11.2 The Vroom - Yetton model

11.2 The Vroom “Yetton model

The Vroom “Yetton (1973) model comprises three elements that are interconnected in the logic of contingency theory: there is (1) no leadership strategy (style) that is successful in all situations, (2) therefore the situations have to be diagnosed and (3) rules have to be found in respect of which strategy best matches which situation. The Vroom “Yetton model has been tested in a number of studies and is perhaps the best empirically supported of all situational leadership theories . In this section we provide a brief description of the three elements of the model in order to aid understanding of the results of our study.

11.2.1 Leadership strategies

According to the Vroom “Yetton model a leader can choose from five levels of participation when making a decision: AI, AII, CI, CII, GII, where A stands for autocratic, C for consultative and G for group , I stands for concentration on one person (AI = leader alone, CI = one-to-one consultation with all subordinates who could be affected by the decision), and II stands for the inclusion of two or more persons at the same time. These strategies range from an autocratic decision (AI) to a total group decision (GII). AI represents 0 per cent and GII 100 per cent participation. The assignment of different participation scores to strategies between the extremes of the scale is based on empirical studies in which managers rated distance on a scale of 1 to 10. AII denotes 10 per cent, CI 50 per cent and CII 80 per cent participation.

11.2.3 Situational attributes

The leadership decision situation is characterized by seven attributes, which correspond to seven diagnostic questions: (1) Does the problem possess a quality requirement? (2) Does the leader have sufficient information to make a high-quality decision? (3) Is the problem structured? (4) Is acceptance of a decision by subordinates important for effective implementation? (5) Will an autocratic decision made by the leader be accepted by subordinates? (6) Do subordinates share the organizational goals to be attained by solving this problem? (7) Is there likely to be conflict among subordinates over preferred solutions? These questions rely on the assumption that leadership effectiveness is based on the mastering of two main variables : LE = f ( Q x A ), where Q stands for quality and A for acceptance. Quality refers to a leader s professional competence “ with an emphasis on knowledge “ to meet the technical and task-oriented requirements of an organizational goal. Acceptance refers to the subordinate s commitment to executing the organizational goals. A commitment of this kind is endangered when subordinates are in conflict with the leader s aspirations or the company s goals, or when there is insufficient consensus among themselves about how to tackle the task at hand. The leader needs ˜social competence to diagnose these commitment problems.

11.2.3 Decision rules

The model provides seven decision rules (the leader information rule, goal congruence rule, unstructured problem rule, acceptance rule, conflict rule, fairness rule and acceptance priority rule), each one of which excludes certain decision strategies in specific situations. The leader information rule, for example, makes strategy AI (autocratic decision making) unfeasible in a situation where the quality of the decision is important (diagnostic question A = ˜yes ) and the leader does not have enough information or expertise to solve the problem alone (diagnostic question B = no). The result of applying all seven rules to a decision situation is a set of strategies (feasible set) for that situation. When the feasible set contains more than one strategy, two additional criteria are applied to produce just one strategy: time and subordinate development. According to Model A the most time-saving (least participative) strategy is always selected from the feasible set. Model B replaces the goal of time efficiency with a goal of subordinate development and selects the strategy that will allow the greatest involvement of subordinates in decision making and will provide more opportunities to develop their own managerial , technical and team skills.