PU550 Public Health Leadership and Administration - Unit 4 The Contingency Model and Situational Leadership Flashcards
T/F Past research has been unable to identify universal traits that produce effective leadership in every instance, and some leadership styles have been found to be effective in certain situations but not in others.
True.
Since the 1960s, how has researchers shifted their attention and research on effective leadership?
To the ways that effective leadership depends on–or is contingent on–the specific organizational situations encountered by the leader.
Why do the contingency theories of leadership present greater complexity than the trait-based universal approach?
In the universal approach, the leader’s traits, skills, and behaviors were seen to produce outcomes, such as performance or satisfaction, among the followers.
Under the contingency approach, on the other hand, the leader’s traits, skills, and behaviors interact with the followers’ needs, training, maturity, and cohesion, as well as the situation’s task, structure, environment, and organizational system, to
produce the outcomes.
What is a fact or event that is incidental to or dependent on something else?
Contingency.
Contingency theories are built on basic understanding that one thing depends on another.
Under the contingency approach, leadership is not one-size-fits-all. The leader’s behavior must fit with the particular situation in order to be effective.
What are the key elements that contingency theories of leadership focus on?
The leader, the followers, and the situation.
What are the various aspects of a situation can enhance or negate a leader’s traits, skills, and behaviors called?
These variables are central to the contingency variables.
Situational moderator variables.
Virtually all leadership theories have at least one moderator, and many have several or more. Leadership moderators can be identified and classified based on the influence they have on leader behaviors and outcome criteria variables.
What are the situational moderator variables?
Neutralizers/enhancers, substitutes/supplements, and mediators.
What is a moderator variable that block or weaken leader influence on follower outcomes, and they can make relationship- or task-oriented leadership virtually impossible?
Give example as well.
Neutralizer variables.
For example, a supportive leadership style has little or no impact on followers who respond to a highly authoritarian leadership style, but it has a significant impact on followers who respond to a less
authoritarian leadership style.
How would a moderator variable act either to enhance or to neutralize the actions of leaders?
Consider group cohesiveness, for
instance. If a group’s norms operate in opposition to the leader’s goals, cohesiveness within the work group can serve as a neutralizer, impeding the leader’s ability to make an impact.
However, if the organization and the work group have common goals and act in a cooperative fashion, cohesiveness
can serve as an enhancer, potentially even rescuing weak leaders.
A leader’s expertise can also serve as either an enhancer or a neutralizer: Typically, low expertise will function as a neutralizer, whereas
high expertise will enhance effectiveness.
What is a moderator variable, that is the opposite of neutralizer variables, that strengthen relationships between leader behaviors and outcome criteria?
Provide an example.
Enhancer variables.
For example, if followers are
highly experienced in their work, that quality can make a leader’s ambiguous direction more
effective than it otherwise would have been.
A leader’s ability to reward followers can also have an
enhancing impact on outcomes, particularly if followers recognize that rewards are contingent on performance or behavior.
What is a moderator variable that may substitute or supplement leadership and they consist of characteristics of tasks, organizations, or followers that essentially take the place of active leadership behaviors, thereby making relationship- or task-orientated leadership impossible or unncessary?
Leadership substitutes and supplements.
A leadership substitute must meet three criterions and, if it does not, is considered a leadership supplement.
What are the three criterion that a variable must meet in order to be considered a leadership substitute?
- A logical reason must explain why the leader’s behavior and the potential substitute for it provide the appropriate guidance or positive feeling indicated by the criterion measure.
- the potential substitute must act as a neutralizer to weaken the influence of the leader’s behavior on the criterion measure.
- the potential substitute must have a significant influence on the criterion, such that increasing amounts of the substitute result in higher levels of the criterion.
Why are leadership substitutes clearly distinguishable from neutralizers?
They have a positive influence.
Kerr and Jermier found that satisfying tasks in and of themselves are a substitute for relationship-oriented behaviors of
leaders.
Similarly, followers’ ability and professionalism can be a substitute for certain task-oriented
leadership behaviors.
Kerr and Jermier
found that satisfying tasks in and of themselves are a substitute for relationship-oriented behaviors of
leaders.
Similarly, followers’ ability and professionalism can be a substitute for certain task-oriented
leadership behaviors.
Satisfying tasks in and of themselves are a substitute for what type of behavior in leaders?
