Three situational theories of leadership that have influenced the ways in which leadership is understood and practised:
• Fiedler’s Least Preferred Co-worker approach
is based on the following three axioms:
1 the interaction between the leader’s personal characteristics and some aspects of the situation determines the effectiveness of the leader;
2 leaders are either ‘task oriented’ or ‘person oriented’; and
3 the effectiveness of the leader is determined by the leader’s control of the situation.

Fiedler comes to his classification of task or person oriented leadership by the use of a measurement scale called the ‘Least Preferred Co-worker’ (LPC) scale. The instrument asks leaders to assess co-workers on a series of bi-polar descriptors including pleasant/unpleasant, cold-warm, and supportive-hostile in order to assess to what degree they think they would not work well together with that co-worker. A leader who obtains a low LPC is more motivated by task achievements and will only be concerned about relationships with subordinates if the work unit is deemed to be performing well. A leader who obtains a high LPC score will be more motivated to develop close interpersonal relations with subordinates. Task directed behaviour is of a lesser concern, and only becomes important once sound interpersonal relations have been developed. According to Fiedler, if the least preferred co-worker still scores relatively high it indicates that the leader derives a sense of satisfaction from ‘working on good relationships’, indicating a person oriented leadership style. The model further suggests that control is dependent on three combined contingency
variables:
1 the relations between the leader and the followers;
2 the degree of task structure (or the degree to which the followers’ jobs can be specified clearly); and
3 the leader’s position of power or amount of authority

• Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory
A theory claiming that as maturity of the group changes, leader behaviour should change as well, is known as the Situational Theory of Leadership. Hersey and Blanchard (1977) argued that as the technical skill level and psychological maturity of the group moves from low to moderate to high, the leader’s behaviour would be most effective when it changes accordingly. When low levels of maturity are enacted in relation to the tasks being performed, a high task-behaviour of the leader should be exhibited, or in other words, a ‘selling’ and ‘telling’ approach to communicating with the subordinates. At
medium levels of maturity, leaders need to be more focussed on relationship-behaviours and at the highest levels of subordinate maturity, the leader needs to offer little direction or task-behaviour and allow the subordinate to assume responsibilities, or in other words, a ‘supportive’ and ‘delegation’ driven style of leadership communication.

• Path-Goal Theory
the Path-Goal Theory suggests that a leader must select a style most appropriate to the particular situation. The theory in particular aims to explain how a leader’s behaviour affects the motivation and satisfaction of subordinates.
Characteristics of the subordinates and characteristics of the environment determine both the potential for increased motivation and the manner in which the leader must act to improve motivation. Subordinate preferences for a particular pattern of leadership behaviour may also depend on the actual situation in which they are placed. Taking those different perspectives into consideration, the Path-Goal Theory proposes four styles of leadership behaviour that can be utilized to achieve goals:
• Directive leadership: The leader gives specific instructions, expectations and guidance.
• Supportive leadership: The leader shows concern and support for subordinates.
• Participative leadership: The subordinates participate in the decision-making.
• Achievement oriented leadership: The leader sets challenges, emphasizes excellence and shows confidence that subordinates will attain high standards of performance.

The theory is principally aimed at examining how leaders affect subordinate expectations about likely outcomes of different courses of action. Directive leadership is predicted to have a positive effect on subordinates when the task is ambiguous, and will have a negative impact when the task is clear. Supportive leadership is predicted to increase job satisfaction, particularly when conditions are adverse. Achievement-oriented leadership is predicted to encourage higher performance standards and increase expectancies that desired outcomes can be achieved. Participative leadership is predicted to promote satisfaction due to involvement.