Four leadership styles of path goal theory

Assignment

Due Date

Format

Grading Percent

Situational Variables

Day 3 (1st post)

Discussion Forum

3

Leadership Styles

Day 3 (1st post)

Discussion Forum

3

Path-Goal Style

Day 7

Written Assignment

5

Learning Outcomes This week students will:

1. Explain how situational variables affect task and relationship-motivated leaders and identify three factors that have the most impact on your situation.

2. Identify four path-goal leadership styles and explain how these styles compare to styles described in other theories.

3. Analyze the path-goal style being used by a leader with whom you are familiar and evaluate this leader’s effectiveness.

Readings

1. Read. the following chapters in your text, Leadership:

· Chapter 6: Contingency Theory

· Chapter 7: Path Goal Theory

· Chapter 8: Leader Member Exchange Theory

Recommended Readings

1. It is highly recommended that you read the following articles to gain a better understanding of leadership:

· Tse, H. & Mitchell, R. (2010). A theoretical model of transformational leadership and knowledge creation: The role of open-mindedness norms and leader-member exchange . Journal of Management and Organization, 16(1), 83-99.

· Whitener, J.K. (2007). Year of wonders: The wonder of leadership . Advances in Developing Human Resources, 9(2), 214-235

Discussions

To participate in the following Discussion Forums, go to this week's Discussion link in the left navigation:

1. Situational Variables

Explain what/how situational variables affect task motivated and relationship-motivated leaders. Apply these factors to a work situation in which you were involved as a worker or a leader. Which of the 3 factors had the greatest impact on your situation and why? What category does this situation fall into? Respond to at least two of your fellow students' postings.

2. Leadership Styles

Identify four leadership styles associated with path-goal theory. Explain each style and relate it to styles described in other theories. Can leaders exhibit more than one style? Respond to at least two of your fellow students' postings.

Assignments

To complete this assignment, go to this week's Assignment link in the left navigation:

Path-Goal Style

Write a three to four page paper (not including the title and reference pages) about a contemporary leadership situation that is familiar to you. You may use the same situation from the week two assignment. Your paper needs to:

· Define path-goal leadership.

· Identify the path-goal leadership style used in this situation; provide the tasks, and the subordinates’ characteristics.

· Support your position with specific examples.

· Explain whether the action taken was appropriate and effective.

· Discuss if the path-goal leadership approach would be useful in understanding the leadership applied to the situation.

In addition to the requirements above, your paper:

· Must be double-spaced and 12 point font

· Must be formatted according to APA style

· Must include an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement

· Must conclude with a restatement of the thesis and a conclusion paragraph

· Must reference at least two scholarly resources

· Must include a reference page written in APA format

Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

Ashford 4: - Week 3 - Instructor Guidance

Are Leaders Born or Made? Leadership’s Essential Function in Society Leadership is essentially a description of an observation. An observation in reference to an individual’s ability to inspire others to act in a unified manner towards the attainment of a common goal. In The Leader Within , Zigarmi (2005) suggests that leadership is “the act of arousing, engaging, and satisfying the motives of followers in an environment of conflict, competition, or change that results in the followers taking a course of action towards a mutually shared vision”(p. 174). According to Drucker," Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations “(“Drucker quotes,” n. d.). Leadership is the driving force in societal change.

Martin (1998) suggests without a recognized leader, status quo becomes acceptable and the desire to grow and achieve higher goals never develops. Strong compelling leadership is at the root of all great accomplishments. Leaders create follower attitudes that motivate them to trust and follow them (Martin, 1998, p.1). Leaders also have the ability to make an impact in terms of changes in an organization and in a society (Martin, 1998, p.1). Does this imply that leaders have a unique ability to do what others are unable to do?

Do Circumstances Reveal Leadership Abilities?

“Great necessities call forth great leaders.” Abigail Adams

My Family Leadership Story In response to increasing crime in the Orlando Metro area area, my brother, Mr. N. Smith answered the leadership call to become a grass roots community organizer. His decision to act was in response to a 300% increase in crime, a decrease in police patrols and a significant increase in home invasions in the Orlando Metro area. In response to these community issues Mr. Smith organized community members to become proactively involved in ridding the neighborhood of crime. Mr. Smith’s leadership call to action was in response to a leadership vacuum and a need for a unified community effort. Subsequently, he enlisted the aid of community members in establishing a fact- finding committee and presenting these findings to elected city officials. As a result of these efforts, he was able to establish a productive working relationship with elected city officials.

