Supervisory coaching and performance feedback as mediators of the relationships between leadership styles,work engagement,and turnover intention

Human resource development (HRD) is key to organizational success. With some HRD roles devolving to leaders in recent years, a gap in understanding is now evident in how leaders’ leadership styles shape development-oriented behaviours that may effectively assist them in fulfilling their HRD roles, and the corresponding effects that this has on employee work engagement and turnover intention. This study compared the effects of transformational and transactional leadership styles on employee attitudes (i.e. work engagement and turnover intention) through leaders’ behaviours (i.e. supervisory coaching and performance feedback). This study used a multilevel approach (i.e. matching leaders to multiple subordinates) with 500 employees, nested in 65 workgroups from private organizations in Malaysia. As hypothesized, we found a link between transformational (but not transactional) leadership and higher levels of supervisory coaching and performance feedback, and that these job resources mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement. Furthermore, we found that work engagement mediates the relationships of both supervisory coaching and performance feedback to turnover intention. Overall, the study results reveal one way in which Asian leaders can effectively facilitate some aspects of HRD through development-focused behaviours which serve as job resources to boost work engagement and reduce turnover intention.     

Leadership and Six Sigma project success: the role of member cohesiveness and resource management

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether the effect of leadership on Six Sigma project success (PS) may be mediated by member cohesiveness (MC). The second objective was to examine whether the impact of MC on PS was moderated by resource management. The effects of the project manager's leadership styles and MC on PS were also investigated in this research. To address the primary aims, a survey was used to measure the project manager's leadership styles, MC and the overall success of Six Sigma projects. The analyses suggest that MC may serve as a mediator between leadership and PS. The results also indicate that resource allocation has a moderating effect on the relationship between MC and PS.     

Explaining ambidextrous leadership in the aerospace and defense organizations

Researchers have increasingly been using the term of organizational ambidexterity to denote the simultaneous use of exploration and exploitation in organizations. Exploration refers to innovation, whereas exploitation addresses cost efficiency. However, despite the plethora of research output on ambidexterity, very few studies are actually providing insights into what specific behaviors and leadership styles accomplish ambidexterity and how organizational constraints influence ambidextrous leadership. In this research, we aim to explain the key properties of ambidextrous leadership, where we propose that ambidexterity is most efficiently promoted by ambidextrous leaders who combine two leadership styles: transformational leadership and transactional leadership. In our study, we associate transformational leadership to exploration, whereas transactional leadership is linked to exploitation. We conduct a research on ambidextrous leadership in the aerospace and defense organizations while also taking into account how organizational structure and environmental dynamism impact leadership styles. The results of our research reveal that both leadership styles are present at the senior management level. Top management, however, mostly uses transactional leadership in part because of structural and environmental constraints while also employing some limited form of transformational leadership style. Therefore, our study concludes that in this particular field the ambidextrous leaders are primarily focused on exploitative activities, while only a limited amount of their time is being allocated on exploration-oriented objectives.     

The effects of leadership style on stress outcomes

The present study manipulated transformational and transactional leadership styles to examine their influence on individuals' performance on a stressful task, and on perceived social support, self-efficacy beliefs, emotions, and stressor appraisals. In addition, this study examined whether these variables mediated the relationship between leadership style and performance. Two hundred fourteen participants viewed video instructions for a stressful task presented by an actor depicting one of three leadership styles (transformational, transactional-contingent reward, and transactional-management by exception). Participants' psychological, emotional, and motivational responses to the videos were assessed prior to their engagement with the task. The transformational leadership condition was associated with enhanced task performance, higher social support perceptions, greater efficacy beliefs, lower negative affect, and lower threat appraisals compared to the transactional conditions. Causal modeling revealed that leadership style had a direct, rather than indirect, effect on task performance. The present research extends leadership research by providing an experimental evaluation of the costs/benefits of transformational and transactional leadership under stressful task conditions. Some of the results parallel those from correlational field studies, thus corroborating transformational leadership theory while other results diverge from theory, but present opportunities for future research.     

