The Effects of Leadership Training and Experience: A Contingency Model Interpretation

This paper summarizes recent studies based on the contingency model of leadership effectiveness tvhich suggest why research typically has failed to shotv that leadership training and experience increase organizational performance. The contingency model postulates that group performance depends on the match bettveen situational favorableness, that is, the leader's control and influence, and leadership motivation (as measured by the Least Preferred Coworker scale). Since leadership training and experience are designed to increase the leader's control and influence, they should improve the leader's situational favorableness. A change in situational favorableness through training and experience should, therefore, decrease the performance of some leaders tvhile increasing that of others. The empirical evidence, reviewed in this paper, supports this hypothesis. Based on the contingency model, netv strategies of leadership training and job rotation are suggested.