Mr. Smith’s leadership was built on the foundation of strong community ties, trust, credibility, and sacrifice. This trust was implied by his proactivity. He spends a significant amount of his personal time conducting community meetings, gathering crime data, and meeting with city officials. Accordingly, he has been able to garner community support by demonstrating his sincere care and concern for the safety and welfare of its members. He clearly understands that without trust, an individual has no power in relationships. Trust is central to cultural ideas of empowerment, expectation, and predictability (Fairholm, 1994, p. 97). To this end he enjoys a reciprocal trust relationship with members of his community and elected officials.

Mr. Smith has faced significant challenges as a community leader. Initially some community members were reluctant to become involved in neighbor watch activities in fear of reprisals. However, he was able to convince community members that their unified efforts in combating the neighborhood crime problem would be successful. As a leader, he demonstrates the traits of pioneering, organizing, integrity, encouraging and supporting. Most importantly, he has demonstrated vision, commitment, and sacrifice. He has also demonstrated a willingness to challenge the status quo and demand accountability of city leaders. In spite of his demanding career as a fire fighter, he daily checks on the welfare of elderly community members.

Mr. Smith could have chosen to relocate his family. When asked why he chose to take up the leadership responsibilities of a community organizer he replied “This is something that needed to be done. I love my community; this is where I grew up” (N. Smith, personal communication, April 5, 2007). In his opinion, he is merely filling a leadership responsibility by building a collaborative social network in a neighborhood where one previously did not exist. He is merely filling a leadership void. Is this situation unique? How often have we seen leaders emerge without recognizing what was occurring? What is needed in a leader in terms of traits and character is the same as it has always been. Leaders need to be individuals of integrity and vision. As stated by a Zen Master over 2000 years age ago; there is nothing special to leadership; essentially, it is a matter of controlling the evils of biased information and autocracy. (Cleary, 1993:p. 159) .Leaders emerge, flourish, and grow in situations where there is a leadership void and they and their followers share unifying values, ideals, and goals.

References:

Cleary, T. (1993). ZEN LESSONS: The Art of Leadership. Boston and London:Shambala Pocket Classics

Fairholm, G. W. (1994). Leadership and the Culture of Trust. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Martin, M. M. (1998). Trust Leadership. Journal of Leadership Studies, 5(41), 3.

Peter F. Drucker Quotes. (n.d.) retrieved April 5, 2007 from

http://www.inspirationalquotes4u.com./druckerquotes/index html Zigarmi, D., Blanchard, K., Edeburn, C., & O'Connor, M. (2005). The leader within: Learning enough about yourself to lead others. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

DISCUSSIONS

Situational Variables
Explain what/how situational variables affect task motivated and relationship-motivated leaders. Apply these factors to a work situation in which you were involved as a worker or a leader. Which of the 3 factors had the greatest impact on your situation and why? What category does this situation fall into? Respond to at least two of your fellow students' postings.

Leadership Styles
Identify four leadership styles associated with path-goal theory. Explain each style and relate it to styles described in other theories. Can leaders exhibit more than one style? Respond to at least two of your fellow students' postings.

Path-Goal Style

Write a three to four page paper (not including the title and reference pages) about a contemporary leadership situation that is familiar to you. You may use the same situation from the week two assignment. Your paper needs to:

· Define path-goal leadership.

· Identify the path-goal leadership style used in this situation; provide the tasks, and the subordinates’ characteristics.

· Support your position with specific examples.

· Explain whether the action taken was appropriate and effective.

· Discuss if the path-goal leadership approach would be useful in understanding the leadership applied to the situation.

In addition to the requirements above, your paper:

· Must be double-spaced and 12 point font

· Must be formatted according to APA style

· Must include an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement

· Must conclude with a restatement of the thesis and a conclusion paragraph

· Must reference at least two scholarly resources

· Must include a reference page written in APA format

Situational Variables
Explain what/how situational variables affect task motivated and relationship-motivated leaders. Apply these factors to a work situation in which you were involved as a worker or a leader. Which of the 3 factors had the greatest impact on your situation and why? What category does this situation fall into?

