LEADERSHIP STYLES AND CAREER PATTERNS OF SUCCESSFUL U.S. NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER AVIATORS

The Problem. The U.S. Navy does not use leadership style as a criterion for officer assignment. This practice does not correspond with Fiedler's contingency theory which postulates that the effectiveness of a group and the resulting success of its leader are contingent upon matching a leader's leadership style with a favorable group situation.;Method. All data were collected using a researcher designed questionnaire. The questionnaire solicited information on the respondent's career pattern, requested the respondents to complete a Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scale, and requested contingency model data (leader-member relations, task structure and position power) for each respondent's last six leadership positions.;Each respondent's leadership style was obtained using his LPC score. Each respondent's career pattern was compared to the Navy's career pattern model to determine if most of the respondents had followed it. Finally, the percentage of each respondent's career spent in situations favorable, neutral and unfavorable was calculated using the contingency model.;Results. Analysis of the data indicated that the most prevalent leadership style found among successful carrier aviators was task-oriented, that most successful carrier aviators had followed the Navy's career pattern model, and that most task-oriented carrier aviators had spent the majority of their careers in favorable leadership positions, while most relationship-oriented carrier aviators had not.;The purpose of this research was to determine the impact of leadership style and career pattern on the career success of U.S. Navy aircraft carrier aviators. This was accomplished by analyzing the leadership styles and career patterns of successful carrier aviators using Fiedler's contingency model to determine if the majority of successful carrier aviators had held leadership positions favorable to their leadership styles.;The results of this research indicated a lack of support for Fiedler's contingency model. Although most task-oriented successful carrier aviators followed the model, relationship-oriented successful carrier aviators did not.