Introduction: Contingency Theory
The main purpose of this article is to summarize the main ideas and contributions of the contingency theory of leadership (CTL) and to show its usefulness for the public sector. To do that, we are going to adapt it to the special characteristics and traits of public management considered as a design science (Barzelay and Thompson 2010).
The most important theoretical backgrounds of the CTL are the behavioral school and McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. According to McGregor’s thesis (1960), leadership strategies are influenced by a leader’s assumptions about human nature. A leader holding Theory X assumptions would prefer an autocratic style, whereas one holding Theory Y assumptions would prefer a more participative style. Anyway, the best style of leadership was the participatory. Later on, Blake and Mouton (1964) created the “managerial...
References
Adair J (1973) Action-centred leadership. McGraw-Hill, New York
Barzelay M, Thompson F (2010) Back to the future: making public administration a design science. Public Adm Rev 70(1):295–297
Benn SI, Gaus GF (1983) Public and private in social life. Sts Martin’s, New York
Blake R, Mouton J (1964) The managerial grid: the key to leadership excellence. Gulf, Houston
Cook BJ (1998) Politics, political leadership and public management. Public Adm Rev 58(3):225–231
Dahl R, Lindblom C (1976) Politics economics and welfare. University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London
Fiedler FE (1967) A theory of leadership effectiveness. Mc Graw Hill, New York
Heifetz RA (1994) Leadership without easy answers. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Hersey P, Blanchard K (1977) Management of organizational behavior: utilizing human resources. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Lindell M, Rosenqvist G (1992) Is there a third management style? Finn J Bus Econ 3:171–198
McGregor D (1960) The human side of enterprise. McGrawHill, New York
Perry JL (1993) “Public management theory”: what is it? What should it be? In: Bozeman B (ed) Public management. Jossey Bass, San Francisco
Rainey H (1997) Understanding and managing public organizations. Jossey Bass, San Francisco
Selznick P (1949) TVA and the grass roots. University of California Press, Berkeley
Tannenbaum R, Schmidt W (1958) How to choose a leadership pattern. Har Bus Rev 36(2):95–101
Terry LD (1995) Leadership of public bureaucracies. Sage, London
Van Wart M (2003) Public sector leadership theory: an assessment. Public Adm Rev 63(2):214–228
Vroom V, Yetton PW (1967) Leadership and decision making. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh
Weber M (1984) Economía y sociedad. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México
Wilson JQ (1989) Bureaucracy: what government agencies do and why they do it. Basic Books, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this entry
Cite this entry
Villoria, M. (2016). Contingency Theory of Leadership. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2227-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2227-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences