There are three contingency and situational theories of leadership in this PDF.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss.The boss is covert and the leader is open.The leader leads and the boss drives.

Both contingency and situational approaches are the same.Both of them stress the importance of situations, but they are different in their expectations of leaders.A leader should adapt to the situation at hand.The right leader should match the situation.

Fielder believed that leaders are fixed in how they handle situations and that if we want to change how the situation is handled, we must change the leader.It's not clear which style of leader a leader in the middle of the LPC scale is.A lack of flexibility in the leadership style is a disadvantage of the Fielder Theory.

All leaders have behavior tendencies that are innate in their genes.Some leaders are more effective than others.I believe that it varies by circumstance.I will share one example as I relate these approaches to real life.

One of my high school teachers had a PhD in chemistry and 10 years of experience teaching science.He was elected by the school faculty in the middle of my senior year to be the teaching supervisor of the senior class.The faculty assumed that Prof. Bob would excel in this role since he was smart, effective, efficient and well respected.

He was not trained or prepared for the new job he was given as a supervisor.Student subordinates were not happy with his management style and attendance rates at his meetings began to decrease.Subordinates said he did not do a good job captivating his audience.Even though he was great at teaching, he wasn't prepared for a management role.

It looked like the school didn't choose the right person for the supervisor role.I think it could have been due to Prof. Bob's lack of knowledge and training.

P. G. Northouse.Theory and practice of leadership is in the sixth edition.Sage Publications is located in Thousand Oaks, CA.

The world campus of Penn State.PSYCH 485 Lesson 6:Contingency and Path Theories.On October 1, the Worldcampus.psu.edu/su13/content/06_lesson/03_topic/page.html was added.