Relationship-oriented behaviors of leaders.
Follower’s ability and professionalism can be a substitute for certain type leadership behaviors?
Certain task-oriented leadership behaviors.
Why would a follower’s need for autonomy make them less receptive to leaders who provide information?
Leaders who exercise task-oriented data and information do not need to provide something that the follower’s are already proficient in.
What type of moderator variable does not neutralize or replace a leader’s ability to influence a follower’s performance but rather represents an intermediate step between independent and dependent variables?
Mediator variables.
They interact with the managerial and situational variables to determine the work unit’s performance.
Information on Mediator Variables
The authors use the example of behavioral uncertainty—defined as “the degree of uncertainty an individual possesses that a particular work behavior will yield a certain outcome”—to demonstrate how a mediator variable functions in the
causal chain.
Task-oriented leadership (the independent variable) reduces a subordinate’s behavioral uncertainty by clarifying appropriate behaviors and rewards for attaining work goals.
This reduced behavioral uncertainty, in turn, is related to higher motivation, satisfaction, and it is hoped, performance. Here the leader behavior
affects the criteria through its relationship with the mediator.
What is the difference between moderator and mediator variables?
In general terms, a moderator is a qualitative (e.g., sex, race, class) or quantitative (e.g., level of reward)
variable that affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent or predictor variable and a dependent or criterion variable
A given variable may be said to function as a mediator
to the extent that it accounts for the relation between the predictor and the criterion.
Mediators explain how external physical events take on internal psychological significance. Whereas moderator variables
specify when certain effects will hold, mediators speak to how or why such effects occur.
Explain the difference between moderator and a mediator variables in laymen terms. (Thanks ChatGPT)
Moderator Variable:
Think of a moderator like a referee in a game. It’s a factor that influences the relationship between two other variables.
In the context of leadership, let’s say we’re looking at the relationship between a leader’s communication style and team performance. A moderator variable could be something like team cohesion. If team cohesion is high, the impact of the leader’s communication style on team performance might be stronger compared to when team cohesion is low. So, in this case, team cohesion is moderating the relationship between the leader’s communication style and team performance.
Mediator Variable: A mediator is more like a messenger. It helps explain the relationship between two other variables. Continuing with the example of leadership, let’s say we’re still interested in the relationship between a leader’s communication style and team performance. A mediator variable could be something like employee satisfaction. So, the leader’s communication style might influence employee satisfaction, which in turn affects team performance. Here, employee satisfaction is mediating the relationship between the leader’s communication style and team performance.
In essence, moderators change the strength or direction of a relationship between two variables, while mediators help explain how or why that relationship exists.
What are the four types of mediators, or intervening variables, that play a role in leadership and group effectiveness?
Managerial behaviors, intervening variables, criterion variables, and situational variables.
The model—with arrows representing direct effects and moderating
influences—illustrates the way that the behaviors of the leader and the actions of the moderators
influence followers as well as organizational outcomes.
What does the contingency of theories of leadership place the strongest emphasis on?
Why?
The followers.
Because leadership is a relationship and leaders must interact with other individuals.
Most individuals spend the majority of their lives as followers. Most individuals spend the majority of their lives as followers. Even when they hold leadership
positions, they are usually in a subordinate position to someone and therefore function as followers.
Just as leaders can no longer be assumed to be managers, followers cannot be
expected to be subordinates. Followers and leaders can be anyone within the organization.
The relationship between leaders and followers is a two-way conversation that is greatly influenced by what?
Follower’s expectations.
How are norms created in social groups which control group behavior and produces social order?
The variety of attributes (needs, values, aspirations, fears) of the group.
What are Rost’s concept of the follower incorporate?
Followership is an active concept. Passive followers are not part of the relationship because they
have chosen not to be involved and are therefore without influence.
Followers decide how active they are going to be, and this decision determines their influence in
the leadership equation. (Individual followers may shift from minimal to full activity over time.).
Leaders and followers may exchange roles within the leadership relationship. This ability to
change roles without changing organizational positions results in significant influence for
followers.
Depending on the group or organization, people at all levels can be either followers or leaders.
Most importantly, both leaders and followers are engaged in leadership, forming one relationship
together.
