Charismatic leadership in resistance to change

In Weber's writing and in leadership theory, charismatic leadership is associated with social change. However, the importance and desirability of charismatic leaders in change processes can be questioned, as well as the notion that charismatic leaders are invariably proponents of change. There are documented cases of charismatic leaders in religious and political contexts who have opposed ongoing change and proposed restoring tradition. This paper reports on two historical, qualitative case studies of charismatic leadership in an organizational setting, studies that demonstrate that charismatic leadership can also act in resistance to change and in defense of the status quo. The analysis indicates that the influence processes involved are basically the same as in charismatic leadership in general. It suggests that impending change can challenge the interests and values of established groups and thus create a crisis that stimulates the formation of charisma in opposition to change.     

Romancing leadership: Past, present, and future

This paper presents a review of the romance of leadership and the social construction of leadership theory 25 years after it was originally introduced. We trace the development of this theoretical approach from the original formulation of the romance of leadership (RoL) theory as attributional bias through its emergence as a radical, unconventional approach that views leadership as a sensemaking activity that is primarily ‘in the eye of the beholder.’ We subsequently review research published in management and organizational psychology journals, book chapters and special issues of journals from 1985 to 2010. Three overall themes emerged from this review: 1) biases in (mis)attributions of leadership, including attributions for organizational success and failure; 2) follower-centered approaches, including the role of follower characteristics, perceptions, and motivations in interpreting leadership ratings; and 3) the social construction of leadership, including interfollower and social contagion processes, the role of crisis and uncertainty, and constructions and deconstructions of leadership and CEO celebrity in the media. Within each of these themes, we examine developments and summarize key findings. Our review concludes with recommendations for future theoretical and empirical work in this area.     

Ethical leadership and follower voice and performance: The role of follower identifications and entity morality beliefs

Previous studies have established the relationship between ethical leadership and a variety of positive follower outcomes. Follower organizational identification has been found to mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and follower job performance. In this research, we incorporate a second distinct and theoretically important type of social identification process, relational identification with the leader, along with organizational identification, and examine their mediating effects on follower performance and voice outcomes. Further, we bring the implicit theory of morality to the behavioral ethics literature and examine follower morality beliefs as a moderator. Using a Romanian sample of 302 followers under the supervision of 27 leaders, we found that ethical leadership has an indirect effect on follower job performance and voice (through the mediating mechanisms of both organizational and relational identifications) and that these relationships are stronger for followers who held the implicit theory that a person's moral character is fixed.     

Why and when does inclusive leadership evoke employee negative feedback-seeking behavior?

Why and when do employees respond to inclusive leadership by actively seeking negative feedback from their leaders? Beyond the perspectives proposed in previous studies, we offer a new angle based on a social identity perspective and propose that inclusive leadership increases employees' negative feedback-seeking behavior (NFSB) by facilitating employees' organizational identification. We also theorize that employees' supervisor organizational embodiment (SOE) influences the extent to which employees identify with the organization, which in turn triggers their NFSB. The results from a three-wave survey study conducted in China showed that inclusive leadership fostered employees' organizational identification, thereby facilitating employees' NFSB, and that the effect of inclusive leadership was stronger when employees’ SOE was higher. Our findings provide implications in theory and practice.     

Military leadership: A context specific review

The purpose of this article is to review the literature on military leadership and highlight research opportunities for leadership scholars. The review uses a context specific approach and turns to a simplified version of Hunt's (Hunt, J. G. (1991). Leadership: A new synthesis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage) extended multilevel leadership model as a template to examine the many facets of military leadership. The military leadership literature is stratified into the systems, organizational, and direct levels of leadership with an examination of studies on the critical tasks and individual capabilities required at each level. Additionally, studies on organizational culture and effectiveness at each level are addressed. The article emphasizes that the military is undergoing substantial change as it adjusts to the changing nature of war and a fluid world situation. Based on trends in the military, the review concludes with several general recommendations for future research.     

