Explain the usefulness of Contingency and Trait Theories of Leadership in Organizations (Essay Sample)

Principles and Practices of Leadership and Management
Task: Contingency and Trait Theories of Leadership, Usefulness for Leaders in Organisations
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Introduction
Leadership is part of critical formation of success, not only in a business setting but also at individual level. In every organisation environment, leadership directs how emerging opportunities are exploited, problem are solved, work relations, follower empowerment, organisation culture and the overall achievement of organisation goals (Northouse, 2007). This means that organisations, not only need leaders with managerial skills but also leadership skills that are in line with achievement of their objectives. To facilitate understanding, choosing and applying leadership in organisations, literature has put forward various leadership theories that argue to profile a span of leadership styles adopted in organisation. This continued research has revealed an evolving succession of theories amid dynamic nature of organisation that have required a modified approach to management leadership. In this essay, contingency and trait theories of leadership will be analysed for their useful for leaders in organizations. A critical evaluation on the adequacy of these theories to describe the performance effectiveness and styles applied to achieve organisation goals and objective will be implemented. As such a conclusion informing on more useful of the two theories will be reached.
Contingency and Trait theories of leadership
Trait leadership theories are based on the philosophy that that leaders are 'born, not made’. As noted by Roe (2014), people are born with certain characteristic qualities that give them innate abilities. As such, identification of people with certain characteristics can facilitate choosing of people with potential leadership capability (pg 21). On the other hand, contingency theories of leadership consider both situational and individual factors as well as their interaction when evaluating leadership effectiveness. For instance, the 1967 Fiedler’s Least preferred Co-worker PLC theory has the prediction that, leadership effectiveness is not only dependant on leadership style, but also on a various situational interaction that involve relationship between the leader, followers and the environment they work in; the structure of the task; the degree of power held by the leader (Fiedler, 1967).
Both contingency and trait theories are useful to organisations in emphasizing on identifiable qualities that a leader should have to facilitate management. Through consideration of the qualities that differentiate leaders from non-leaders, the trait theory is able to give a limelight to organisations on the choice of a person to leadership position. Dayand Antonakis (2012) notes that leaders have specific qualities that facilitate them execute their duties on regular basis that include job relevant knowledge, desire to lead and intelligent. This makes trait theory intuitively appealing because of the notion that, society view leaders to be extraordinary people in terms of quality traits who are out in front leading the way (Winkler, 2010). This means that they must possess a combination of traits that other people do not have, if they have to be followed. However, apart from recognising this aspect, contingency theory goes deeper to take into consideration the environment and the situational form that the modern leaders are involved in. The argument behind these theories means that the success through specific traits of a leader are as well dictated by various internal and external constraints relating to work environment (Certo and Trevi, 2014) and even leaders with similar traits may experience different success levels depending on situation circumstances. For instance, the success in crisis management of an organisation will not only depend on specific leadership abilities but also on the social, political, cultural and economic contingency factors (Marra, 1998). And since the type of crisis are dynamic, the leadership required in a crisis will be significantly different from the ones in another crisis. This helps organisation to recognise that there exist no universal traits that can help a leader in management of an organisation.
One of the most critical role of a leader in an organisation is to create a vision for an organisation and ensure that the followers are aligned to its implementation. According to Parry and Jackson (2011) organisation success of an organisation largely depends on the decisions its leaders make on its behalf. In contemporary organisations, leaders are endowed with the responsibility of selecting their followers, for instance, various departmental leaders. As such, trait theory offer a criteria for employee recruitment and partner organisation to work with. With an advantage of wide research carried on trait theories for decades, various traits have been identified that provide selection criteria and a benchmark when evaluating employability of an individual. A good example is the widely accepted OCEAN; Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, model that provide an evaluation of personal traits Day and Antonakis (2012). Indeed Certo and Trevis Certo (2014) notes that leaders find it easier to work with followers whose characters they understand; they are able to allocate duties, predict and evaluate performance, create and develop task teams, and day to day operations. But failure to produce static personality traits or qualities that fully distinguish leaders from no-leaders is a major drawback in the use of trait theory for leaders in organisation. As such, there is no guarantee that the selected individual will deliver to the tasks per their traits and the environment they work. This drawback can be eliminated through the use of contingency theory of leadership. According to Bennis (2007) Successful leadership is an outcome of interaction between situation and leaders. This means that situations influence the consequences of leader behaviour. And at such instances, it becomes a challenge to prescribe a single personal trait or qualities that fit all situation when recruiting or evaluating followers.
With organizational effectiveness being affected by some situation factors not under leaders control contingency theory offer leaders with a platform of identifying their leadership styles, analyse their leadership situation, and react to situational factors for effective leadership. Bennis (2007) notes that leaders have to provide complex decision that respond to formations or combinations of situational dimensions. Recent researchers including Siggelkow and Rivkin 2005 and Kenis et al. 2009 are of the view that contemporary organisations are increasingly being involved in dynamic and complex external and internal environment with respect to climate, market and technologies. This has continued to be a key challenge to leaders forcing organisations to cultivate, strategies, designs and associated behavioural skills that facilitate continuous change and fluidity (Goldsmith, 2003). Tackling of these challenges require a leadership that’s take advantage of both trait and contingency theory of leadership to continuously evaluate their abilities to manage these dynamics. Trait theory serves as a yardstick against which the leadership skills of an individual can be evaluated to tackle the fluidity and how leadership positions can be made stronger. Further, through trait theory leaders are able to understand their identity and evaluate how such will affect their follower, partners and the organisation at large. With such information, recommendation for change of leadership can be made to recruit the best fit to handle or head emerging situations in an organisation Goldsmith (2003).
But the fact that the fluidity of organisation involves emerging new situation trait theory becomes subjective judgment of who is qualified and which are the most effective qualities for benchmarking leadership qualities required in such situation. With emphasis is on diversity rather than uniformity being advocated in organisation leadership (Winkler, 2010), trait theory fails to implement such diversity because it presents traits as an ‘aggregate of facts rather than circumstantial evaluation of abilities’. It is this inadequacy that makes contingency approach better fitted than trait oriented approach. As noted by Northouse (2016) Contingency theory widens the scope of leadership understanding from an emphasis on a particular, best type of leadership; advocated through trait theory, to stressing the importance of a leader's style and particular situation burdens. Since leaders have to position themselves with fluidity capabilities to continuously come up with a combination of resources to enable highly fragile decision-making concerning resource aquicision, integration and reconfiguration, there is need for continued leaning and absorption of new skills advocated by contingency theory. For instance,the Fiedler and Chemers’s (1984) Leader Match Concept offers a way for leaders to re-engineer their leadership style to match the situation they are involved in, contributing to efficient handling of fluidity in organisations. Winkler (2010) finds that even if leaders have similar traits the situational circumstances are different across organisation, creating a need for continuous learning and developments. This notion cannot be implemented through the use of trait theory in facilitating leadership understanding because it is overly absent.
Another advantage of contingency theory use in leadership effectiveness is that it provides a platform for tailoring situation to fit the leadership style required. Through application of Fiedler’s program ...