What are the two dimensions of the model for categorizing followership? (5)
Sheep are followers who are passive in nature and dependent and uncritical in their thinking
Yes people are more active, but they are nonetheless dependent and uncritical in their thinking.
They are often dependent on others for inspiration, aggressively deferential, and potentially
servile in character.
Alienated followers are passive yet independent in nature. They think critically but are often
cynical, disengaged, or opposed to the leader’s efforts.
Survivors rank in the middle for both dimensions, hunkered down and surviving.
Effective followers think for themselves and function with energy and assertiveness.
What is key to effective organizations?
Effective followers.
People who take risks, are
self-starters, solve problems independently, and find their work to be a source of accomplishment
and pride.
What are the four essential qualities of effective followers?
- Self-management
- Commitment
- Competence and focus
- Courage
They can think for
themselves and also manage themselves. They are individuals to whom leaders can safely delegate
responsibility. Whereas ineffective followers feel subservient, effective followers see themselves as
the equal of their leaders. Insightful followers take a certain pride in being candid and fearless, and
they work diligently to keep their leaders and coworkers informed as well as honest. Certainly,
public health leaders would like the practitioners on their staffs to be effective followers—honest,
loyal, candid, and credible.
What is an important role of leader behavior in contingency theories?
Behavior must be rooted in a firm understanding of motivation–the internal and external impetus that produces enthusiasm and persistence in followers to carry out a course of action.
What is individual behavior a function of?
A function of factors both inside the person and outside in the environment due to influence.
Why do leaders engage in a particular activity rather than a different
one? And how do leaders direct or control the activities of the individuals being led?
An activity is the basic unit of a leader’s individual behavior, and leaders are always engaged in one or more activities.
Motives and needs are at the core of individual behavior and action.
Motivation, or the willingness of followers to do
something, is just as important as their ability to do it. Needs are similar to motives in that they occur
within individuals and stimulate individuals to take action. A goal is an aim or a purpose usually
found outside the person, and it serves as the intangible incentive or reward that engages the
individual’s motives. Leaders need to understand which motives or needs will produce a definite
follower action at a specific time.
How can leaders use motivation theory?
To needs and motives of their
followers, while at the same time encouraging high-performing individuals and teams
Such leaders
understand that follower motivation has a significant impact on productivity, and they direct their
efforts toward motivating followers to reach the vision and goals of the organization. They know
what influences their followers to choose, initiate, and maintain a particular course of action, and
they provide an environment in which the followers are enabled to reach goals that satisfy their
needs.
What two things must YOU know to effectively use Fiedler’s model as a leader?
- they need to know whether their style is task-motivated or relationship-motivated.
- they need to know, through analysis of the situation, the favorability of leader–member relations, task structure, and position power.
What determines the degree of favorability in various situations within organizations?
What are the most favorable conditions within the situational variables?
The three situational variables of Fiedler’s contingency model of leadership effectiveness.
Good leader-follower relations, defined tasks, and strong leader-position power.
Situations that are rated least favorable have poor leader–follower relations, unstructured tasks, and
weak leader-position power. Situations that are rated moderately favorable fall between these two
extremes.
Key Process in Implementing the Situational Leadership Model (More Information Next Slide)
- Ask questions to themselves to explicate the situation.
- Know specific tasks each follower is assigned, understand the complexity of the tasks, and determine whether the follower has the prerequisite skills and commitment to carry them out. (Assessing Developmental Levels)
- Adjust leadership style accordingly.
- Further adjustment to leadership style as follower progresses up the developmental level continuum.
Leaders must be constantly aware of the developmental levels of their followers, and they must
have the flexibility to shift their leadership style quickly and effectively.
For a D1 follower (low competence but high commitment), an S1 leadership style (the
“directing” style) is appropriate. Leaders must recognize when a follower moves from the D1 level
to D2, because at this point the follower’s commitment has plummeted; the S2 leadership style (the
“coaching” style), with its increased supportive behavior, then becomes appropriate.
Coaching comes at a critical point in the process. If a leader fails to recognize key points in the follower’s development, leadership style and follower developmental level become mismatched, causing a failure in leadership.
All too often, leaders make the mistake of attempting to delegate to followers who are not yet developmentally ready to accept such a style. Also, if leaders fail to maintain at least some directive behavior and some supportive behavior while delegating, they are abrogating their responsibility to their followers.
