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Abstract

A leadership development program was conducted with a sample of 96 leaders to investigate the contributions of the Contingency Model's assumptions in determining leadership effectiveness. Subjects received one of three treatments: A training program based on the Contingency Model (i.e., the Leader Match program of Fiedler, Chemers, and Mahar), a training program similar to Leader Match but omitting any discussion of leadership style, and a no-training control group. Leaders receiving Leader Match showed evidence of using its Situational Engineering techniques for making changes in the leadership context, but no significant improvement in performance ratings was found. It is suggested that Situational Engineering techniques be considered only for those trainees who have the opportunity to best make use of them and that new or inexperienced leaders may benefit the most from this type of training.

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A Test of Situational Engineering for Training Leaders

Abstract

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