Key factors in contingency leadership model and how they influence leadership outcomes

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 5th of June 2014

1.      Introduction

Modern organizations are faced with high challenges as a result of the fast-paced business world that is influenced by high-tech, information-based competitive environment. Thus, it is necessary to always have a second plan in terms of how to react when business goals are not moving in the desired directions. This is where contingency model comes in as a counter-attack or reverse-effect model that repositions businesses when they are adrift set goals.

2.      Key contingency factors

2.1. Follower development – the development process encompasses both present level of follower competence and future enhancement of these competence to meet desired results. In some cases, short-term efficiency is viewed as more important that long-term follower development. Take for instance an organization that recruits employees on short-term bases in order to complete specific jobs; such organizations will be more likely focused on short-term efficiency instead of long-term follower development. In such case, the best approach to leadership is directive or transactional as it will help to elicit short-term follower compliance (Manz & Sims, 2001). From an opposite view, a transformational approach is necessary when a leader wishes to enhance followers’ capabilities on the long term (Manz & Sims, 2001). Overall. Follower development deals with keeping employees equipped with the right skills to perform designated jobs (be it in the short-term or long-term).

2.2. Situational urgency – in the time of crisis, the firm might have enough time to develop self-leadership capabilities in the followers or create some form of reward contingencies. In times of high urgency, the more appropriate approaches to leadership is a transformation or highly directive approach (e.g., Conger, 1999; Manz & Sims, 2001). For instance, in the course of fire disaster, different people are given different tasks geared towards the goal of extinguishing the fire and rescuing people. Research have found that creating a sense of helplessness and low self-esteem can help booster transformational leadership in followers (e.g., Bass, 1985; Bryman, 1992; Cell, 1974; Weber, 1947) as they become more willing to change.

2.3. Task environment – this is the extent at which the task environment a follower is working in is structured or unstructured. Structured task environment features clearly specific routine and simple process that brings about low level of uncertainty and little discretion of behavior. On the other hand, an unstructured environment features high level of uncertainty and huge behavioral discretion. Thus, transformational leadership is the best for structured work environment while unstructured work environment goes more with transactional leadership.

3.      Relationship between key contingency factors and leadership outcomes

Follower commitment – a number of theorist in the field of leadership have come to conclude that directive and transformational leadership style will influence follower commitment in terms of behavioral compliance while transformational approach to leadership will produce affective commitment (e.g., Bennis & Nannus, 1985; Conger, 1999; Manz & Sims, 1991, 2001; Sims & Manz, 1996). For instance, when a leader is more focused towards the growth of the staffs, the staffs will be more affectionate with the company and willing to do more to improve overall performance of the company; while a leader who is focused on returns will see his/her staffs attitudes changed only towards increased sales but not they are not loyal to the company.

3.1. Follower dependence – researches have it that directive, transactional and transformational leadership styles can bring about followers that are largely dependent on the leader and the company, while empowering style will likely result in followers that are largely independent (e.g., Manz & Sims, 2001; Sims & Manz, 1996). For instance, when employees are obliged to deliver certain sales (transactional) they will depend on the company for resources such as delivery van, distribution networks etc. but when they are allowed to bring about unidirectional outcomes such as good corporate image and innovation (empowering), they will depend more on their instincts.

3.2. Follower creativity and innovation – directive and transactional leadership style has been linked to low level of creativity and organizational innovation (Manz & Sims, 2001) while high level of individual creativity and organizational innovation has been linked to empowering approach to leadership (Manz & Sims, 2001). For instance, when employees are allowed to explore their potentials without any boundary (empowering) they tend to bring in new ideas (creativity) which will be used to enhance quality of the company’s products and/or services (innovation).

3.3. Psychological empowerment – directional and transactional forms of leadership have been found to bring about low levels of empowerment among followers, while empowering style tends to enhance levels of empowerment among follower (Manz & Sims, 2001).

4.      Conclusion

In their study, Jeffery ad Steven (2005) has been successful to demonstrate that different aspects of leadership styles influences leadership outcomes. For instance, transactional leaderships makes employees less innovative, less committed but more capable of returning investments on the short-term while transformational leaderships brings about increased commitment but less capable of returning investments in the short-term.

In this week’s lectures, a number of leadership approaches have been discussed and they are: transactional, transformational, directional, and empowering. In order to create sustainable production through effective leadership, literatures have made known that such approaches should be aligned with the objectives of the company s (e.g., Cox & Sims, 1996; Cox et al., 2003; Liu, Lepak, Takeuchi, & Sims, 2003; Pearce & Sims, 2000, 2002; Perry, Pearce, and Sims, 1999). For instance, if a company wishes to return investments on the short-term, the company will have to adopt transactional and directional leadership but a goal of ensue sustainability in human capital will be best achieved with transformational and empowering leadership. This week’s article have been able to prove such by documenting a number of findings in terms of how leadership style can bring about sustainability when applied in the right direction as demonstrated in relationship between key contingency factors and leadership outcomes.

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