In today’s tough economy, the success of a company is often determined by the quality of the leadership team. Quite different from many of the traditional models that focus on the traits of the leader, the Yukl contingency model focuses on the leader’s behavior. The model is both complex and comprehensive but based in the practical realities faced by leaders daily. As an integrated conceptual framework, the Yukl model has both strengths and weaknesses. First, in addition to the strength of being practical in concept and integration, it is a flexible model.
Inherent traits, movement toward a vision, and past successes all contribute to leader power which is dynamic rather than static. The definitive results of past success empowers behavior supported by empirical results. Additionally, the continually developing behavioral change of the effective leader maximizes the effectiveness of his power in both tasks and relationships. Second, there is a positive effectiveness (OB, page 328) to the relationship between the leader’s behavior and the Variables of the model.
Their interrelatedness indicates adaptability and accessibility as the leader learns from experience and feedback. The construct of this model allows for the give and take of data, understanding the ongoing development of the organization, and buy-in to the mission. In this model, the intervening variables, in my opinion, are the short term reality based internal and external elements which must be dealt with as they exist on a short term basis. The economy, competition, and regulation are examples of external Intervening variables.
Culture, environment, education, history, and experience are representative samples of internal intervening variables. Situational Variables are those long-term initiatives that the leader sets forth as aspirations including vision, motivation, and innovation to match the organizations strengths. Third, the relation of the variables to the success criteria indicates a task oriented organization. Without successfully driven tasks, it is difficult to determine the efficient and effectiveness of the organization or its leader.
Task completion is indicative of a close gap between strategy and execution and of the overall effectiveness of the organizational alignment. In the short term, successful coping strategies help the company deliver work product (OB < page 234). More importantly, it is the alignment of organizations work product with customer demands and expectations in the long term that delivers on the brand promise. Both indicate efficiency and reliability within the organization to continually and successfully meet needs.
A byproduct of these successes is attribution (class) to the direction of the leader and increased power. Inherent with any model are weaknesses. A review of the model assumes that all the aspects are positive in nature, but what about a company that has a poor leader prone to faulty decision making? There are three weaknesses within this model that we need to explore. First, while the Yukl model allows for flexibility in the short and long term, it is not an indicator that the leader will do the right thing at the right time.
The leader’s power can have detrimental consequences to staffing, motivation, product selection or direction, and vision. Second, the method the leader utilizes to accomplish the variables leads to positive success if he develops allegiance and alignment through the influential tactic of persuasion (OB, page 379. ) However, if the means of accomplishing goals is negotiation then he undermines his long term effectiveness.
Worse yet, the leader that utilizes coercive behaviors and tactics (OB, page 375) to meet his goals effectively erode his credibility, power, and diminish the collective successes of the organization. With corporate corruption that continually emerges to explosive headlines, including the ongoing investigation of Solyndra, there is a weakness that needs to be addressed regarding the ethical character of the leader through which all inputs need to be filtered (OB, page 370). Is it legal? Is it moral? Is it just?
Does it build the corporate brand or diminish it? These types of questions need to be prevalent in discerning next steps at every point of decision making. The “ whatever-it-takes” attitude to achieving success must be ethical to proactively build the organization and the leaders power base. The question then still remains, what changes should be made to the model to remedy the inherent weaknesses. I would add a Code of Ethics Filter through which all inputs to the Leader Behavior would pass and serves as the rule for all actions and behaviors (OB, page 60).
For the effective leader, this is a determinant of right, just, ethical, and legal. For the effective leader, it is simply being ethical and meeting the generally accepted moral code that was adopted from Christianity. However, as a Christian, this is a biblical worldview that measures all decisions from a biblical basis and makes practical daily application of spiritual principles. It is limiting in scope but recognizes God’s providence and expectations to live differently from the world.