Work Alienation and Organizational Leadership

This study examines the extent to which a leader's behaviour (i.e. transactional and transformational styles) and aspects of an organization's structure (i.e. centralization, formalization dimensions) directly and/or indirectly relate to elements of work alienation (i.e. powerlessness, meaninglessness, self estrangement). The study utilized structural equation modeling techniques to estimate the goodness of fit of a leadership–organizational structure–work alienation model based on the responses of personnel in a major US eastern seaboard fire department (a bureaucratic, quasi–military type organization) ( n = 326). Goodness of fit statistics indicate good fit to the observed data. Results show that transformational leadership was associated with lower work alienation, whereas transactional leadership was associated with higher work alienation. Organizational structure was not significantly predictive of work alienation, but was negatively associated with transformational leadership and positively associated with transactional leadership. The significant indirect effects between organizational structure and work alienation, and between organizational structure and transformational leadership, provide further evidence that the leadership style of the organization has a more significant impact on feelings of work alienation than antecedent conditions such as organization rigidity. The study argues that managers as well as leaders need to question bureaucratic orientations to work and manager Ðemployee relations by rethinking their value orientations and adapting new models that encourage individual fulfilment, learning and personal development.     

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.     

Work motivations as antecedents and outcomes of leadership: Integrating self-determination theory and the full range leadership theory

While some research has documented links between supervisors’ leadership style and subordinates’ motivation, little is known about what drives leadership behaviors in the first place. This study aimed to contribute to the scholarly literature on motivational antecedents of leadership by drawing on the self-determination theory (SDT) of motivation and the full range leadership theory. We traced work motivation throughout the leadership process, starting with supervisors’ work motivations as potential antecedents of leadership styles and proceeding to how leadership styles associate with subordinates’ work motivations. A 2-2-1 multilevel mediational model tested on 61 supervisors and their 244 subordinates showed that supervisors’ autonomous work motivation was linked with subordinates’ ratings of supervisors’ transformational leadership which, in turn, was linked with subordinates’ autonomous work motivation. Furthermore, supervisors’ transactional leadership mediated the association between their controlled motivation and their subordinates’ controlled motivation, whereas supervisors’ passive-avoidant leadership mediated the link between their amotivation and their subordinates’ amotivation. Our integration of the full spectrum of SDT’s conceptualization of motivation with the full range of leadership theory provides insights into the motivational processes that naturally direct supervisors toward transformational, transactional, or passive-avoidant leadership styles and their consequent reflection in subordinates’ motivations. The work has both theoretical and practical implications.     

Leadership style and activating potential moderators of the relationships among leader emotional displays and outcomes

The present study argues that leader emotional displays are important to consider both within and outside of transformational/charismatic paradigms and must look beyond positive and negative affect. Accordingly, this experiment examined the effects of emotion valence as moderated by leadership style (transformational vs. transactional) and activating potential (high vs. low) on follower satisfaction, evaluations of the leader, and creative task performance. Findings showed differential effects of positive and negative emotions for different leader styles for evaluations of transformational leadership and leader effectiveness and for follower performance. Additionally, positive emotions with higher-activating potential resulted in more desirable outcomes than those lower in activating potential, but the reverse was true for negative emotions. Findings are discussed in light of research and practical implications.     

Inconsistent style of leadership as a predictor of safety behaviour

Abstract

Research on the effects of passive rather than transformational styles of leadership is limited, especially regarding safety-related outcomes in the workplace. Both styles of leadership can be exhibited at different times in the same individual; here we refer to this as inconsistent leadership. In this study, we examine the effect of inconsistent safety-specific leadership style on the safety participation and safety compliance of employees. Operationalized as the interaction of safety-specific transformational leadership and passive leadership, inconsistent safety leadership emerged as a significant predictor of both outcomes in two samples in Canada: a sample of 241 young workers and again in a sample of 491 older workers, who were long-term health care employees. We found that a transformational safety-specific leadership style was associated with greater safety compliance and safety participation in employees. Furthermore, in all cases, the predictive effect of transformational style of leadership on safety participation and safety compliance was attenuated when leaders also displayed passive leadership with respect to safety outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications for safety management are discussed.     

