Question

1. Evaluate the behavior leadership theories and contingency leadership theories applicable within your organization. (An aviation pilot shop)
2. Explain if you could change or improve leadership effectiveness for your organization, which theory would you choose, and can it be implemented effectively. (An aviation pilot shop)

Answer 1

I chose the pilot shop online website for the evaluation. The online store sells a wide variety of aviation pilot products ranging from aviation GPS, airport supplies, aviation headsets, crew gear, aviation charts, camera, pilot supplies, flight simulation, traffic alert systems and radio transceivers. The aviation shop has an owner, sales people, baggers and packers. The owner is the leader of the pilot shop online store. On evaluating with behavioral leadership theories, the owner can be trained on leadership skills. In this case, the leader manages a group of employees below 20. Hence a democratic leadership style is apt in such a situation to improve the satisfaction of the employees and increase the quality of work. Laissez-faire and autocratic leadership style will not yield positive results when applied to the pilot shop online store. According to contingency theory, the leadership traits change according to the situation and there can be numerous approaches to lead an organization. The pilot shop online store gets a regular demand and is mostly technology driven. The contingency theory includes the technology factor as one of the crucial factors that influence the leadership style. The technology-driven pilot shop online store can influence the leadership style to a certain extent but training on basic technology skills is enough to lead the online store. Detailed technical knowledge is not needed for the owner to lead the store. More technical details can be handled by the employees. Hence the internal and external factors stated in contingency theory does not influence the leadership style in the pilot shop online store to a great extent.
As a result of the evaluation of behavioral theories and contingency theories of leadership, I came to the conclusion that the contingency theory of leadership is of less relevance in the given context. I chose a democratic or participative leadership style with a combination of task-oriented and people-oriented behavioral leadership forming an excellent team will be apt for the pilot shop online store.