A Step-By-Step Guide to Contingency Approach in Management

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The contingency approach in management depends on the idea that there is no specific best way to manage any of the management problems. Therefore, you can also call it a situational approach. Basically, contingency means the instant contingent circumstances and signifies the various different approaches to the management developed before.

Productive organizations should customize their organizing, leading, planning, and controlling to their specific situations. In simple words, you can say that manager has to identify the position of a task, the requirements of the task, and people connected to manage full management circumstances.

As organizations, circumstances, and people change and vary with time, the contingency approach to management writing guide has no global answer to many questions. Therefore, the answer relies on a complex type of crucial surroundings and inner contingencies. This approach is one of the modern theories of management.

You must follow the below step by step management writing guide to contingency approach of management: 

What does mean by Contingency theory? The term contingency signifies any situation or circumstance that is likely to happen in the future, but that situation’s happening is not sure. So, in simple words, we can say that this theory basically depends on uncertain events.

You should follow the management writing guide to explain the uncertainties involved in management, decision-making, and leadership. Basically, it is a behavioural theories class that will help you to forecast institutional behaviour.

1. Who Introduced the Contingency Theory of Management?

Fred Edward Fiedler, an Austrian psychologist, introduced the contingency theory of management in 1964 by publishing an article.

2. Features of Contingency Approach

Features of contingency approach are the most important management writing guide. These features are given below:

  • The contingency approach concerns the changeable kind of organizations and businesses. You have to select a structure for a searching solution to a problem rather than holding to a specific plan of action in solving the issues.

This feature gives an organization or a business a chance to perform under different environmental situations and conditions.

  • The contingency approach to management writing guide basically depends upon the difficulty of a problem. It represents that management is based on circumstances. There is no specific management principle, and there is no great direction to manage.

Different circumstances can have many types of solutions. No one can predict where things will stand in the future.

  • You can also call this approach an if-then technique to management. In simple words, you can say that if any event occurs, then we can take any action.

Here, if part depicts an independent problem or a situation or variable. And the then term means the action you can take correspondingly or on the dependent situation of the problem. 

  • The contingency approach statement depends upon both external and internal facts of an organization or a business. 
  • Strategies, procedures, and guidelines for management writing guide have to respond to the circumstances.
  • Managers should recognize that size fits all technique is not applicable to management for all kinds of circumstances. It exposes the concept that ethics are universally justifiable.   

3. How Contingency Theory works

In the earlier time, Fred Edward states two types of leadership. One is Relationship Motivated leadership, and another one is Task Motivated leadership.

Motivated relationship leadership is successful in circumstances that stand in between this two utmost.

Task Motivated leaders are preferably productive in most favourable or most unfavourable situations.

Then, Fred Edward states the Least Preferred Co-Worker scale or the LPC scale to measure the leadership skills that will help you to manage the most practical situations. Task Motivated leaders are those who have low LCP, and Relationship Motivated leaders are those who have higher LCP.

4. The Important Strengths of the Contingency Approach

Here are the most critical strengths of the contingency approach given below:

  • Contingency approach is established on real-life research because the theory sketched the test of time as a worthfully and lawful method for defining a successful leadership.
  • The theory also has “predictive powers” when it helps to set on the sort of leadership that will be most methodical in a certain circumstance.
  • According to this theory, management writing guide organizations should allow leaders in proper practices depending on their leadership style rather than anticipating them to be the same effect in all settings.
  • This theory gives information on many kinds of management that companies can use to set up management quality for human resource designing.

5. Contingency Theory of Management Factors

The organization’s internal and external factors help business executives to approach this theory. However, there are many more factors available in this theory that can not control and need different strategies.

The internal factors of this theory are basically the employee to manager ratio, every manager’s common leadership skill, etc. So those internal factors are usual.

The external factors of this theory are client attention and the marketplace.

6. Example of Contingency Approach to Management

For understanding the contingency approach to management writing guide, let’s take an example of the newly recruited manager of a clothing brand with approximately 45 staff. We should consider the following units for that:

  • The low trust factor is when the store staff does not show trust to the manager because the manager can not build strong bonding with the staff for now as the number of teams is large.
  • High post power is the power; using this manager can recruit more people or suspend anyone if required.
  • A high work structure is the operation process of the store. However, the staff of the store has the sense to welcome customers and arrange or show clothes.

So, in this case,  a relationship-motivated leadership style is applicable as per the Fred Edward Contingency approach theory.

7. Contingency Approach to Management’s Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

The theory of management writing guide has many beneficial features, and managers have great use of it. You can find all the advantages of the contingency approach below:

  • This approach is easy to adopt. This signifies that it gives organizations to keep them flexible. They can easily change their policies and plans according to their changing circumstances.
  • Managers can easily make a proper decision by analyzing circumstances, factors, etc. By using this approach, they can think about each situation and aspect that can affect their results in the present and future.
  • By using this approach, an organization has chanced to select a different kind of leader depending upon their leadership skills of different contexts. Basically, this theory does not want that each leader can proficiently handle all types of situations in their organizations.
  • This approach will allow managers to give importance to their understanding, leadership styles, knowledge, and their different decision-making skills based on other circumstances.

Disadvantages

  • Instead of having so many features and facilities of this approach, it does not give the organization completely free from criticism. Due to this approach, managers can go through the exact solutions in search of answers for not having a specific solution to a situation. Many times, it wastes time, money, and resources.
  • As this approach is straightforward. Many managers can not deal with all management circumstances in a unique style. But if you apply this approach in practical life situations, you get a lot of complexity to solve these problems. However, in the limited time period, managers cannot manage the situations and have to make imperfect decisions as they have to consider several factors and go through various analysis processes.
  • As the management writing guide contingency approach is not fixed, it is very much complex to apply. It basically depends upon the circumstances. So, as a manager, you have to spend more time with your workers and understand their problems and situations, then only you can take easy decision-making process to them. You have to modify yourself and your point of view for the growth of your organization.

Conclusion In the end, we can say that the contingency approach stands for management theory which shows that great management skill depends on the situation. This contingency approach to management writing guide is practical. As organizations have a variety of sizes, aims, objectives, and tasks, it will be hard to find globally applicable principles that will work in every circumstance. That’s why the contingency approach is leading management thought in every organization now. It will bring all the segments together to a desirable synthesis. Harold Koontz called this approach as “management theory jungle.”

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