leadership problems to be understood clearly. Bibliography Ashour, A.S. (1973) ‘The Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness: An Evaluation’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 9(3): 339–55. Bass, B.M. (1990) ‘Leader March’, a Handbook of Leadership, New York: The Free Press, 494–510, 651–2, 840–41. Fiedler, F.E. (1958) Leader Attitudes and Group Effectiveness, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Fiedler, F.E. (1967) A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness, New York: McGraw-Hill. Fiedler, F.E. (1971) Leadership, New York: General Learning Press. Fiedler, F.E. (1981) Leader Attitudes and Group Effectiveness, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Fiedler, F.E. (1992) ‘Life in a Pretzel-shaped Universe’, in A.G. Bedeian (ed.), Management Laureates: A Collection of Autobiographical Essays, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, vol. 1, 301–34. Read More