Assignment
The assignment for chapter 14 is a short assignment. You are going to explore Fiedler’s Contingency
Theory of leadership. Complete the Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scale that is provided below.
After completing the LPC scale, answer the following questions: .
1. What is your score on the LPC, and what type of leader are you based on the score? Do you
agree or disagree with the assessment, and why?
2. What do you think of Fiedler’s theory? Do you think it has some merit? Does it make more, less,
or similar sense as the other leadership theories in the chapter?
3. What do you think of the LPC scale? Is it a valid way to assess your leadership style?
4. Be sure to refer to appropriate information from the chapter and lecture material in your
response. This is a key to receiving a good grade. I don’t want an answer based soley on
opinion.
The assignment length should be at least 1 1/2 pages double spaced. You should spend most of your
paper answering the questions posed in instruction #2 and instruction #3. You should use 1 inch margins
and a font no larger than that of Times Roman 12 point (hint: Arial 11 point font is equal to Times Roman
12 point font)
Submitting the Assignment
Due Date. Check the course schedule for the due date.
Submission Instructions. Please submit the assignment as a Microsoft Word file attachment in the
dropbox by selecting the “Dropbox” option from the navigation menu along the top of the page. Once in
the dropbox, select “Chapter 14 Assignment” under Week 7. Attach your Word file by selecting the “Add
a File” button, browsing for your file which will be located on your computer, and then select the “add”,
“upload”, and ultimately the “submit” buttons.
Be sure to use the spell check and grammar check options on your word processing software. I want the
assignments to have no spelling errors or grammatical errors.
Good luck.
Least Preferred Coworker Scale
Instructions
Think of all the different people with whom you have ever worked . . . in jobs, in social clubs, in
student projects, or whatever. Next think of the one person with whom you could work least
well, that is, the person with whom you had the most difficulty getting a job done. This is the
one person (a peer, boss, or subordinate) with whom you would least want to work. Describe
this person by circling numbers at the appropriate points on each of the following pairs of bipolar
adjectives. Work rapidly. There are no right or wrong answers.
Pleasant 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Unpleasant
Friendly 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Unfriendly
Rejecting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Accepting
Tense 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Relaxed
Distant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Close
Cold 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Warm
Supportive 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Hostile
Boring 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Interesting
Quarrelsome 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Harmonious
Gloomy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cheerful
Open 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Guarded
Backbiting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Loyal
Untrustworthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Trustworthy
Considerate 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Inconsiderate
Nasty 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Nice
Agreeable 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Disagreeable
Insincere 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sincere
Kind 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Unkind
Scoring
Compute your LPC score by totaling all the numbers you circled. Enter that score below:
LPC = _____
Interpretation
The LPC scale is used by Fiedler to identify a person’s dominant leadership style (see the
textbook material). Fiedler believes that this style is a relatively fixed part of one’s personality,
and is therefore difficult to change. This leads Fiedler to his contingency views, which suggest
that the key to leadership success is finding (or creating) good “matches” between style and
situation.
If your score is 73 or above, you are considered a “relationship-oriented” leader. If your score is
64 or below, you are considered a “task-oriented” leader. If your score is 65 to 72, you are a
mixture of both, and it is up to you to determine which leadership style is most like yours.
