Emotions and Leadership: The Role of Emotional Intelligence

The Role of the Situation in Leadership
Victor H. Vroom
Arthur G. Jago

Leadership depends on the situation. Few social scientists would dispute the validity of this statement. But the statement can be interpreted in many different ways, depending, at least in part, on what one means by leadership. This article begins with a definition of leadership and a brief description of 3 historically important theories of leadership. The most recent of these, contingency theories, is argued to be most consistent with existing evidence and most relevant to professional practice. The Vroom, Yetton, and Jago contingency models of participation in decision making are described in depth, and their work provides the basis for identifying
3 distinct ways in which situational or contextual variables are relevant to both research on and the practice of leadership.
Keywords: participation, situational leadership, normative models, contingency theory

T

he term leadership is ubiquitous in common discourse. Political candidates proclaim it, organizations seek it, and the media discusses it ad nauseum.
Unfortunately, research on leadership has done little to inform these endeavors. As Bennis and Nanus (1985) have noted, Literally thousands of empirical investigations of leaders have been conducted in the last seventy-five years alone, but no clear and unequivocal understanding exists as to what distinguishes leaders from nonleaders, and perhaps more important, what distinguishes effective leaders from ineffective leaders. (p. 4)

Although this assertion is over 20 years old, our position is that any serious review of the more recent literature would reveal that the quote is as relevant today as it was then. One of the problems stems from the fact that the term leadership, despite its popularity, is not a scientific term with a formal, standardized definition. Bass (1990) has lamented the taxonomic confusion by suggesting that
“there are almost as many

References: Ashour, A. S. (1973). The contingency model of leadership effectiveness: An evaluation Avolio, B. J. (2007). Promoting more integrative strategies for leadership theory building Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s handbook of leadership (3rd ed.). Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge Blake, R., & Mouton, J. (1964). The managerial grid. Houston, TX: Gulf. Brown, F. W., & Finstuen, K. (1993). The use of participation in decision making: A consideration of the Vroom–Yetton and Vroom–Jago normative models Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Cohen, M. D., & March, J. G. (1974). Leadership and ambiguity: The American college president Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1998). Charismatic leadership in organizations Cronbach, L. J. (1957). The two disciplines of scientific psychology. Evans, M. G. (1970). The effects of supervisory behavior on the path– goal relationship Evans, M. G. (1996). R. J. House’s “A path– goal theory of leader effectiveness.” The Leadership Quarterly, 7, 305–309. Fiedler, F. (1965, September). Engineer the job to fit the manager. Harvard Business Review, 43, 115–122. Fiedler, F. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fiedler, F. (1972). How do you make leaders more effective? New answers to an old puzzle Fiedler, F., & Chemers, M. M. (1984). Improving leadership effectiveness: The leader match concept (Rev. ed.). New York: Wiley. Field, R. H. G. (1998). Testing the incremental validity of the Vroom– Jago versus Vroom–Yetton models of participation in decision making. Glad, B. (2004). Tyrannical leadership. In G. R. Goethals, G. J. Sorenson, & J Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. (2007). Asking the right questions about leadership Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. (1982). Management of organizational behavior: Utilizing human resources (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hill, T. E., & Schmitt, N. (1977). Individual differences in leadership decision making House, R. J. (1971). A path– goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, 321–338. House, R. J., & Dessler, G. (1974). The path– goal theory of leadership: Some post hoc and a priori tests House, R. J., & Mitchell, T. R. (1974). Path– goal theory of leadership. Indvik, J. (1986). Path– goal theory of leadership: A meta-analysis. Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meetings, 46, 189 –192. Jago, A. G. (1978). Configural cue utilization in implicit models of leader behavior James, W. (1880, October). Great men, great thoughts and their environment. Atlantic Monthly, 46, 441– 459. Kerr, S. (1974). Discussant comments. In J. G. Hunt & L. L. Larson (Eds.), Contingency approaches to leadership (pp Kets de Vries, M., & Miller, D. (1985). Narcissism and leadership: An object relations perspective Lieberson, S., & O’Connor, J. F. (1972). Leadership and organizational performance: A study of large corporations Likert, R. (1961). New patterns of management. New York: McGraw-Hill. Likert, R. (1967). The human organization. New York: McGraw-Hill. Locke, E. A., & Schweiger, D. M. (1979). Participation in decision making: One more look Lowin, A., & Craig, J. R. (1968). The influence of level of performance on managerial style: An experimental object-lesson in the ambiguity of McMahon, J. T. (1972). The contingency theory: Logic and method revisited Miller, K. I., & Monge, P. R. (1986). Participation, satisfaction, and 24 Mischel, W. (2004). Toward an integrative science of the person. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 1–22. Perrow, C. (1970). Organization analysis: A sociological view. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Peters, L. H., Hartke, D. D., & Pohlmann, J. T. (1985). Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership: An application of the meta-analysis procedures of Schmidt and Hunter. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 274 –285. Pfeffer, J. (1977). The ambiguity of leadership. Academy of Management Review, 2, 104 –112. Podolny, J. M., Khurana, R., & Hill-Popper, M. (2005). Revisiting the meaning of leadership Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. (1977). Constraints on administrator discretion: The limited influence of mayors on city budgets. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 11, 475– 498. Schriesheim, C. A., & Kerr, S. (1977). Theories and measures of leadership: A critical appraisal of current and future directions. In J. G. Hunt & L