Revisiting the Contingency Theories of Leadership: Key Features, Meanings and Lessons

EasyChair Preprint 9310

Abstract

In a globalized, widely diverse and ever-changing world, the need for contingent leadership adaptive to the characteristics of the situation has become more insisting than ever. Therefore, this article examines six major contingency theories of leadership with an emphasis on the key features, meanings, and lessons for organizational leadership in various contexts based on decades of research on human behavior and performance. The goal is providing an understanding into the contingency theory of leadership by highlighting the different situational variables related to subordinates, tasks, and organizations and specifying what leader behaviors are most effective under what circumstances. Combined together, the theories investigated constitute a practical reference for helping leaders identify the features and therefore needs of the situation where they function and ultimately optimize their leadership behavior. The diversity characterizing today’s organizations at national and international levels has created a need for a flexible approach to leadership, which this article serves to facilitate its understanding and application by providing a critical integrative review making sense of the research findings relevant to how leaders can adapt their behaviors to the situation where they operate.

Keyphrases: Contingency Leadership, Education Management, leadership theory, school leadership

@booklet{EasyChair:9310,
  author    = {Abderrahim Amghar},
  title     = {Revisiting the Contingency Theories of Leadership: Key Features, Meanings and Lessons},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 9310},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2022}}