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.