Contingency or Situational?

Fiedler's Contingency Theory is the first insight into leaders being more behavioral instead of trait based.  One of the things that caught my attention is the leader-situation match mismatch.  Where he talked about stressful situations and the leaders needing to be more task-oriented and sometimes in times of needing to be less demanding where the relationship oriented leader would work better.  Fiedler says you need to change the situation not the leader - match the leader with the correct work environment for their style.

In contrast to that, Blanchard says that the leader should use what style works best for them, or the style that best fits the situation.  Personally, I think this is the best type of leadership, but if a leader cannot adjust their style to the situation then they need to make sure they are in a job where their leadership style is used to its full potential.

I have two examples, one of each of these theories to better understand them.  I worked at a hotel for a year and a half and my GM definitely used the Contingency Theory whereas my AGM followed more closely with Situational Leadership.  While working at the hotel, the sprinklers in a guest room went off without any cause.  It ruined everything in the room, flooding it as well as the two rooms below it.  My GM was so concerned with the things in the room and making sure insurance was aware of it, and filling out the proper paperwork that he did not bother to try to speak to the guests to see if they were ok, or to calm them down.  He was definitely task-oriented, but he was like this for all situations. 

However, my AGM was much more understanding of the situation and not only cared for the guest, but also reassured the staff that we were doing the right things and that he greatly appreciated our help.  A month later there was another situation where he needed to be more task oriented because a transformer blew and there was no power to the building for several hours.  In this situation he took the steps necessary to contact the fire department, for the person trapped in the elevator, as well as SDG&E about the transformer.  After all of that was taken care of he proceeded to care for the guests, building relationships with them, and empathizing with them and the staff.

While the contingency theory makes sense for some people I don't think that a leader who is "well rounded" will succeed very far with only being able to be relationship oriented or task-oriented. A leader needs to be able to be flexible to the needs of their employees, employers, guests, etc.