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Leadership Name(s): Various Theories are proposed
Articles Author: Various Your e-mail address is tota
Classification: Theories based on Contingencies secure.
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Year: 1960s See our Privacy Policy

Pro's
Management
Theories based on contingencies take account of
Management unique circumstances, albeit in a general way.
Articles The theory is a common-sense view of the world to
Time those realizing that context and system dynamics
Management are integral aspects of a leader-led situation.
Articles Contingency theories motivate thinking about a
particular aspect of a leader-led situation that need
more intense focus.
Communication
Con's
Communication
A contingency theory may be expressed in too
Articles
general a way to have specific applicative value.
Identifying the aspects of a situation can be highly
subjective and may not capture the reality of a
Motivation
leader-led situation
Any verification and validation of a modeled system
Motivation
is inherently difficult.
Theories
Motivation
Articles

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Contingency theories are that there is no one leadership

style and that the nature of those being led, the make-up
of the leader and the tasks facing a group are different.
Each situation is unique and the ideal leader-led situation
will be unique, as well. Some of the major contingency
theories are:

Strategic Contingency Theory

Fielders' Contingency Theory (group performance
depends on leader's psychological make-up, as well
as group atmosphere, task, and the leader's power
position)
Hersey & Blanchard's situational theory
Vroom and Yetton's decision participation
contingency theory - decision quality, acceptance
by the audience, amount and quality of information
available to leader, integrity of hierarchy

Other categories of contingency theories emphasize:

Behavioralism
Tasks
Organizational (system) integrity
System environments

To provide meaning to the theory, it is necessary to focus

on at least one aspect of the leader-led situation,
although such a focus only highlights an issue rather
than giving a complete description of the situation.

Discussion
Nothing stands in isolation and this can be demonstrated
simply by looking at a colored sheet of paper and
attempting to discern an image. Unless someone places a
mark on the paper, there will be none. The same applies
to standing in a room in which all the objects are colored
in the same hue. Such observation appears obvious, but
people will often attempt to identify something standing
alone. In leadership theory, this surely is true as people
write about "the" method or type of leadership. It is as if
a person, in spite of the circumstances will act in a
specific manner. Common sense dictates that a leader, in
order to continue being one, will have to adjust to what
happens in the environment, that is, contingencies.
"Contingency" means "depending upon". Those proposing
contingency theories realize that a leader must adjust.
The hallmark of these theories is context and in a more
profound sense, everything is interdependent. One can
add "dynamic", as well. but cannot consider only a
particular system, but a system among systems. A
classic case is the leader of an organization having to

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deal with a hierarchy of organizations or with leaders of

other organizations. The president of a country may be
the leader of that country, but s/he often has to look to
other leaders of states or cabinet heads to lead. There
are, of course, relations among organizations and what
happens with them may very well have an influence on a
person's ability to lead. One may point to the USSR,
where its client states were disappearing as their
leadership fell. Ultimately, the leaders of the USSR's
Communist Party could not lead, as the whole system
turned out to be rotten. On a more local scale as with a
city mayor or manager, if the departments are not
running well, then people may question the mayor's
competence. A city manager may be tossed out by the
city council. So, it is the case that contingency theories
can encompass anything that could be deemed "the
environment", including the leaders themselves and their
actions.

The 1960s period was fraught with a tumult in political

science, a part of which were leadership theories and
philosophies. People were searching for specific ways of
identifying phenomena and predicting future events on
what had bween observed. The discipline was floundering
as it sought to emulate the more precise sciences of
math, physics,and biology. It had to be taken another
rung down on the precision ladder by looking at
psychology and behaviorism, a paradigm case of B.F.
Skinner. Too, it was a period where systems analysis was
on the rise, a school of thinking looking to cybernetics or
to John von Neumann and Norbert Weiner in the 1930s
and 1940s. How could systems theory [1] be integrated
with behavioralism to form the basis of a real science of
politics? First came the systems theory of W. Ross Ashby
in his Design for a Brain, where systems were
homeostatic or self-regulating mechanisms. It was
realized, however, that a system cannot merely be
stable; it has to adapt, and it was this ideology that
propelled the thinking about contingencies. Organizations
from the smallest of clubs to nation states were deemed
systems and subject to the general systems' constraints.
The thinking about whether machines could think was
going in the opposite direction of whether societies were
machines.