Effects of Leadership Style,Creativity Technique and Personal Initiative on Employee Creativity

Transformational leadership is assumed to enhance employees' creativity. However, results of meta‐analytic research on the relations between transformational leadership and creativity have fallen short of expectations. The authors argue that, besides leadership style, the creativity technique that a leader employs is an important means of stimulating employees' creativity. In addition, it is assumed that leadership styles and creativity techniques may have different effects, depending on the measure of creativity output (quantitative vs qualitative). Therefore, in an experimental setting, the effects of different creativity techniques (provocation technique vs brainwriting) and leadership styles (transformational vs transactional) on both quantitative and qualitative creativity were examined. Results showed that transformational leadership and provocation technique led to higher levels of qualitative creativity than transactional leadership and brainwriting, respectively. Conversely, transactional leadership and brainwriting were more effective for quantitative creativity. The additional benefit of the provocation technique in qualitative creativity was found to be higher in the transactional leadership condition than in the transformational leadership condition. Moreover, personal initiative made a significant and independent contribution to both qualitative and quantitative creativity. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Further specification of the leader political skill–leadership effectiveness relationships: Transformational and transactional leader behavior as mediators

The present investigation was a three-source test of the intermediate linkages in the leader political skill–leader effectiveness and follower satisfaction relationships, which examined transformational and transactional (i.e., contingent reward behavior) leader behavior as mediators. Data from 408 leaders (headmasters) and 1429 followers (teachers) of state schools in the western part of Germany participated in this research. The results of mediation analyses, based on bias-corrected bootstrapping confidence intervals, provided support for the hypotheses that political skill predicts both transformational and transactional leader behavior, beyond other established predictors, and that transformational and transactional leader behavior mediate the relationships between leader political skill and leadership effectiveness. The contributions to theory and research, strengths and limitations, directions for future research, and practical implications are discussed.     

Inclusive leadership and team innovation: The role of team voice and performance pressure

In today's complex and rapidly changing business environment, team innovation is increasingly critical to the survival and success of organizations. Although the relevant literature highlights the importance of leadership in team innovation, previous studies have mainly focused on transformational leadership and have yielded inconsistent results. To address this void, this study integrates the goal-setting theory into the input-process-output framework and proposes a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation. The results of hierarchical regression analysis from two survey-based field studies in China demonstrated that team voice mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation and performance pressure moderated the direct relationship between inclusive leadership and team voice as well as the indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation via team voice such that the relationships were stronger when performance pressure was high.     

变革/交易型领导对团队创新绩效的权变影响机制——团队情绪氛围的调节作用

基于85个团队的团队领导和450名团队成员的配对数据,通过统计分析发现:当团队情绪氛围比较积极时,变革型领导与团队创新绩效正相关,交易型领导与团队创新绩效负相关;当团队情绪氛围比较消极时,变革型领导与团队创新绩效负相关,交易型领导与团队创新绩效正相关。最后,结合有关研究结果给出了相应的实践和研究建议。     

The relationship between transformational leadership and follower sickness absence: the role of presenteeism

The impact of transformational leaders on employee health and well-being has received much attention. Less research has focused on the relationships between transformational leaders and followers’ sickness absenteeism. Transformational leaders promote a group climate that may lead to absenteeism, especially among vulnerable employees (those with high levels of presenteeism). In the present study we examined the relationships between presenteeism, group-level transformational leadership and sickness absence rates in a three-year longitudinal study of postal workers and their leaders in Denmark (N?=?155). Group-level transformational leadership in year 1 predicted sickness absenteeism in year 2, but not in year 3. In examining conditions under which transformational leadership may be linked to higher levels of sickness absenteeism, we found that presenteeism in year 1 moderated the link between transformational leadership in year 1 and sickness absenteeism in year 3, such that followers working in groups with a transformational leader and who were high in presenteeism reported higher levels of sickness absenteeism. Our results suggest a complex picture of the relationship between transformational leadership and sickness absenteeism; transformational leaders may promote self-sacrifice of vulnerable followers by leading them to go to work while ill, leading to increased risks of sickness absence in the long term.     

Leadership behaviour and leader self-reported well-being: A review,integration and meta-analytic examination

ABSTRACT

While the link between leadership and follower well-being is well established, less is known about the relation between leaders’ leadership behaviour and their own well-being. Particularly, a systematic integration of existing studies is missing. Based on an integrated framework summarising major theories on the leader well-being–leadership link, we quantitatively synthesised findings on the relations between different leadership behaviours and leader well-being indicators. The meta-analytical results (95 effect sizes; N?=?12,617) confirmed significant relationships of constructive and destructive leadership with leader well-being in the expected directions. Relative weight analyses on the constructive leadership behaviours showed that change-oriented and relational-oriented leadership (e.g. transformational, participative) accounted for more variance in leader well-being than task-oriented leadership (e.g. transactional). Regarding destructive leadership, active destructive leadership (e.g. abusive supervision) showed stronger negative associations with leader well-being than passive leadership (e.g. laissez-faire). Based on our integrated framework, we proposed and found support for divergent patterns of associations for different forms of well-being (positive vs. negative, short-term vs. long-term, job-related vs. general). Our study demonstrates a considerable linkage between leader well-being and leadership, supporting the adoption of leadership development programmes and organisational health interventions for leaders given their impact on employees, teams and organisations.     

