Question

Learning objective: Improve understanding of contingency leadership theory

Process:

Suppose that you are a leader of a team in a company.

1. Team members are working together for the first time and are eager to begin, but they lack the experience and confidence needed to perform their roles. They are not familiar with individual and team goals and tasks yet.
2. The members have begun working together and, as typically happens, are finding that their work is more difficult than they had anticipated. They also want to determine task assignment and roles of members more clearly. They begin to share their views on tasks even if it is hard to reach an agreement due to conflicting views on how to proceed the team project.
3. The members realize that it is important to work together and begin to be more cooperative to each other. They understand most of team tasks and goals. They voice their views more actively. However, they still need some support from you to perform their tasks.
4. The members have good understanding of individual tasks and team tasks. They are familiar with how they can accomplish team goals successfully and collectively work together well. They also have most information and knowledge to effectively perform their job.

Q. Drawing on contingency theory of leadership and four leadership behavior (telling, selling, participating, and delegating), identify the optimal leadership behavior for each of the situational contingencies above and justify your choice.

Answer 1

Answer:

According to the contingency theory of leadership, a leader’s effectiveness is contingent upon how his leadership style matches with the situation he is in.

In the given case, there are four situational contingencies for which the optimal leadership behaviours are suggested as below;

1. Team members working together for the first time: leadership behaviour – telling. Since the employees are unfamiliar with the goals and tasks and the fact that they lack the experience and confidence needed to perform their roles, they require direct instructions.

2. Team members have begun working together: leadership behaviour – sellingThey have developed some competence, but are finding that their work is more difficult than what they expected. Some amount of convincing is required here.

3. Team members have been working together for some time and they began to be more cooperative to each other: leadership behaviour – participating. Members have become competent in their tasks and are cooperative. The leader, at this stage must get involved and support the team members to ensure that work is being done at the level required.

4. Team members have been working together for quite some time and have good understanding of the tasks: leadership behaviour – delegating. They have the required motivation levels and are capable of carrying out their tasks with minimum supervision and attain the results.