Setting the stage for effective leadership: Antecedents of transformational leadership behavior

Although transformational leadership behavior (TLB) has been linked to a number of positive organizational outcomes, research regarding the antecedents of such behavior is limited. Guided by Ajzen and Fishbein's theory of reasoned action [Psychological Bulletin 84 (1977) 888], we investigated two potentially relevant antecedents to performing TLB: cynicism about organizational change (CAOC) and the leader's social context—specifically peer leadership behavior. We hypothesized that CAOC would negatively predict TLB, while peer leadership behavior would positively predict TLB. Further, we expected that peer leadership behavior would have a positive moderating effect on leader CAOC. Data were gathered from 227 managers from multiple organizations and their 2247 subordinates. Findings supported the proposed hypotheses. Cynicism and peer leadership behavior explained nearly one quarter (24%) of the variance in TLB. Further, it appears that both CAOC and TLB may be malleable in organizational contexts. Implications for leadership research and practice are discussed.     

Testing a longitudinal model of distributed leadership effects on school improvement

A central premise in the literature on leadership highlights its central role in organizational change. In light of the strength of this conceptual association, it is striking to note the paucity of large-scale empirical studies that have investigated how leadership impacts performance improvement in organizations over time. Indeed evidence-based conclusions concerning the impact of leadership on organizational change are drawn largely from case studies and cross-sectional surveys. Neither approach satisfies the design requirements for studying the contribution of leadership to performance improvement in organizations. This paper tests a longitudinal, multilevel model of change in distributed leadership, school improvement capacity, and student performance over a four-year period. The results suggest that change in distributed leadership and organizational capacity for improvement make significant contributions to growth in student learning in reading and math.     

The evolutionary anthropology of political leadership

Existing approaches within leadership studies often share a bias towards industrialized societies and lack broader cross-cultural and ethological reference. Meanwhile, cross-cultural and evolutionary approaches within anthropology are actively working to unify research on leadership and followership across the biological and social sciences. This review provides a novel and thorough view of political leadership as investigated by evolutionary anthropologists and highlights the benefits of incorporating findings from the evolutionary social sciences into leadership studies generally. We introduce the anthropological approach to leadership; describe evolutionary anthropology, its subdisciplines (including primatology, paleoanthropology, paleogenetics, human behavioral ecology, and gene-culture coevolution), and its complementary disciplines (particularly evolutionary psychology); review leadership and hierarchy in nonhumans, including our extinct hominid ancestors; review female leadership and sex-differences; and, primarily, discuss the relationships between evolution, ecology, and culture as they relate to the observed patterns of political leadership and followership across human societies. Through evolutionary anthropology's diverse toolkit, a deeper insight into the evolution and cross-cultural patterning of leadership is realized.     

Follower transformation as the linchpin of transformational leadership theory: A systematic review and future research agenda

Transformational leadership theory represents a cornerstone in leadership research. Despite an impressive empirical record highlighted by both the breadth of its nomological network and magnitudes of effects, scholars raise serious construct and content validity concerns. In this article, we address a remarkable oversight in the transformational leadership literature. Few studies have assessed the theory assumption that the positive individual, group, and organizational effects of transformational leadership are due to the transformation of followers in specific and enduring ways. We offer a systematic review of empirical evidence related to follower transformation as the conceptual foundation of transformational leadership theory. Findings from this review highlight the radical leap in the evolution of transformational leadership theory from nascent phenomena to mature paradigm. Calling for a return to nascent and intermediary phases of theory development, we conclude with a research agenda aimed at creating a stronger theory, better measures, and more actionable leadership models.     

Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership

The literature on charismatic leadership in organizations has neglected the organizational context in which such leadership is embedded. The purpose of this article is to enrich and refine charismatic leadership theory by linking it to its organizational context. We argue that while charismatic leadership principles and processes potentially apply across a wide variety of situations, the emergence and effectiveness of such leadership may be facilitated by some contexts and inhibited by others. We develop and present a series of propositions linking contextual variable to the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership. Among the contextual variable we examine are the organizational environment, life-cycle stage, technology, tasks, goals, structure, and culture, as well as the leader's level in the organization and the circumstances surrounding his or her appointment.     

