Contingency Theories (1960’s)

The idea of a contingency theory of leadership is not novel. In the 1960s several scholars
conducted research and proposed such an approach arguing that the style of leadership that
would be most effective depended upon the situation

This work was an integral part of the wave of organizational behavior research that led to what
we labeled a "Contingency Theory" of organizations at the time. Like much of the early
contingency work, these efforts on leadership suffered from some limitations. First, while there
was an agreement that the appropriate leadership style did depend on situational contingencies,
there was not complete agreement about what such factors were

Leadership for Change Here at Akshaya Patra, we understand that it is never too early to
develop certain skills and mindsets that will facilitate personal and professional growth

What Is A Leader? While most people can recognize leadership when they see it, defining what
leadership actually means can be a bit more challenging. Leadership is a practical skill that
includes the ability to influence or guide individuals, teams or organizations in order to achieve a
common goal. While different types of societies and cultures have different approaches to
leadership, most acknowledge that good leadership involves giving purpose and meaningful
direction to a collective effort.

How To Lead Leadership is not always easy, and it involves much more than just task
delegation. In order to be effective, leaders must engage in honest, open communication that will
build meaningful connections with those around them. Leaders must not only encourage, but also
invest in both the personal and professional growth of their team members as well as their peers.
Leaders are able to take and receive constructive feedback, and they consistently strive to show
up as the best version of themselves.

Characteristics Of A Leader As we’ve mentioned, effective leadership can vary depending

on the local culture, but there is a multitude of characteristics that good leaders tend to possess: 

 Integrity
 Open-mindedness
 Self-awareness
 Empathy
 Courage
 Gratitude

Great Man” Theory Jesus spent a lion’s share of His time and energy developing the
disciples for their future leadership. While it is certainly true that God is working out His
sovereign purposes by guiding the appointment of leaders to key ministry roles, leaders also
have an important part in the process. Marcell’s perspective is actually a Christianized
version of the “great man” theory of the early twentieth century, which had suggested that
leadership comes from nature, not nurture, and that effective leaders are born, not developed.
Situational (Contingency) Approaches to Leadership

As early as 1948, Ralph Stogdill stated that “the qualities, characteristics, and skills required in a
leader are determined to a large extent by the demands of the situation in which he is to function
as a leader.” Stogdill, 1948, 63.

In addition, it had been observed that two major leader behaviors, initiating structure and
consideration, didn’t always lead to equally positive outcomes. That is, there are times when
initiating structure results in performance increases and follower satisfaction, and there are times
when the results are just the opposite

Fiedler’s Contingency Model One of the earliest, best-known, and most controversial situation-
contingent leadership theories was set forth by Fred E. Fiedler from the University of
Washington.

The Situational Factor Some situations favor leaders more than others do. To Fiedler,
situational favorableness is the degree to which leaders have control and influence and therefore
feel that they can determine the outcomes of a group interaction.

Leader-Situation Matches Some combinations of leaders and situations work well; others do
not. In search of the best combinations, Fiedler examined a large number of leadership situations

House’s path-goal theory of leadership

House's Path-Goal Theory Robert House believed the main role of a leader is to motivate
his followers by increasing or clarifying the personal benefits of striving for and reaching the
group’s goal and clarifying and clearing a path to achieving the group’s goals.His theory
matched ways of behaving to sets of circumstances.  The circumstances in Path-Goal theory are
driven by follower characteristics and workplace characteristics

Follower characteristics: What do they believe about their own abilities? Where does control
reside?  What is the attitude to power and those in power?

Workplace characteristics: Is the task repetitive, interesting, predictable or structured? What is

the leader’s formal authority? And is there a sense of group cohesion?

He took these circumstances and matched them to four different leadership styles:

Directive: In the directive style, the leader provides clear direction on goals, tasks and
performance standards.  The work will normally be complex and unstructured and followers will
usually lack experience and accept a high degree of outside control.  There is little emphasis on
personal payoffs for reaching the goal because the work is inherently satisfying.

Supportive: The supportive style puts more emphasis on improving the work environment and
looking after individuals’ welfare.  It makes sense to adopt this approach when the followers can
perform their tasks skilfully with confidence and do not want close supervision, but do need
someone to help reduce the stress that may arise from doing a repetitive task.  

Participative: The leader adopting the participative style is facing followers who are similar to
those in the supportive style, however, here the work is much less structured, repetitive and
predictable.  With this approach, the leader consults their colleagues on decisions and takes their
opinions and ideas into account, strengthening the path-goal connection in three ways;  

 The leader aligns followers’ values and concerns with the goals
 The leader ensures the team are happy with how they are going to achieve the goals
 The leader gives followers a greater sense of autonomy and satisfaction, improving th eir
motivation 

Achievement: The achievement-orientated style is all about encouraging followers to attain

outstanding results that they may not aim for on their own.  It makes sense when the followers
know what to do and how to do it and are confident they can carry out their tasks. But, they also
accept the idea of the leader setting ambitious goals and continue to respect him or her.