Discussion 1 - Situational Variables

According to contingency theory, leadership style can be described as task motivated and relationship motivated. Task motivated leaders emphasizes on attaining set goals whereas the relationship motivated leaders focuses on building a friendly atmosphere. As per the contingency theory, a situation can be described on the basis of three variables: leader-followers relationship, task structure and position power. Leader-follower relationship refers to loyalty, trust, and confidence felt by a follower for the leader (Gill, 2011). Task structure refers to structure and clearness of tasks that need to be executed by followers. Position power shows the power of the leader to reward and punish his followers.

All three variables influence performance of leaders in different situations. Below in the given chart is showing how situations becomes favorable and unfavorable due to these three variables.

Leader-follower relationship

Good

Poor

Task structure

High

Low

High

Low

Position power

Strong

Weak

Strong

Weak

Strong

Weak

Strong

Weak

Situation

Favorable Situation

Intermediate Situation

Very unfavorable Situation

Task motivated leaders are very clear about their goals and objectives; hence they show good performance even in a situation that have a weak relationship, unstructured goals, and low power. Task leaders also show good performance if all three variables are strong. Whereas, relationship motivated leaders perform good in moderate situations where goals are not properly structured and the leader does not have full power (Northouse, 2010).

Work Situation: I was working as sales manager in a retail store and my jobs involved taking care of in-store sales activities and achieving desired sales targets in all product categories. The job profile was task motivated and the tasks of my subordinates were highly structured. The position of power was very strong as I was entitled to take any decision related with changes in reward and recognition of my subordinates. The relationship I shared with my subordinates was very strong and they had full confidence on me despite of our high sales targets.

This situation was a very favorable situation as a Leader-follower relationship was good, tasks were structured, and the sales manager had authority to take major decisions. In such a situation the leader-follower relationship variable has a great impact; good relationships would develop into a friendly working environment that enables employees to handle the stress of high sales targets smoothly.

References
Gill, R. (2011). Theory and Practice of Leadership. London: SAGE.

Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and Practice. California: SAGE.

Leadership Styles
Identify four leadership styles associated with path-goal theory. Explain each style and relate it to styles described in other theories. Can leaders exhibit more than one style?

Discussion 2 - Leadership Styles

Path-goal theory describes behavior of a leader towards his subordinates and followers. According to this theory, leaders reflect different behaviors to motivate and support their subordinates in accomplishing goals by adopting a clear path. The leader shows behaviors that compliment capabilities and compensate deficiencies of their followers. According to this theory:

· Leader shows clearly a path that should be followed by followers.

· Leader removes obstructions that create any hurdles for followers.

· Leader motivates followers by rewarding them along the path.

The approach adopted by the leader while supporting and motivating his followers could vary. It depends on that leader whether he wants to adopt a strong approach or very limited. According to the path-goal theory, four styles depicted by a leader are:

· Supportive Leadership: this leadership style emphasizes on developing a healthy working environment by considering the welfare and different needs of followers. This style is very suitable for some boring and stressful jobs (House, 1971). This style is similar with the relationship behavior of the style approach where a leader emphasizes on a comfortable and relaxed working environment.

· Directive Leadership: this leadership style focuses on telling things that need to be executed along with providing appropriate guidance. It involves proper schedule of tasks and respective timeliness for task completion. Directive leadership style is very effective if the assigned task is difficult and unstructured. This leadership style is similar to the telling style of the effective leadership theory where a leader instructs his followers on things that need to be executed and in what manner they need to be executed.

· Participative Leadership: this style emphasizes on considering their followers ideas at the time of decision making. This approach is suitable if followers are well experienced and willing to perform their job. This leadership style is similar to the participating style of effective leadership and transformational style of contemporary leadership (House, 1996).

· Achievement-Oriented Leadership: in this leadership style, the leader establishes difficult task related and self-development related goals. The task oriented behavior of style approach also emphasizes on achieving desired goals.

