The contingency model of leadership effectiveness: Some implications of its statistical and methodological properties

Abstract

The statistical and methodological adequacy of several aspects of Fiedler's (1967) contingency model of leadership effectiveness were considered. Data from several published studies were reanalyzed in order to accomplish this end. It was suggested that the use of rank order correlations instead of product moment correlations produces distortions related to sample size. LPC (least preferred coworker) was shown to be a reasonable predictor of group performance, but the model implies that LPC is unrelated to group performance under some conditions of situational favorableness. Problems with a multidimensional interpretation of LPC and a unidimensional interpretation of situational favorablness were discussed. Problems of research strategies used to test and validate the model were considered in terms of sample size, inclusion of nonsignificant results, the difficulty involved in adequately testing higher order interactions, and the inability to make between octant comparisons. It was concluded that the model is capable of directing meaningful research, but only as long as traditional research procedures designed to safeguard internal and external validity are carefully exercised.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 25 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.