Path-Goal theory argues that leaders should vary behaviour according to the situation and the
problems or opportunities it presents,

Overcoming Challenges and Obstacles with the Path Goal Theory Challenges and obstacles
are inevitable in the workplace, which is why a strategy must be implemented to avoid and evade
these. Providing employees with the necessary tools to resolve issues in the workplace will
ensure organizational success is not hindered.

Goal Achievement Effective leadership not only guides employees in the right direction towards
their goals, but also requires leaders to assist in the identification of goals and objectives from
the get-go. Goals should be achievable, meaning that they must be realistic and measurable

Boosted Employee Productivity and Motivation Effective leaders understand the importance
of rewarding and recognizing employees through the offer of incentives and intrinsic motivation.
In essence, this is to drive employees to succeed and reach their maximum potential for the
benefit of the entire organization. Gamification is a widely-employed strategy by organizations
to significantly boost the engagement and information absorption of learners

Enhanced Support Network Having a supportive leadership style ensures that interactions
remain learner-centered, meaning that employees’ personal preferences and emotional needs are
accounted for, and are at the center of decision-making. When employees feel respected and
valued, they are more likely to develop a stronger bond with the organization and tend to work
harder.

Increase Employee Confidence with the Path Goal Theory When employees’ confidence
levels increase, potential barriers built around their learning are broken down, resulting in them
wanting to learn more. The Path-Goal Theory allows for this through the participative leadership
approach, whereby once confident, employees control their own personal training path. Increased
confidence can be achieved by leaders’ constant acknowledgement of employees, praising them
on their good work and providing frequent feedback.

Women, Men, and Leadership

Many, if not most, Americans see men and women as equally capable when it comes to some of
the key qualities and behaviors that are essential for leadership. Being honest, holding up under
pressure and standing up for what they believe in are some examples of traits that are viewed as
essential for leaders in both politics and business and areas where majorities of the public say
neither gender has the upper hand. In addition, while a majority of adults say male and female
leaders have different leadership styles, relatively few think one gender has a better overall
approach than the other.

Even so, those who do see a difference between male and female leaders across a range of
leadership traits and behaviors perceive women to be stronger in most areas, both in politics and
business. Being compassionate and empathetic and being able to work out compromises are
prominent examples of this. For their part, men are seen as being more willing to take risks.

Views on this differ significantly by gender and party. Women are more likely than men to see a
gender gap in leadership styles (63% vs. 50%). But among both men and women who see a
difference, majorities (62%) in each group say neither gender has a better approach to leadership.
About one-in-four women (27%) say that women have a better approach than men, while 10%
say men are better. Men are more evenly divided on this: 22% say men have a better approach,
while 15% point to women.

In the business world, women leaders are still a minority. This statement comes as no surprise to
most of us; what is surprising is that men outpace women in leadership roles across every sector
in the world: corporate, nonprofit, government, education, medicine, military and religion

During the past three decades, women have achieved parity with men in the number of both
employees in the workforce and positions in middle management. Women now comprise 57
percent of the total U.S. job market and 52 percent of all management roles and professional
occupations, such as physicians and attorneys. They represent a full 60 percent of bachelor’s
degrees earned at U.S. universities and also outpace men in the total number of master’s and
doctorate degrees.

Barriers to Leadership In my doctoral dissertation, I examined the barriers that hinder women’s
career advancement, including emotional intelligence and gender culture, and how these
differences impact leadership. The findings showed that the reasons for the gap between men and
women are multifactorial and deep-seated and have existed for generations. Further, problematic
beliefs and perceptions are held by both men and women. It’s these reasons that make the
problem difficult to address.

There are four types of barriers to leadership for women: structural barriers, institutional
mindsets, individual mindsets and lifestyle choices
Structural barriers include lack of access to important informal networks, such as the golf
course, sporting events or simple after-work drinks. Often, men assume that women don’t want
to take part in these types of events, so they don’t invite them.

Institutional mindsets include various types of gender bias and stereotyping. For example, role
incongruity occurs when someone holds beliefs or stereotypes about a group that are inconsistent
with the behavior thought to be necessary to succeed in a specific role

For example, a woman can be a very effective military leader, but her platoon may not support
her, because she’s in a role considered to be incongruent with femininity. A similar problem
exists with male nurses: A man can be an excellent nurse, but those he cares for may not receive
him positively, because he’s in a role considered incongruent with his gender

Individual mindsets are the thoughts and behaviors women might have that that hold them
back. Data show that most women reach the director level and stay there, or self-select out of the
workforce. The majority of women do not pursue vice president, president or C-level positions
for a myriad of reasons, including socialization pressures, lack of confidence, risk aversion,
valuing work-life balance or a desire to avoid politics.

