Relationship Oriented Leadership Style

In Fiedler’s Contingency Model, the style of leadership is measured by how relationship-oriented and task-oriented the leader is. By taking the LPC scale, one can measure there whether they have a task-orientated leadership or a high-orientated leadership. A high LPC would indicate that the leader has a high oriented leadership whereas a low LPC indicates having a high task-orientated leadership. This theory has 3 factors that determine “situational favorability”: leader-members relations, task structure, and leader’s position power. Leader-member relations describes how well the people you lead work together and how well the relationship you have with each person. Task structure describes how clearly stated and straightforward a goal is. Lastly, position power describes how much power the leader has. This theory believes that for each situation there is a specific leadership style that is most effective. 

After working with my supervisor for a couple of weeks now, I believe my supervisor is highly relationship-motivated and low task orientated. My supervisor really cares about his interns and really wants us to get the most out of this internship. In addition to supervising us he also gives us career advice and mentors support. He is highly extroverted and friendly and aims to establish personal relationships with his workers. I believe he is low on the task-orientated scale because he gives us work to do with few guidelines and more autonomy in what we want to do. Of course, he emphasized that we can reach out to him if we have any questions however he wants us to have autonomy and have as many hands-on experiences as possible. In addition, the interns and I are leading an initiative at CAIR Coalition and we have been given the chance to do truly come up with our own projects. 

This theory believes that for each situation there is a specific leadership style that is most effective. The three factors that have to be considered are leader-member relations, task structure, and leader’s position of power. In situations where there are poor member relations, it is very unstructured, and weak position power, the most recommended leadership style is high task orientated.   On the flip side, in moderate situations high LPC is most effective. Based on this theory, my supervisor’s leadership style is an effective style to use because the situation is moderate.