The role of transformational leadership in enhancing organizational innovation: Hypotheses and some preliminary findings

A wide range of factors has been found to affect organizational innovation. Of these, top managers' leadership style has been identified as being one of the most, if not the most, important. Yet, few studies have empirically examined the link between this factor and innovation at the organizational level. This study builds on the extant literature to propose four hypotheses about how top managers' leadership styles directly and indirectly (via empowerment and organizational climate) affect their companies' innovation. A multisource approach is used to collect survey data from 32 Taiwanese companies in the electronics/telecommunications industry. The findings support a direct and positive link between a style of leadership that has been labeled as “transformational” and organizational innovation. They also indicate that transformational leadership has significant and positive relations with both empowerment and an innovation-supporting organizational climate. The former is found to have a significant but negative relation with organizational innovation, while the latter has a significant and positive relationship. The implications of the findings and possible directions for future research are discussed.     

“Facing” leaders: Facial expression and leadership perception

This experimental study investigated the effect of a leader's expression of happy versus nervous emotions on subsequent perceptions of leadership and ratings of traits associated with implicit leadership theories (ILTs). Being fast and universally understood, emotions are ideal stimuli for investigating the dynamic effects of ILTs, which were understood in this study in terms of the constraints that expressed emotions impose on the connectionist networks that activate ILTs. The experimental design contrasted videotaped and still frame presentations of a leadership event; however, this methodological factor had no significant effects and analyses were thus collapsed across this factor. Key findings were that the expression of a happy versus nervous emotion at the end of a problem-solving sequence had multiple effects: happy emotions resulted in higher leadership ratings, higher trait ratings, greater correlations among trait ratings, and greater dependence of trait ratings on leadership perceptions. An exploratory model suggested that leadership impressions mediated the effects of facial emotions on trait ratings. The discussion further links the study findings with interpretations in terms of ILTs and many types of constraints on these cognitive structures. It also suggests ways to integrate these ideas with advances in neuroscience research.     

Ethics,character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior

The morality of transformational leadership has been sharply questioned, particularly by libertarians, “grass roots” theorists, and organizational development consultants. This paper argues that to be truly transformational, leadership must be grounded in moral foundations. The four components of authentic transformational leadership (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration) are contrasted with their counterfeits in dissembling pseudo-transformational leadership on the basis of (1) the moral character of the leaders and their concerns for self and others; (2) the ethical values embedded in the leaders' vision, articulation, and program, which followers can embrace or reject; and (3) the morality of the processes of social ethical choices and action in which the leaders and followers engage and collectively pursue.The literature on transformational leadership is linked to the long-standing literature on virtue and moral character, as exemplified by Socratic and Confucian typologies. It is related as well to the major themes of the modern Western ethical agenda: liberty, utility, and distributive justice Deception, sophistry, and pretense are examined alongside issues of transcendence, agency, trust, striving for congruence in values, cooperative action, power, persuasion, and corporate governance to establish the strategic and moral foundations of authentic transformational leadership.     

From genes to minds to cultures: Evolutionary approaches to leadership

Evolutionary perspectives are part of any comprehensive explanation of leadership and, more generally, hierarchy formation in groups. This editorial describes contributions to a special issue on the theme of “The evolution and biology of leadership: A new synthesis”, and we reach four main conclusions. First, leadership has been a powerful force in the biological and cultural evolution of human sociality. Humans have evolved a range of cognitive and behavioral mechanisms (adaptations) that facilitate leader-follower relations, including safeguards against overly dominant leaders. Second, how these adaptations interact with local ecological and cultural contexts produces cultural variation in leadership preferences, and in the structure of human organizations more broadly. Third, an evolutionary perspective creates consilience between the social and natural sciences, by integrating leadership theory from diverse fields such as biology, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, and political science. Fourth, evolutionary approaches – and specifically the collection of articles in this theme issue – produce and test novel hypotheses, such as regards (i) the critical role of leadership in cooperation, (ii) the importance of contextual factors in leader emergence and effectiveness, (iii) interactions between genetic and cultural influences on leadership, and (iv) obstacles and opportunities for women leaders.     

The romance of leadership: Rekindling the fire through replication of Meindl and Ehrlich

Given changes in business and society, the romance of leadership theory, which describes a glorification of the perceived influence of leaders on organizational outcomes, is arguably more relevant than at its conception over thirty years ago. This paper presents four studies aimed to replicate Meindl and Ehrlich (1987) early experiment on the romance of leadership, specifically considering the effect of leadership attributions on company evaluations. Studies 1 and 2 are close replications, whereas Studies 3 and 4 provide a conceptual replication drawing from a broader sample in age and work experience and include additional experimental conditions. These conditions vary the gender of the leader and including both success and failure situations, as well as including additional outcomes variables of participants’ behavioral intentions to support, invest, seek employment, or purchase from the company. Taken together, these studies do not support Meindl and Ehrlich’s findings that organizations are viewed more favorably when such outcomes are attributed to leadership. We discuss implications for the romance of leadership theory.     

