Contingency Theory Vs. Situational Leadership

The contingency Theory is when a leadership role is divided in two different orientations. There is a task orientation and relationship orientation. Task orientation is when a leader doesn’t really form a relationship with their followers but just has an assign, obey relationship. The leader assigns a task in a directive way and expects it to be completed by the follower without really forming a relationship with them beforehand. Also relationship based is when leaders and followers develop relationships based on social exchanges. Leader has to decide what to share with the follower because of time and resources limited on dyadic relationship. For example when I was seventeen, I worked in Forever 21 and my boss liked to have a tasked oriented relationship with her employees. Half of the time I worked there, she couldn’t even remember my name and referred to me as “you girl” when she needed to assign a task.  Fiedler’s situational leadership took the contingency theory into more depth by explaining more about the different parts of relationship orientation and task orientation like Directive telling approach, coaching/selling approach, participating and delegating. The coaching/selling approach and participating is part of the relationship orientation and the directive telling and delegating approach is part of the task orientation. When I used to work in a catering company my boss always knew if he wanted me to help him achieve a goal he would use the selling approach because I am a big believer in  “you have to give something to get something in return.”