Some recent studies on leadership have demonstrated that a leader behaves flexibly to cope with varied group situations (subordinates' performance level, task structure, and task complexity). These studies, however, have not explained theoretically why a leader behaves flexibly in different situations.
In order to investigate the mechanism of a leader's flexible behavior, the following two hypotheses were examined, using 1576 male subjects (first-line managers) engaged in railway traffic.
Hypothesis 1: Considering various situations of work group, the first-line manager will establish his own management objective which is most suitable for his workshop. Results showed that such situational factors as “manager-subordinate relation”, “manager-labor union relation”, “pride as a manager”, “relation with upper level manager”, and “reliance on management policy of organization” had strong influences on establishing the management objective. Further, considering the favorableness of these situational factors for the leader, there seemed to exist a clear hierarchy in establishing the management objective.
Hypothesis 2: Leadership behavior of the first-line manager will vary in accordance with his own management objective. As Expectancy Theory (Vroom 1964) suggests, the manager will choose behaviors which have instrumentality to achieve his own management objective. Results supported this hypothesis. Score of Performance function was significantly higher for the managers with task-oriented management objective than for the managers with human (group) -oriented management objective. In contrast, score of Maintenance function was significantly higher for the managers with human (group) -oriented objective. In addition, the correlations between subjects' instrumentality percept-ons (the degree to which his own leadership behavior is seen as leading to accomplishing his own management oblective) and his actual leadership behavior (Performance and Maintenance function) were high. That is, Performance function was r=0.47 (p<. 01), and Maintenance function was r=0.51 (p<. 01).
It was concluded from these findings that we need to hypothesize the moderating effect of management objective in explaining a leader's flexible behavior. Furthermore, a model concerning leadership process was proposed.
Finally, based upon the leadership process model, we can successfully interpret the Contingency Model of leadership effectiveness (Fiedler 1967).
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