The LPC Model

Called the Least Preferred Co-Worker. This model was developed by Fred E. Fieldler. According to him leaders become leaders not only because of their personality but also because of the various situational factors that they face. He came up with three critical dimensions of leadership situations that affect a leader's style. These were:

i.    Position Power—the degree to which a position enables a leader to get enough members to comply with his directions.

ii.    Task Structure—degree to which tasks are spelled out clearly and people held responsible i.e. how much each person knows his roles.

iii.    Leader-Member Relation—the extent to which group members like, and trust a leader and are willing to follow him. From these situations Fieldler identified two types of leadership style:

Task-oriented whereby a leader gains satisfaction from seeing tasks performed.

People-oriented where the leader aims at achieving good interpersonal relations. Fieldler concluded that "Leadership performance" depends both on the organization and the situation. One cannot speak of effective leaders but only of leaders who tend to be effective in one situation and ineffective in another situation. Effective leadership requires both training and a conducive organizational climate. The LPC model sees appropriate behaviour as a function of the favourableness of the situation as defined by the three situations.