Final answer:
Contingency factors are the factors external to a leader's competencies that influence leadership, including internal follower characteristics and external environmental factors.
Step-by-step explanation:
The factors that lie outside the leader's competencies, characteristics, and experiences are known as contingency factors. These factors can profoundly influence leadership effectiveness and can be both internal, such as the characteristics of individual followers, and external, like the situational factors of the environment where leadership is applied. For example, the extroversion of followers in an organization can affect the type of relationships formed with a leader, shaping the leadership style required. Additionally, in the context of geographical influence, cities grow due to both site and situation factors, similar to how leaders emerge and operate effectively due to the influence of various environmental factors.