The leader also designed the reward system according to the motivation level of followers and requirement of situation. The leadership style is a dependent variable that changes as per demand of situation, task, complexities, individual personalities, performance pressure, etc. Thereby a leader may exhibit more than one style as per the demand of tasks.

References
House, R. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly ,

321-339.

House, R. J. (1996). Path-goal theory of leadership: Lessons, legacy, and a reformulated theory.

Leadership Quarterly , 323–352.

Path-Goal Leadership

Student Name

BUS 691

Discussion 2 - Leadership Styles

Path-goal theory describes behavior of a leader towards his subordinates and followers. According to the theory, leaders reflect different behaviors to motivate and support their subordinates in accomplishing goals by adopting clear path. Leader shows behaviors that complement capabilities and compensate deficiencies of followers. According to the theory:

· Leader shows clear path that should be followed by followers.

· Leader removes obstructions that create hurdle for followers.

· Leader motivates followers by rewarding them along with the path.

The approach adopted by leader while supporting and motivating his followers could vary. It depends on leader whether he wants to adopt strong approach or very limited. According to path-goal theory, four styles depicted by a leader are:

· Supportive Leadership: this leadership style emphasizes on developing healthy working environment by considering welfare and different needs of followers. This style is very suitable for boring and stressful jobs (House, 1971). This style is similar with the relationship behavior of style approach where leader emphasizes on comfortable and relaxed working environment.

· Directive Leadership: this leadership style focuses on telling things that need to be executed along with providing appropriate guidance. It involves proper schedule of tasks and respective timeliness for task completion. Directive leadership style is very effective if assigned task is difficult and unstructured. This leadership style is similar to telling style of effective leadership theory where leader instruct his followers on things that need to be executed and in what manner they need to be executed.

· Participative Leadership: this style emphasizes on considering followers ideas at the time of decision making. This approach is suitable if followers are well experienced and willing to perform the job. This leadership style is similar to participating style of effective leadership and transformational style of contemporary leadership (House, 1996).

· Achievement-Oriented Leadership: in this leadership style, leader establishes difficult task related and self-development related goals. Task oriented behavior of style approach also emphasize on achieving desired goals.

Leader also designed reward system according to the motivation level of followers and requirement of situation. Leadership style is a dependent variable that changes as per demand of situation, task, complexities, individual personalities, performance pressure etc. Thereby a leader may exhibit re than one style as per demand of tasks.

References House, R. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly , 321-339. House, R. J. (1996). Path-goal theory of leadership: Lessons, legacy, and a reformulated theory. Leadership Quarterly , 323–352.

Path-Goal Leadership

Leaders provide support and motivation to their team members to achieve desired results. In present scenario when competition is continuously increasing and organizations are more focused on generating calculative results, performance pressure on employees has raised significantly. Effective leaders provide all types of desired support to motivate employees and make them more productive as well as result oriented. Good leaders help in maintaining healthy and friendly working environment to facilitate processes. Path-goal leadership emphasizes on motivating team members by clearly defining goals and directions to achieve those goals. This paper intends to discuss path-goal leadership and analysis of one situation where path-goal leadership was used.

Path-goal leadership theory describes how a leader can support his team members in designing path to achieve desired goals. Leader support his team members by specifying certain behaviors that are most suitable according to the situation and environment. Path-goal leadership theory focuses on:

· Defining goals and objectives

· Defining path to achieve goals

· Removal of obstacles

· Extending desired support

Path-goal leadership theory is complex theory that consist leadership behaviors, team members characteristics, motivation and job characteristics (Northouse, 2010). Path-goal theory depicts four styles of leadership:

· Supportive Leadership: According to supportive leadership style, healthy working environment and consideration of different needs of team members is essential to generate desired results.

· Directive Leadership: this style emphasizes on telling processes and tasks that need to be performed along with appropriate guidance. Directive leadership involves appropriate scheduling of tasks and formed timeliness for each task completion.

· Participative Leadership: this style emphasizes on involving followers in decision making process. This style is appropriate if team members are experienced (House, 1971).

· Achievement-Oriented Leadership: this leadership style emphasizes on establishing complicated tasks related and self-development related goals.

