Enhance Your Planning with Contingency Approach: A Comprehensive Guide (2024)

Enhance Your Planning with Contingency Approach: A Comprehensive Guide (1)

Posted on Apr 28, 2024 at 11:04 PM

The implemented leadership and management styles and approaches control your organisation's success in more than one way, as they set your work strategy, employee handling, and more.

The contingency approach is famous for its flexibility and ability to adjust based on situational changes, and that makes the contingency theory perfect for the many changing and challenging factors in the business world.

If you are interested in applying a winning contingency model in your organisation then continue reading with us to discover all that you need. Including popular contingency approaches, and the advantages of contingency approach to leadership and management techniques.

What Is the Meaning of Contingency Approach?

The contingency theory or the contingency approach is a management theory that works based on the requirement of each situation, as this theory claims that there is no optimum single-oriented framework or perspective to manage and handle a task.

Instead, the contingency approach suggests that in the most effective management technique a leader must follow varies depending on the changing internal and external factors of each situation.

Management Training Courses UKdescribe these factors in the contingency theory as contingencies, including the structure and size of the corporation, industry, technology, environment, culture, and the specific challenges facing the leader and his/her employees.

To make things clearer, we can say that the main concept in the contingency theory of leadership is that different situations require different management strategies. This means that leaders and managers must carefully analyse the unique circ*mstances of each situation and adjust their working strategy based on that.

What Are the 4 Key Contingency Approaches?

The contingency approach is one of the moststrategic managementtechniques that ensure a positive growth path for all followers. Moreover, the contingency approach comes with flexible managerial terms, which lead to the development of various contingency theories that all revolve around the basis dynamics:

  1. Fiedler Contingency Theory:

This theory style was proposed by Fred Fiedler and suggests that matching a leader's style and the requirements of the situation is a must to achieve effective and adaptable outcomes from each situation.

  1. Situational Leadership Theory:

Established by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard theorists, and recommends that a leader must work and change his/her managing strategy based on the qualifications of the working people.

  1. Path-Goal Theory:

A contingency theory context designed by Robert House, and focuses on how a leader must encourage and motivate his/her people to achieve the organisation’s goals and get positive outcomes based on each one's personality type.

  1. Decision-Making Theory:

This contingency approach to management is a developed leadership style by Vroom and Yetton and refers to the importance of decision-making styles and frameworks in leadership and management effectiveness.

Enhance Your Planning with Contingency Approach: A Comprehensive Guide (2)

What Are the Advantages of the Contingency Approach?

No one can deny the greatbenefits of project management, especially when it is done professionally with an ideal leader who knows his/her team's qualifications and available resources.

Furthermore, as we said the contingency theory is a flexible and powerful approach that comes with many leadership and management benefits:

  • Improving Organisational Work:

The contingency approach enhances organisational performance on many levels, by understanding and adjusting the leadership and management practices to each specific situation.

Moreover, this theory allows the leader to achieve better alignment between working strategies and leadership demands and promotes efficiency and effectiveness in operations.

  • Saving Costs:

By customising management strategies according to contingencies, you will not only be able to achieve betterMaximo asset management. But also help your company avoid unnecessary expenses.

As applying inappropriate or ineffective leadership theory could cause bad resource management.

  • Providing Effective Solutions for Each Situation:

The contingency approach enables managers to select the most effective working theory for each unique situation they are dealing with.

Which, when done properly, leads to more targeted interventions and higher chances of success in addressing organisational challenges or opportunities.

  • Sharing Structural Adaptability:

As the main idea of the contingency approach is flexibility and adaptability, then this theory helps the organisation achieve stable structures and processes with flexible leadership responses for each process.

All of that fosters resilience and agility in the face of uncertainty or unforeseen events in the business world.

In conclusion,

We are not saying that the contingency approach is the best leadership and management approach to follow, yet, it comes with amazing techniques to help you overcome any situation with minimum losses.

Therefore, starting to train your leaders and managers on the contingency theory could be the right decision to follow.

Enhance Your Planning with Contingency Approach: A Comprehensive Guide (2024)

FAQs

What is an example of a contingency approach? ›

Contingency approach examples in the workspace

For instance, a Western-based company expanding into Asia may adopt a more participative and relationship-oriented leadership style when dealing with Asian teams, as it aligns with the cultural context and expectations.

