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Contingency Approaches

For Pat McGovern, founder and chairman of International Data Group, a
technology publishing and research fi rm that owns magazines such as CIO,
PC World, and Computerworld, having personal contact with employees
and letting them know they’re appreciated is a primary responsibility of
leaders. McGovern treats people to lunch at the Ritz on their 10th anni-
versary with IDG to tell them how important they are to the success of the
company. He personally thanks almost every person in every business unit
once a year, which takes about a month of his time. Managers provide him
with a list of accomplishments for all their direct reports, which McGovern
memorizes the night before his visit so he can congratulate people on spe-

cific accomplishments. Rather than establishing strict goals and standards
for task accomplishment, McGovern decentralizes decision making so that
people have the autonomy to make their own decisions about how best to
do their jobs.
Wolfgang Bernhard, a member of Volkswagen AG’s board of manage-
ment responsible for the core VW brand, displays a very different style of
leadership. When he came to the struggling company, Bernhard moved
quickly to cut jobs, scale back investments in underperfoming units, and get
people focused on quality and productivity issues. He ordered more than
200 employees to report to an auditorium a few miles from headquarters,

formed them into teams and told them to figure out ways to meet specifi c cost
reduction goals, and instructed them not to return to their workplaces until
they’d done so. Often working until midnight, the teams took four weeks to
meet the targets. Bernhard has also tied managers’ bonuses to demonstrated
improvements in quality and productivity. His hard-charging style has ran-
kled some long-time employees and managers, but Bernhard doesn’t mind. “I
am quick and focused, and I like to cut the formalites,” he says. 1
IDG’s Pat McGovern is strongly people-oriented—that is, character-
ized by high concern for people and low concern for production. Wolfgang
Bernhard, in contrast, is a strong, task-oriented leader, high on concern for
production and relatively low on concern for people. Two leaders, both suc-
cessful, with two very different approaches to leading. This difference points
to what researchers of leader traits and behaviors eventually discovered:
Many different leadership styles can be effective. What, then, determines the
success of a leadership style?
In the above example, Bernhard and McGovern are performing leader-
ship in very different situations. Volkswagen AG recruited Bernhard to assist
in a massive restructuring and help the company reverse a steep drop in

profits. Many people, including CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder, believe Bernhard’s
blunt honesty and task-oriented approach is just what is needed to get the au-
tomaker back on track. McGovern, on the other hand, is operating in a much
more favorable business situation. As a smaller, privately-held company, IDG
isn’t under the same kind of public pressures from investors and analysts as
Volkswagen. IDG is a leader in its industry, publishes more than 300 maga-
zines and newspapers, and consistently earns industry awards. Morale and
motivation among employees is high. 2
This chapter explores the relationship between leadership effectiveness
and the situation in which leadership activities occur. Over the years, re-
searchers have observed that leaders frequently behave situationally—that
is, they adjust their leadership style depending on a variety of factors in the

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