The contingency approach to leadership and management often is referred to as so-called, because it "is a a truism that any theory of corporate or business strategy must be, by definition, contingency-based" (Ginsberg & Venkatraman, 1985, 421). In essence, the contingency approach to management means nothing more nor less than that "the appropriateness of different strategies depends on the competitive settings of businesses" (Hambrick & Lei, 1985, p. 765).
The contingency approach to management is a means of developing organizational strategy. Strategic forecasting is the cornerstone in a contingency approach. Forecasting of conditions must be made, with respect to environmental conditions, organizational characteristics, resource availability, market dynamics, and product life cycle. The contingency approach to management, however, goes beyond the forecasting of conditions. In the contingency approach, a variety of possible scenarios are developed, based upon forecasted conditions, and contingent strategies are developed for each probable scenario. Obviously, this is a process which could strangle strategy development, if effective use is not made of information management technology. The contingency approach to management is designed to deal with uncertainties. It is somewhat of a middle ground between the situation-specific approach to management, which sees each strategic decision situation as unique, and the universal approach, which holds that certain laws of cumulative experience are almost universally observable. Contingency theory recognizes that usually no one way is the only way of doing something, and that any one way of doing something will not be equally effective in all situations.
The "T" in "T Group Syndrome" refers to training. The T Group Syndrome is based on the premise that tomorrow's workers must be ready to lead the way, to drive the process, not simply to follow the trends. Training programs t...