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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Qualities of leadership

Brightwell Foods has a leader with a strongly task-oriented style. Under Fiedler's contingency model, the leader has a poor relationship with the team, the task is highly unstructured, and his formal position power is weak. Which conclusion does the model support?

The situation is very unfavourable, and Fiedler's model says task-oriented leaders tend to perform relatively well in such extremes. Poor leader-member relations, an unstructured task and weak position power define an unfavourable situation, and Fiedler treated leadership style as fixed.

  1. AA task-oriented leader is likely to be effective only if the team gains more say in decisions
  2. BA relationship-oriented leader would be most effective in all situations
  3. CThe leader's style can be flexibly switched to suit the situation, so no change is needed
  4. DThe situation is very unfavourable, and task-oriented leaders tend to perform relatively well in such extremesCorrect

Explanation

Fiedler found that task-oriented (low LPC) leaders perform best in very favourable and very unfavourable situations, while relationship-oriented leaders do best in moderately favourable ones. Poor relations, unstructured task and weak power make the situation very unfavourable. Fiedler also held that style is fixed, so the situation should be changed, rather than the leader's style.

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