Lifestyle choices include work-life balance, family choices and breadwinner/caregiver priorities.

These choices are not negative, but they are considered barriers, because they contribute to the
leadership gender gap. For example, if a woman is the primary breadwinner in a household, she’s
usually the primary caregiver as well. On the other hand, if a man is the primary breadwinner, he
is rarely the primary caregiver.

Changing Institutional Mindsets Institutional mindsets are the most significant barrier and are
a major reason that we don’t see more women at the top levels of leadership. People make
assumptions about women at work and as leaders based on their stereotypical roles in society.
Often, women are limited in their advancement or, worse, never even given an opportunity
because of bias.

Changing Individual Mindsets One example of individual mindsets or limitations is office

housework: getting the coffee, taking the notes, picking up the donuts, helping new hires,
planning the holiday party and all the other behind-the-scenes work that helps a company run
smoothly. Women frequently volunteer for office housework, which is time-consuming and
often isn’t recognized. On the other hand, men tend to volunteer for activities that are more
visible.

What Can Learning and Development Do It is essential for both men and women to be aware
of these barriers and work together to minimize them. They are the underlying causes of the
leadership gender gap that significantly impacts corporations’ diversity and inclusion. Leaders,
human resources departments and trainers play a big role, because all employees are affected by
leadership development practices. These practices include whom we are developing, how we are
developing them, when we’re developing them, on what issues they’re being trained and how
leadership styles are applied.
Women in leadership roles face very different expectations. People who are accustomed to the
‘masculine’ dictatorial style may see women leaders as too soft or weak, and think that men are
better suited for leadership. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