Leadership behaviors and group creativity in Chinese organizations: The role of group processes

In seeking to understand the factors contributing to work group creativity in Chinese organizations, we explored the roles of two different leadership styles (transformational and authoritarian) that Chinese leaders play in group creativity through influencing internal group processes, i.e., collective efficacy and knowledge sharing among group members. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 163 work groups involving 973 employees in twelve Chinese companies. We found transformational leadership to relate positively but authoritarian leadership to relate negatively to group creativity, mediated by both collective efficacy and knowledge sharing among members within the group. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on group leadership, group creativity and cross-cultural management.     

Reviewing Leadership Styles: Overlaps and the Need for a New ‘Full‐Range’ Theory

A central topic in leadership research concerns the impact of leadership style – the pattern of attitudes that leaders hold and behaviors they exhibit. Since the year 2000, several new leadership styles have been proposed to capture important missing aspects beyond the dominant charismatic/transformational and transactional framework. The authors review the emerging literature on these new styles – ideological leadership, pragmatic leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership, spiritual leadership, distributed leadership, and integrative public leadership – as well as the recent work on servant leadership. They also comment on the Ohio State studies on leadership, and then discuss the ways in which these many styles overlap with transformational leadership and each other, and issue a call to leadership researchers to collectively develop a new ‘full‐range’ model of leadership that encompasses and distills what is unique about these various styles. The authors argue that such an integrated full‐range model is necessary for research on leadership style to progress.     

Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of transformational–transactional leadership theory

Leaders must scan the internal and external environment, chart strategic and task objectives, and provide performance feedback. These instrumental leadership (IL) functions go beyond the motivational and quid-pro quo leader behaviors that comprise the full-range—transformational, transactional, and laissez faire—leadership model. In four studies we examined the construct validity of IL. We found evidence for a four-factor IL model that was highly prototypical of good leadership. IL predicted top-level leader emergence controlling for the full-range factors, initiating structure, and consideration. It also explained a unique variance in outcomes beyond the full-range factors; the effects of transformational leadership were vastly overstated when IL was omitted from the model. We discuss the importance of a “fuller full-range” leadership theory for theory and practice. We also showcase our methodological contributions regarding corrections for common method variance (i.e., endogeneity) bias using two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression and Monte Carlo split-sample designs.     

Daily work pressure and exposure to bullying-related negative acts: The role of daily transformational and laissez-faire leadership

The present study integrates the work environment hypothesis and the effort-reward imbalance model to argue that work-related antecedents of workplace bullying are moderated by the day-to-day leadership practices of one’s immediate leader. Specifically, we propose that individuals’ daily experiences of work pressure are positively related to their daily experiences of bullying-related negative acts. Moreover, we claim that this relationship is weaker on days when those individuals report high (vs. low) levels of transformational leadership behaviour, and stronger on days when they report high (vs. low) levels of laissez-faire leadership behaviour. To test these three hypotheses, we asked 61 naval cadets on a tall ship sailing from Northern Europe to North America to fill out a diary questionnaire for 36 days yielding 1509 observations. The results of multilevel analyses supported our hypothesis of a positive relationship of cadets’ daily reports of work pressure with their daily reports of bullying-related negative acts. In addition, laissez-faire leadership behaviour (but not transformational leadership behaviour) moderated the work pressure–bullying-related negative acts relationship. Our findings support the assumption that laissez-faire leadership is an important component in the development of conflict escalation and workplace bullying, while transformational leadership is not. We discuss theoretical as well as practical implications of these findings.     

不同情商水平下领导行为与员工组织承诺关系的实证研究

结合对变革型/交易型领导以及员工组织承诺的理论分析,本论文将情商作为调节变量引入领导效果研究的模型,认为领导与下属的情商会促进或阻碍特定领导风格作用的发挥.对六家企业内241对上下级(95个部门经理及他们的241个直接下属)样本数据的统计分析表明,高领导者情商同时有助于交易型和变革型领导行为的实施而获得下属的组织承诺;高下属情商有助于员工识别交易型领导的实质而指导他们对组织的情感性承诺.