Fred Fiedler

Fred Edward Fiedler ( born July 13, 1922 in Vienna) is a leading industrial and organizational psychologists of the 20th century. He has become known as the founder of contingency theory and on the basis of his research on human traits and personal characteristics of leaders and leadership styles and behavior regarding it. In 1967 he introduced the famous Fiedlersche Eventualitätsmodell.

Life

Fiedler's work

Towards the end of the 1940s the emphasis moved Fiedler of traits and personal characteristics of managers in certain leadership styles and behavior of managers for leadership research.

He developed power curve as a function of individual discontent (so-called power bosom ) states that people feel in complete satisfaction and perfect satisfaction of needs no incentive and with increasing dissatisfaction initially a measurable increase in performance can be observed. So is the mere fear of losing satisfaction in order to achieve a certain motivation.

With further increasing dissatisfaction but the power curve is almost linear over a prolonged increase in the personal dissatisfaction, while a very pronounced dissatisfaction even has a demotivating effect and thus reduce performance. Only when the personal dissatisfaction increases to such an extent that feelings of panic and anxiety begin to dominate, the motivation increases enormously ( power reserve ) to collapse abruptly and completely contained in the personal performance limits are exceeded.

According to the Ethics Association of German Industry ( EVW eV) the work of Fiedler helps to understand the poor results of incorrect personnel management of many managers who achieve their employees with the intention of a high performance increase without regard to employee satisfaction towards their load limit (overtime, project responsibility, customer acquisition ) and bring it actually achieve any performance improvement. The observation that an increase in personal dissatisfaction over wide ranges does not cause a measurable increase in performance, therefore, has the consequence that the relative satisfaction of the employee is still further reduced, and the undirected More stress leads without individual consideration of unused resources with the individual only to demotivation.

The further increase in output due to the activation of reserve capacity of the employee based on the motivation to act for survival and job security and is due to the close limit load (see diagram) hardly tractable. Will lead you on the basis of the findings of Fiedler in absolute dissatisfaction to sudden and unpredictable total collapse of operational excellence through strong dissatisfaction or anxiety or panic in the actual work situation.

Fiedler found already in 1953 showed that effective teams are composed of people who remain mentally at a distance and focus only on the task (so-called Fiedler values). Team player, an employee was only when he fights together with colleagues to a problem, but never against people. Thus, an employee is a team player if and only if he even optimally solves a problem with others when he can not stand the others ( see Emotional Intelligence ).

Rupert Lay developed it further insights into teamwork, after this does not mean having to be able to group or even easy to clean. It is at best requires a certain amount of flexibility. Teamwork is much more characterized by networked information processing, the release of creativity (ie, realistic thinking against rules ) and the progress of knowledge for developing realistic dense solutions.

From the late 1960s until the mid- 1980s turned Fiedler to the line interests and Eventualitätsmodellen the guide. One of the earliest and best known is his Eventualitätsmodell of leadership effectiveness. Published in 1967 as a theory of leadership effectiveness, the model drew immediate attention as the first leadership theory operational embossed on itself, as it allowed the interaction between the leader and the situation assessment as a prediction of leadership performance.

Fiedler is known worldwide through his books, lectures and consultancy. He has received research grants in its activities and commitments from numerous government agencies and private donors. He held research contacts at the University of Amsterdam from 1957 to 1958, at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium from 1963 to 1964 and in the Templeton College, Oxford from 1986 to 1987. He has served as a consultant for the agencies of the various federal and local governments and private companies worked in the United States and abroad.

Fiedler's career has lasted more than fifty years. Even in retirement, he continues it to inspire the exploration of knowledge management and related topics to inspire people. He brought the Eventualitätstheorie the lead very early in his career in the scientific discussion and has spent years, they willingly discuss with his critics. Fiedler provides additional research and alternative explanations based on its own studies and the growing field of knowledge.

Accreditations and Associations

• Fiedler was honored by the American Psychological Association for his research in 1971 and for his contributions to military psychology in 1979.
• He received the Award for Distinguished Contributions Stogdill for leadership in 1978.
• The American Academy of management Fiedler honored as a remarkable educator in management in 1993.
• The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology recognized his outstanding scientific contributions in 1996.
• 1999 presented the American Psychological Society Fiedler with his James McKeen Cattell Award.
• Fiedler is a member of the International Association of Applied Psychology and a former president of the organization in the field of organizational psychology.
• He is a member of the American Psychological Association and
• Member of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology and
• Member of the Psychological Association of the Midwest.
• Fiedler is the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific publications and several books. His articles are often cited and have been published by the most recognized journals in the fields of psychology, leadership and management.

• Organizational psychologist
• Austrian
• Born in 1922
• Man