Situation: GNC Live Well is an American based retail outlet. The retail store deals in retailing broad range of health supplement products. Last year the company has decided to launch a new category of fitness equipments products to maintain its competitive advantages and to respond to increasing competition. Company, instead of hiring new employees to promote and sale new range of fitness equipments products, it directed its store managers to look after promotion and sales with available workforce. This decision created confusion in mind of employees as they were not clear how they will handle this new category along with meeting higher expectations of management (GNC Live Well).

Store manager decided to handle this situation very effectively without de-motivating his sales staff. Store manager formed sub-categories of fitness products and assigned different sub-categories to individual staff. According to new work allocation, each sales person will be responsible for sales of assigned sub-category. Sales manager evaluated knowledge of each staff member on the assigned sub-category and organized customized training sessions accordingly. Store manager informed sales staff on how to deal with new customer base and how to handle client’s queries related with new product range. Store manager also decided not to establish sales target for category as a whole but for each sub-category. Appropriate reward program also designed after taking all concerns of sales staff into consideration. Initiatives taken by store manager generated good results and realized sales targets.

In the above situation the task is ambiguous because employees do not have desired knowledge and prior experience to sale new product range. Subordinates are not clear how to perform the task and how to handle new customer base. In the situation store manager reflected participative leadership style. Store manager shown participative leadership style by understanding different needs of sales staff in terms of skills, knowledge, and incentives required to perform the job effectively (Hein, 1998). Store manager designed the tasks very effectively to increase the motivation level of sales staff and maintain healthy working environment. Store manager depicted participative leadership style by forming sub-categories and establishing sales target for each sub-category that provided clarity to the staff members. Store manager informed staff members on how to perform their tasks in an effective manner. Store manager also shown participative style of leadership by involving sales staff in designing incentive programs.

Actions taken by store manager were very effective and generated desired results. Store manger designed tasks in a manner that it cleared confusion and motivated sales staff. Initially sales staff was confused, de-motivated and shown their resistance towards the management decision of introducing new product category. Store manager created healthy environment, understand the needs of staff members, and designated clear responsibilities by adopting participative leadership style.

Path-goal leadership style is very useful in understanding the style adopted by store manager in the situation. Store manager was able to designed clear tasks, shown appropriate path to his sales team members and removed confusion. The decision taken by management created confusion in the mind of sales staff as they were aware how to perform the tasks. Store manager removed that confusion and motivated sales staff by implementing appropriate reward program. Store manager very evaluated requirements of sales team members and provided all desired support.

From the above analysis it can be concluded that path-goal leadership style is very effective when tasks are ambiguous, employees are not clear about their goals and how to achieve those goals. Path-goal leadership style helps in managing situation by clearing describing the goals and path to achieve those goals along with providing desired support.

References GNC Live Well. (n.d.). Retrieved August 15, 2013, from www.gnc.com: http://www.gnc.com/home/index.jsp Hein, E. C. (1998). Contemporary leadership behavior. USA: Lippincott. House, R. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly , 321-339. Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and Practice. California: SAGE.

Discussion 1

Michael Hargrave Email this Author

8/13/2013 4:29:12 PM

“Contingency theory suggests that situations can be characterized in terms of three factors: leader-member relations, task structure, and positional power.” Northouse, P. pg. 124) In the case of relationship-motivated leaders their primary concern is to preserve the state of the relationship regardless of the task. Their outlook is people oriented so their focus on the task is really secondary to the relationship they developed with their followers. In a task motivated situation the leader is much more focused on the task and could really care less about the interpersonal relationships that might be developed as the result of the team properties. In my 20 years in the Navy and now my 8 years working in the oil and gas industry I have seen both systems and traits at work. In certain situations each of these leadership styles have their place in each of the systems at play.

Early on in my Navy career I met up with a total task based leader who really didn’t care much about his personnel and was so focused on the mission that he failed to recognize he was causing mental issues with several sailors onboard the ship. Since I worked for the people he drove over the edge I was not as directly affected by his tactics as the supervisors who were appointed to report to him. His lack of personal skills came to a head when one member tried to commit suicide during a deployment. The member was removed from the ship and sent ashore for mental health treatment. It was only then that he decided he needed to become more of a people person. There were several factors at play in his attitude towards his sailors namely he was recently promoted to CPO and we felt that this went to his head until the suicide attempt. That made him realize he had to not only be the task master but he needed to take better care of his personnel.