What are the benefits of contingency approach to management? ›

A contingency leadership approach also allows leaders to help their teams function more efficiently, with less wasted effort and less time spent "doing the same thing over and over again." This, in turn, helps reduce the organization's operating costs while enabling the team to use their time better.

What is an example of contingency theory in the workplace? ›

An example of Fiedler's Contingency Theory in action would be a task-oriented leader who excels in a highly favorable situation, such as leading a team of experienced and motivated employees on a well-defined project with clear goals and deadlines.

How can contingency theory be used in effective management of any organization? ›

According to the theory of contingency, a leader's leadership style must match the circ*mstances in order to be effective. With this model, one can identify their leadership style, assess the situation that requires leadership, and determine whether they are the right leader for the situation.

Can you give me an example of a contingency plan? ›

A simple example of a contingency plan is to back up all your website data. That way, if your website gets hacked, it will be easy to restore the data after regaining access and changing passwords. Without that backup, the team might have to recreate the entire website from memory or build a website from scratch.

What is a good contingency example? ›

In CM lingo, a contingency is a contingent event or condition; something that is liable to happen as an adjunct to or result of something else. An example might be having an agreement with one's teenager such that she must be home by 11:00 p.m. each school night in order to be able to go to a weekend concert.

What are three 3 benefits of contingency planning? ›

The benefits of a Contingency Plan are that it:
  • Considers risks and actions that should be taken when risks materialise.
  • Enables the early execution of a controlled plan.
  • Increases the chance of the best possible outcome being achieved and.
  • Helps a business avoid crisis management.
Aug 1, 2023

What are the key principles of contingency planning? ›

The key principles to bear in mind are that contingency planning should be: • practical • simple and easy to do • realistic and feasible • needs based and efficient, ensuring fair use of resources • process driven for effective operationalization • regularly tested through exercises • monitored and updated.

What are the strengths of contingency approach? ›

One of the strengths of the Contingency theory is its practicality and flexibility, as it allows leaders to adjust their approach based on the specific needs of the situation . However, a weakness of this theory is the challenge of accurately identifying the most appropriate leadership style for a given situation .

What are examples of contingency management skills? ›

contingency management skills – responding to problems and irregularities when undertaking a work activity, such as:
  • breakdowns.
  • changes in routine.
  • unexpected or atypical results or outcomes.
  • difficult or dissatisfied clients.

What is an example of a contingency plan in the workplace? ›

For example, you might create a contingency plan outlining what you will do if your primary competitors merge or how you'll pivot if you lose a key client. You could even create a contingency plan for smaller occurrences that would have a big impact—like your software service going down for more than three hours.

What is an example of a contingency scenario? ›

Scenario 1: A weather disaster takes place unexpectedly during the event. Contingency plan: Understand exactly what weather factors may cancel the event and have a plan to efficiently communicate this cancellation if necessary. Organisers include the right to cancel the event in the case of an emergency like this.

How do contingency approach make managers better? ›

Contingency approaches equip managers with the skills to adapt their leadership styles according to the unique demands of different situations. By recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, managers can develop a heightened awareness of the specific context in which they operate.

What are the primary characteristics of a contingency approach? ›

Features of the Contingency Approach

Non-universality of management theory: there is no one best way of doing things, and contingency variables should be taken into account when making decisions. Contingency management: decision making is dependent on the situation.

What are three examples of contingency management? ›

Based on applied behavior analysis (ABA), contingency management includes techniques such as choice and preference assessments, shaping, making contracts between the therapist and patient, community reinforcement approach and family training, and token economy.

What is contingency with example? ›

A contingency is a potentially negative future event or circ*mstance, such as a global pandemic, natural disaster, or terrorist attack. By designing plans that take contingencies into account, companies, governments, and individuals are able to limit the damage done by such events.

What is an example of a contingency behavior? ›

Contingency Shaped Behavior

Definition: Behavior selected by direct consequences. Example in everyday context: We have a history of reinforcement via the presentation of water when we turn the shower on, so we continue to turn the shower on when we want to take a shower.

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