Metal-ligand bond enthalpy data can afford invaluable insights into important reaction patterns in organometallic chemistry and catalysis. In this paper, the Fe-O and Fe-S homolytic bond dissociation energies [ΔH homo (Fe-O)'s and ΔH homo (Fe-S)'s] of two series of para-substituted phenoxydicarbonyl(h 5 -cyclopentadienyl) iron [p-G-C 6 H 4 OFp (1)] and (para-substituted benzenethiolato)dicarbonyl(h 5 -cyclopentadienyl) iron [p-G-C 6 H 4 SFp (2)] were studied using Hartree-Fock and density functional theory (DFT) methods with large basis sets. In this study, Fp is (h 5 -C 5 H 5 )Fe(CO) 2 , and G are NO 2 , CN, COMe, CO 2 Me, CF 3 , Br, Cl, F, H, Me, MeO, and NMe 2 . The results show that DFT methods can provide the best price/performance ratio and accurate predictions of ΔH homo (Fe-O)'s and ΔH homo (Fe-S)'s. The remote substituent effects on ΔH homo (Fe-O)'s and ΔH homo (Fe-S)'s [ΔΔH homo (Fe-O)'s and ΔΔH homo (Fe-S)'s] can also be satisfactorily predicted. The good correlations [r = 0.98 (g, 1), 0.98 (g, 2)] of ΔΔH homo (Fe-O)'s and ΔΔH homo (Fe-S)'s in series 1 and 2 with the substituent s p + constants imply that the para-substituent effects on ΔH homo (Fe-O)'s and ΔH homo (Fe-S)'s originate mainly from polar effects, but those on radical stability originate from both spin delocalization and polar effects. ΔΔH homo (Fe-O)'s (1) and ΔΔH homo (Fe-S)'s (2) conform to the captodative principle. Insight from this work may help the design of more effective catalytic processes.