Solving difficulties is one of a manager’s most critical jobs. It is often up to an organization’s leaders to find answers to challenging questions that are a source of significant uncertainty and distress for the organization. Managerial problem-solvers are critical to a company’s success. Issues come in all shapes and sizes, from minor annoyances to major organizational crises. Managers that can go through the facts, diagnose the situation, and come up with a precise and viable solution will help the company survive and prosper. Effective problem-solvers can help teams achieve their objectives by removing irritation, ambiguity, and misunderstandings before they become unmanageable.
situation to be deduced, and thus allows the identification of suitable leaders for tasks. The favourableness of the situation depends on three characteristics: leader-member relations, the support and trust the leader as from the group; task structure, the clarity of the task to the leader; and positional power, the authority the leader has to assess a groups performance and give rewards and punishments (Fiedler, 1967). If the leaders approach matches what is required from the situation then success is predicted for the group.
Fiedler’s contingency model offers a very austere categorisation of leadership, clearly defining which situations will and will not result in success for a potential leader. At the senior management level of a hierarchal structure within an organisation the theory can be applied freely, firstly due to the ease at which persons can be replaced if their LPC score does not match that required of the situation (Pettinger, 2007). Secondly, and most importantly, is to ensure that the senior management are best equipped to lead the organisation successfully. However, further down the hierarchy Fielder’s contingency theory begins to hold much less relevance, it becomes impractical from a organisational perspective due to the number of people at this level of leadership. The logistics of matching the leader with their least preferred co-worker is impossible to consistently achieve, so a more continuum based approach is required.
Figure 1: Chelladurai’s Multi-Dimensional Model of Leadership (Miller and Cronin, 2012)
There are other contingency theories that provide a more continuum based approach such as Redding’s theory of leadership and management, however Fielder’s description of how situational factors affect the leadership style required for the situation is extremely useful in understanding the fundamentals of leadership (Pettinger, 2007). Chelladurai in his Multi Dimensional Model of Leadership, expands on much of Fiedler’s theory but in a continuum based approach, in which the leader can adapt their leadership style to fit the situation (Chelladurai and Madella, 2006). Chelladurai’s theory is taken from sports psychology but can be applied to an organisational scenario. It provides a much more empirical categorisation of task structure, clearly differentiating a plethora of situations that require certain leadership styles for success. Chealldurai found three characteristics that affect the leadership style required for a situation, called antecedents, they mainly expand upon Fiedler’s situational factors and leader – member relations and ultimately affect how a leader should behave towards a situation. The first are situational characteristics, the environment in which the leader must perform, the second are leader characteristics, the experience, personal qualities and skills of the leader, and the third are member characteristics, the motivation, skill and experience levels of group members (Chelladur