Tell us about your leadership style: A structured interview approach for assessing leadership behavior constructs

It is widely recognized that leadership behaviors drive leaders' success. But despite the importance of assessing leadership behavior for selection and development, current measurement practices are limited. This study contributes to the literature by examining the structured interview method as a potential approach to assess leadership behavior. To this end, we developed a structured interview measuring constructs from Yukl's (2012) leadership taxonomy. Supervisors in diverse positions participated in the interview as part of a leadership assessment program. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the assumption that leadership constructs could be assessed as distinct interview dimensions. Results further showed that interview ratings predicted a variety of leadership outcomes (supervisors' annual income, ratings of situational leader effectiveness, subordinates' well-being and affective organizational commitment) beyond other relevant predictors. Findings offer implications on how to identify leaders who have a positive impact on their subordinates, and they inform us about conceptual differences between leadership measures.     

Aesthetic leadership

We introduce aesthetic leadership as a promising approach in leadership studies. Two current movements in leadership research, the inclusion of followers in leadership models and the exploration of subjective leadership qualities, make taking an aesthetic perspective in leadership especially attractive and timely. Aesthetics relates to felt meaning generated from sensory perceptions, and involves subjective, tacit knowledge rooted in feeling and emotion. We believe the aesthetics of leadership is an important, but little understood, aspect of organizational life. For example, while we know followers must attribute leadership qualities such as charisma and authenticity to leaders to allow for social influence, we know little about how these processes operate. We propose that followers use their aesthetic senses in making these assessments. We relate aesthetic leadership to several current topics in leadership research, and outline the assumptions and methods of aesthetic leadership.     

Leveraging transformational and transactional leadership to cultivate the generation of organization-focused ideas

We investigate how transformational and transactional leadership motivates employees to commit to an organizational ideation program so that they subsequently generate ideas that benefit the organization. To resolve the mixed and contradictory findings of earlier studies about these leadership styles, we propose that more attention needs to be devoted to the leader's personal beliefs. Specifically, we study the degree to which a leader identifies with an organization and how this possibly unlocks the effects of transformational or transactional leadership. Using multilevel data collected in a large multinational company, our findings reveal that both transformational and transactional leadership is effective in motivating followers to commit to the goals of an ideation program. Increased commitment, in turn, is associated with more ideas that followers generate. In contrast to the effect of transactional leadership, however, the effect of transformational leadership is contingent on how strongly leaders identify with the organization.     

Civic capacity: Building on transformational leadership to explain successful integrative public leadership

An emerging stream of work has been investigating the leadership processes necessary to guide public multi-sector collaborations. This stream of work argues that new leadership theory about integrative public leadership is needed because the context is different from that traditionally investigated by leadership researchers. In this paper, we advance the study of integrative public leadership by arguing that transformational leadership theory does apply to multi-sector collaborations, but needs to be augmented with an additional construct called “civic capacity.” We elaborate on this construct and suggest that it consists of three components: civic drive, civic connections, and civic pragmatism.     

Viva la evolution: Using dual-strategies theory to explain leadership in modern organizations

Research from multiple fields suggests that throughout human history, leaders ascended the hierarchy through one of two strategies—dominance (using force or coercion to gain control) or prestige (demonstrating competence and generosity so others follow of their own volition). The dual-strategies theory of social rank suggests that these two strategies are still inherent in human psychology, and that consideration of dominance and prestige can help explain hierarchy and leadership in modern social groups. Thus far, research on dual-strategies theory has developed without significant cross-fertilization from the literature on leadership within organizational settings. In this review, I provide the first examination of dual-strategies theory within the context of broader leadership research, highlighting a) the unique contributions of dual-strategies theory, b) current workforce trends that make dual-strategies theory particularly applicable to modern organizations, and c) key limitations of dual-strategies theory that could be addressed by integrating leadership theory.