It was Gabriel A. Almond's seminal work American People

and Foreign Policy [2] that helped lead the attention of
political scientists into the mindset that the thinking of
people could be predicted. In the same survey given to
the same sample of people, the responses were very
often different, if not contradictory. If a group of people

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could change ideas about the same subject - one so

major and well discussed in the media - so radically,
what would be the implications of how a person should
lead? We are beginning to learn that the ability to field
different situations effectively strengthens a society's
participation.. To the recent past, we have not been able
to quantify how well, but the world of simulations, where
participants can be programmed with software that gives
them autonomy, is providing substantial breakthroughs.
Indications are that when a person is allowed to adapt,
s/he will sustain a situation for a longer period of time
.[3]

Critique
To say that a situation is contextual and dynamic appears
to be apparent. A major question would be how one can
apply the theory to resolve a problem. It is comparable
to say that loop-back testing, where one checks each
sub-assembly of a system, is the most efficacious means
of demonstrating whether or not a system works. One
must specify the type of environment and the nature of
the components to be tested to apply the theory
intelligently. The collection of variables is innumerable
and quantification is almost impossible in such general a
theory.

To compensate for the vagueness, theorists have

narrowed the scope of "contingency theories" to precise
cases, such as a "strategic contingency theory", where
the leader's problem-solving abilities, the means of
confronting a variety of tasks will define success. Yet the
granularity of specification may not be sufficient. For
example, there are many types of problems and the
ability to solve them may exceed any person's capacity.

Future of theory
There has been a great departure from the narrow
theories of leadership, such as "The Great Man Theory"
(circa latter 1800s), and we are on the verge of being
able to predict how a leader-led situation will progress.
We have taken the necessary key steps in realizing the
importance of context and dynamism. The drive to
prediction has not abated and although we are seeing
more work being completed at the system level,
additional effort will surely follow in the particular leader-
led situation. Starting with the Simsoc (Simulated
Society) social simulation program in the 1970s, we now
have popular web-based programs available, such as
"Second Life" [4], where a person can assume the role of

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nearly anyone and play a

part in a simulated society.

In the military world,

widespread studies of
leader-led situations
(commander-troops) are
reflected in modeling and
simulation (M & S)
programs. The ability to
predict how a battlefield
situation impinges upon a
commander's ability to lead
will no doubt have major
implications on how military
campaigns are enacted.
Even the M & S of the ethics
of a leader are taking place
and it may be possible to
select those that conform to
an ethical bias [5].

While M & S is advancing

with great strides, there is
the ever-present issue of
ensuring whether a model of
a leader-led situation is
accurate; the question
remains as to whether all of
the variables been
accounted for. Even if criical
ones have been identified,
how can one be confident
that the list is sufficient?
Any omitted factor can
cause prediction to be
impossible. Enter the
problems associated with
verification and validation
and what progress made in
this may be comparable to that which may result from
confronting the simplistic theorists of the early part of
the last century. How is one able to validate a model and
simulation of a leadership environment?

In the 1950s, when electroshock treatment was applied

to mentally ill persons, there was an emergence of
pharmaceuticals that claimed to be able to manage these
patients. Rapid advances in brain scanning technologies
such as the electroencephalograph (EEG) and the
computerized axial tomography (CAT) have been

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realized. We are now aware that the various areas of the

brain are responsible for specific human actions.
Cognitive neuroscience is now becoming the foundation
for validating human behavior [6].

Being able to assess how a leader-led situation will turn

out and be prescriptive, thus preventing disasters.
However, without sound validation techniques, another
danger lurks. There is an increasing reliance upon
artificial devices that are used for decision-making and as
a result, there is a possible future danger of looking to
them to make critical decisions about systems and those
persons taking on roles in them. If we start relying on
software to assess whether or not a person is to become
a leader, such as in the utilization of the EBASS program
and other psychological assessment software (i.e.
personality tests), how can we be confident than the
evaluation system will not assume a life of its own? How
leaders are selected is still within the province of humans
and in that respect, nothing has changed for 2,500 years
since the time when Plato and Aristotle set forth their
adage that a participatory society can last only when the
electorate is educated, regardless of the contingencies
involved.

We encourage you to expand on the discussion, add to

the critique or even share your vision with regards to the
future applications of the theory.

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2 Comments Sort by Newe

Shimeles Wolde
Thank you, I want to receive extra extensive documents
concerning "Contegency Theory" Please send me some
additional notes about the subject matter. Thank you again
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Berhane Aradom
As leaders, do we spend our entire life adapting or masteri
situations? If we focus on adaptation or manipulation, then
are nothing, but social machines. On the other hand, if we
master situations and determine destiny, then we are great
leaders.
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