My next example is my last supervisor while I as assigned to the High Island II drilling rig in Saudi Arabia. My boss there was a relationship motivated leader who would do everything to support and back his people. Often times he could be heard telling the rig manager that he would not implement a policy because it would affect the morale of his people. Being assigned to a rig in Saudi Arabia was a challenge all in itself but when corporate would implement a policy that just didn’t fit out personnel model he would submit the required paperwork o not institute the policy he knew would fail his people.

While both are extremes of each model, they have both impacted my life and affected my leadership style immensely. I have become both a task master and a people person. My personal leadership style is to develop those relationships with my people but also hold them accountable for timelines and project production.

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA

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RE: Situational Variables

Instructor Smith Email this Author

8/14/2013 8:26:56 PM

Hello Michael, Thank you for sharing, "Early on in my Navy career I met up with a total task based leader who really didn’t care much about his personnel and was so focused on the mission that he failed to recognize he was causing mental issues with several sailors onboard the ship. Since I worked for the people he drove over the edge I was not as directly affected by his tactics as the supervisors who were appointed to report to him. His lack of personal skills came to a head when one member tried to commit suicide during a deployment. The member was removed from the ship and sent ashore for mental health treatment. It was only then that he decided he needed to become more of a people person. There were several factors at play in his attitude towards his sailors namely he was recently promoted to CPO and we felt that this went to his head until the suicide attempt. That made him realize he had to not only be the task master but he needed to take better care of his personnel." I am certain his poor leadership style was exacerbated by being confined to a ship for long periods of time. Good example.. All the best, Dr. Mel

JOHN NEAL

Explain what/how situational variables affect task motivated and relationship-motivated leaders. Situational variables are characterized by three main factors. These factors are: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. In the leader-member relations, the group sets the atmosphere and the degree of confidence, loyalty, and attraction for the leader. This can result in a range from positive and good, to unfriendly and poor. Task structure is determined by how clear and structured the tasks are. This ultimately determines the leaders’ ability, control and influence upon the group. The third factor is position power. This pertains to the amount of power that the leader has when it comes to rewarding or punishing his followers. Its strength is in the leaders’ ability to hire, fire, give raises, or promote. If the leader does not have the power or authority to do these things it is weak (Northouse, 2013).Apply these factors to a work situation in which you were involved as a worker or a leader. The variable of leader-member relations is prominent in my organization. As a group my employees are treated fairly and not expected to do anything that I would not do myself. We treat each other as family because we spend more time together than each of us does with our own family and therefore, share personal things that do not always relate to work. This has resulted in incredible loyalty towards me. When I was planning on quitting, several planned to leave when I did. When I realized they were serious, I chose to stay longer as I knew they really needed their jobs. As a result, there have been times when overtime was not allowed that they clocked out and helped clean at night. While this is illegal, they insisted that they were willing to work on their own time to help. When it comes to task structure, each of my employees know what their job requirements are and have great job performance. I have worked hard to cross-train my employees so they can each help out where needed if they are not busy. They also voluntarily offer to help each other with their tasks if they are not busy at the time.

Position power is needed in every business; however, I don’t really like the word power as it relates to tight control in my mind. I have the ability to hire, fire, promote, and give raises to my employees. While I enjoy these things for the most part, I never like to fire anyone. I believe in second chances and sometimes even third. However, there comes a time when I do have to let people go. Which of the 3 factors had the greatest impact on your siutation and why?

In my position, I feel that all three factors impact my role as manager in a given situation. I feel that if I lack in any of these areas in a negative way then I am failing my employees as well as the business that I manage. I feel that in any given situation that presents itself to me it is important that I am able to utilize these variables as necessary. This will maintain the relationship that I have with my employees and their desire to go the extra mile for the business and myself. Reference: Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

Scott Richardson Email this Author

8/14/2013 5:19:25 PM

Situational variables include leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. Leader-member relations center on the cultural relationship between the leader and members (atmosphere, confidence in leader, loyalty, and mutual attraction between leader and members (Northouse, 2013). Task structure centers on the clarity of the requirements for the task; clear, concise task requirements equal more leader control. Position power centers on the amount of reward/punishment power the leader has. “Together, these three situational factors determine the favorableness of various situations in organizations”(Northouse, 2013, p. 125).