International Aspects of Leadership and Management

Leaders and managers are increasingly studied in the context of human resource
development (New, 1996; Hall and Moss, 1998; Feldman, 2002), which reveals
that they are expected to initiate development in the absence of organizational
guidance. Moreover, managerial careers are progressively more market-based, with
specialization considered to be a negative. Also, there is a risk to managers of
becoming trapped in ‘core rigidities’ by over-investing in core competencies that
are relevant to the organization but not of value to the marketplace. Leaders and
managers need to participate in a variety of learning situations that provide them
with both behavioural and cognitive complexity (Karaevli and Hall, 2006) and it is
critical for them to be fast and adaptive learners (Hall, 2002) as well as strong
performers. Leaders and managers are also expected to utilize self-directed career
management strategies on a continual basis (McCall and Hollenbeck, 2007). An
important distinction is made between management, leader and leadership
development (Day, 2000). Management development focuses on the manager
getting to grips with the process or ‘hard’ aspects of managing such as planning,
execution, prioritization and control processes. Leader development focuses on the
development of a leader or manager’s self-awareness and understanding of self as
a leader. Leadership development focuses on the social dimensions of leadership
and includes such issues as interpersonal awareness and skills, team development
processes and the processes involved in gaining commitment for vision and
strategy. For the purposes of this chapter, we will use the term ‘leadership
development’ to include both leader and leadership development.
Leadership and management development in organizations can take a number of
forms. It may be organization driven and consist of a variety of formal
interventions such as coaching, mentoring, formal programmes and feedback-
intensive programmes. These activities are directed by organizations and are
usually built around competency models (Garavan, Hogan and Cahir-O’Donnell,
2008). However, organizations are recognizing that they must also promote and
rely on their managers and leaders to engage in self-directed leadership
development (DeRue and Ashford, 2010). Furthermore, in difficult economic
times, formal programmes are both expensive and time consuming. Cunningham
(1986), for example, identifies three different viewpoints on the relationship
between leadership and management. The first position assumes that leadership is
one competence among a range required for effective management. A second
position, advocated by Bennis and Nanus (2003), suggests that the two concepts
are separate but related, whereas a third position sees both concepts to be partially
overlapping. There is evidence amongst academics that there is a need to
conceptually distinguish leadership from management, often at the expense of the
latter. Management as an activity and concept is often viewed as a ‘second-class
citizen’, something that is very transactional in nature. Kotter (1988) has argued
that leaders and managers are distinct in their roles and functions. He considers
management to be concerned with planning and organizing whereas leadership is
concerned with creating, coping with change and helping organizations to adapt in
turbulent times. Two other recent contributions have similarly emphasized that the
two concepts are different. Boydell, Burgoyne and Pedler (2004) consider
management to be about implementation, order, efficiency and effectiveness. They
define leadership as concerned with future directions in times of uncertainty, and
argue that management may be sufficient in times of stability but is insufficient
when organizational conditions are characterized by complexity, unpredictability
and rapid change. It is increasingly recognized that all managers, including first-
line supervisors, need at some level to be leaders and to understand the concept of
leadership, albeit the higher the organizational level, the more complex leadership
becomes and the more it is concerned with broader and long-term aims. In some
organizations people may be senior professionals such as doctors or scientists but
not defined as managers (at least in terms of the formal organizational hierarchy).
It would be naive, however, not to think of them as leaders or potential leaders. It
is therefore not surprising that there are contradictory interpretations of
management and leadership development. Wexley and Baldwin (1986) argue that
management development remains the most ‘ill-defined and variously interpreted’
concept in the management literature. HRD has broadened our thinking about the
purposes and methods of management and leadership development. The majority
of early definitions focused on the formal dimensions and considered both
management and leadership development to be systematic and structured process.
Cullen and Turnbull (2005) argue that the majority of definitions view managers as
resources and consider that management development is driven by a functional
performance rationale. Similarly many of the definitions emphasize management
development driven by organizational rather than individual needs. In practice, the
terms management and leadership development are used interchangeably and they
both represent a set of processes that organizations and International Human
Resource Development_New proof.indb 389 5/16/2012 individuals use to enhance
effectiveness in a variety of management and leadership roles. Increasingly the
distinction between the two sets of terms has become blurred, with ‘management
development’ being associated with the UK and Ireland, while in the United States,
‘leadership development’ is preferred.
Ethical Issues in Leadership and Management
Ethical leadership is knowing your core values and having the courage to live them
in all parts of your life in service of the common. Good Leaders play a prominent
role in promoting ethics in organization. In organizational sittings, an individual‟s
ethical decision making in largely determined by the expectation of others and
those expectation are established, nurtured, and enforced by the organization‟s
leadership. “Leaders who are perceived as ethically positive influence productive
employee work behavior and negatively influence counterproductive work
behavior” (Mayer et al, 2009) as cited in Brown and Mitchell (2010: 583). Failure
to present ethical leadership and to set us systems supporting ethical conduces will
leave managers as much responsible for the outcomes, as those conducting and
benefitting from corporate misdeeds (Paine 1994). Although it is accepted that a
leader‟s role in promoting ethics is highly important, there are still different
understandings regarding the terms „ethical leaders‟ and ethical leadership‟.
People often assume that ethical leaders are simply good leaders with integrity and
other good characters (Trevino, Hartman and Brown, 2000). Through their
leadership, managers influence the behavior of their employees directly but also
shape the norms and expectations of appropriate conduct that become instilled in
the organization‟s ethical climate.
The Framework of Ethical Leadership
Leadership is defined as a process whereby an individual influences a group of
individuals to achieve a common goal (Northouse, 2007). Theoretically, there are
three basic ways to explain how people become leaders: the trait leadership
theory, the great event theory and the process leadership theory (Bass, 1990).
According to Burns (1978), the leadership process occurs in one of two ways:
either transformational or transactional. Transformational leadership is
concerned with developing a vision that informs and expresses the organization‟s
mission and lays the foundation for the organizations strategies, policies and
procedures. The transformation leader uses strategies and techniques to
empower the followers, enhance their selfefficacy and change their values, norms
and attitudes which are consistent with the leaders vision. Ethical leadership is
associated with a plethora of „moral‟ qualities such as honesty, integrity,
reliability, modesty, trustworthiness, respect, conscientiousness and fairness.
Brown, Trevino and Harrison (2005:120) has defined ethical leadership as “the
demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and
interpersonal relationships and the promotion of such conduct to followers
through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”.
Characteristics of an Ethical Leader
A good leader has an idea of goodness and respective goals and is willing to hold
on to these goals even in difficult times. A good leader is authentic, cares strongly
about certain ideas that deserve robust concern and is a person of prudence. In a
study conducted on the understanding of executive ethical leadership (Trevino,
Brown & Hartman, 2003) ethical leaders are thought to be receptive and open,
possess traditional leadership traits such as integrity, honesty and trustworthiness.
Ethical leadership includes transactional leader behaviors such as setting ethical
standards and holding followers accountable for ethical conduct. Resick, Hanges,
Dickson & Mitchelson (2006) identified six key attributes that characterized
ethical leadership which includes character and integrity, ethical awareness,
community/people-orientation, motivating, encouraging, empowering and
managing ethical accountability
Impact of Ethical Leadership on Organisation:
Employees are the most important assets in organisations, which without, the goals
and objectives may not be attained. Several studies have been conducted on the
roles that ethical leaders can play in achieving increase employee job performance.
A study by Toor & Ofori (2009) revealed that ethical leadership may play a
mediating role in the relationship between organizational culture and employee
outcomes. The study shows that ethical leadership is more