My position as a lieutenant of a tower ladder company of a fire department typically spans two of the three variables. The reason is there are two distinct leadership venues a fire officer (at the station level) deals with on a daily basis. The two venues are emergency response venues and non-emergency response venues.

Emergency response venues include any incident that the company responds to from medical assists, to auto accidents or structure fires. These incidents require clear, concise communication and emphasize task structure. For obvious reasons my crew and I must be on the exact same page under all circumstances in emergency response.

Non-emergency response venues include station management, public interaction, and professional development. Typically members of a career fire department spend approximately 1/3 of their lives at the fire station, living together. We eat meals, work out, study, and interact with each other and the public on a regular basis. This situation requires leader-member relations to be solid. When they are not, the entire crew suffers, as do the other two shifts at the station. This requires a lot of empathy, understanding, patience, and personal development.

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication

Instructor Smith Email this Author

8/14/2013 8:33:09 PM

Hello Scott, I agree, I worked with IAFF members around the country. Firefighters appear to have close bonds. Good example, "Typically members of a career fire department spend approximately 1/3 of their lives at the fire station, living together. We eat meals, work out, study, and interact with each other and the public on a regular basis. This situation requires leader-member relations to be solid. When they are not, the entire crew suffers, as do the other two shifts at the station. This requires a lot of empathy, understanding, patience, and personal development." Keep up the good work, All the best, Dr. Mel

Tammy Braswell Email this Author

8/14/2013 8:28:26 PM

Explain what/how situational variables affect task motivated and relationship-motivated leaders.

The task-motivated leaders are mostly concern with reaching a goal, whereas the relationship-motivated leaders are concerned with developing close interpersonal relationships. The contingency theory, suggest, the leader may be characterized in three factors: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power and the leader can fall within any one of these three factors (Northouse, 2013, p. 123-24). The Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scale was developed by Fiedler to score leaders. Leaders who score high on the scale are considered as relationship motivated and leaders who score low on the scale are considered task motivated (Northouse, 2013, p. 123- 24). The leader-member relations situational variables consist of a group atmosphere and the degree of confidence, loyalty, and attraction that followers feel for their leader. The second situational variable, task structure, is where the tasks are clear and spelled out. The final situational variable is position power, is the amount of authority a leader has to reward or to punish followers (Northouse, 2013, p. 125).

Apply these factors to a work situation in which you were involved as a worker or a leader. Which of the 3 factors had the greatest impact on your situation and why? What category does this situation fall into?

In my past supervisory experience, I had a tough group of employees that was rebellious to any suggestions or recommendation that I made. I was just entering the world of supervisory and did not know much about how to leading a team; more so, dealing with unhappy employees. Being the new supervisor on board, I had was classified in the relationship-motivated role, more so than task-motivated. In this position, it was my responsibility to get everyone to function as a cohesive team to work together as a unit. As a new supervisor, I did a lot of team building exercises with the group, too reduce the tension in the group atmosphere and so that employees would build trust and confidence in me as their leader. After several exercises in team building, the groups began to trust my judgment and became loyal and committed to getting along with one another. In completing these tasks, I had to articulate team-building exercises in writing on how the team would work together and identify issues for quick resolutions. The position power given was to hire and write employees up, but it is weaken because I did not have the power to fire anyone nor increase or decrease pay. In my opinion, all three situational variables had a great impact, but relationship-motivated had the greatest impact because it scored high on the LPC making it very unfavorable.

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Saga Publications

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RE: Situational Variables

Instructor Smith Email this Author

8/14/2013 8:35:37 PM

Hello Tammy, Excellent example, "As a new supervisor, I did a lot of team building exercises with the group, too reduce the tension in the group atmosphere and so that employees would build trust and confidence in me as their leader. After several exercises in team building, the groups began to trust my judgment and became loyal and committed to getting along with one another." Remember, trust is earned.. it takes time.. Good example. All the best, Dr. Mel