Leading via the heart and mind: The roles of leader and follower emotions,attributions and interdependence

How do followers react to their leaders' emotional expressions, and how do these reactions influence followers' perceptions of their leaders' effectiveness? This research examines cognitive and emotional reactions to leaders' expressions of positive and negative emotions, and demonstrates how these reactions affect perceptions of leadership effectiveness. We show that follower interdependence (dispositional or manipulated) plays an important moderating role in understanding reactions to leaders' emotions. Results of three studies demonstrate that followers not only share their leaders' emotions, but also make attributions about the sincerity of their leaders' intentions, and these attributions affect their perceptions of their leader's effectiveness. Results also demonstrate that interdependent followers are sensitive to leader emotional valence and react more positively to leader positivity; non-interdependent followers do not differentiate positive from negative emotions in their leader. We discuss the implications of our research for the literature on leadership.     

How leadership matters: The effects of leaders' alignment on strategy implementation

Research has confirmed that leader behavior influences group and organizational behavior, but we know less about how senior leaders ensure that group and organizational members implement their decisions. Most organizations have multiple layers of leaders, implying that any single leader does not lead in isolation. We focused on how the consistency of leadership effectiveness across hierarchical levels influenced the implementation of a strategic initiative in a large health care system. We found that it was only when leaders' effectiveness at different levels was considered in the aggregate that significant performance improvement occurred. We discuss the implications of these findings for leadership research, specifically, that leaders at various levels should be considered collectively to understand how leadership influences employee performance.     

Leaders' conceptions of followers: Implications for naturally occurring Pygmalion effects

We investigated the relationships between leaders' implicit followership theories (LIFTs) (conceptions of followers) and naturally occurring Pygmalion effects (leaders' high performance expectations that improve follower performance). Results based on 151 workplace leader–follower dyads supported a model of naturally occurring Pygmalion effects. Positive LIFTs led to higher performance expectations, liking, and relationship quality from leaders, which impacted follower performance. Supervisory experience moderated the relationship between positive LIFTs and leaders' performance expectations for their followers, such that the performance expectations of leaders with less supervisory experience were more strongly influenced by their conceptions of followers. Implications of the findings for improving follower performance are discussed. Suggestions for future research are offered: antecedents of LIFTs, negative LIFTs, Golem effects, and role reversed Pygmalion effects, among others.     

Leader power and self-serving behavior: The Moderating Role of Accountability

This study explored whether accountability influences the relationship between power and leader self-serving behavior. Across three studies, using both experimental manipulations and individual difference measures, we found that accountability mitigated the effects of power on leader self-serving behavior. Specifically, we found that powerful accountable leaders acted less self-servingly than their non-accountable counterparts. Moreover, as expected, low power leaders' behaviors were not affected as strongly by the explicit presence of accountability constraints. Overall, these results suggest that holding powerful leaders accountable for their actions could serve as a powerful tool to prevent potential self-serving actions on their part.     

How transformational leadership works during team interactions: A behavioral process analysis

Transformational leadership is generally considered helpful for team functioning. However, the social dynamics underlying the benefits of transformational leadership remain elusive to date. To understand how and why transformational leadership can foster team functioning, this study focuses on leader–follower communication dynamics during team interactions. From the perspective of leadership as social problem solving, we argue that transformational leadership is linked to functional team problem-solving processes because transformational leaders use solution-focused communication (mediator model). In a sample of 30 videotaped problem-solving team meetings from two organizations, we coded transformational leadership style and the verbal behavioral interactions of leaders and team members over the course of their entire meetings (30,128 behavioral units in total). Multilevel results showed that transformational leadership was positively linked to functional problem-solving communication by team members. This positive relationship was mediated by leaders' solution-focused communication. Moreover, at the micro-level of conversational dynamics within the meeting process, lag sequential analysis revealed that leaders' ideas and solutions triggered subsequent solution statements by team members and inhibited counterproductive communication by team members, such as running off topic, criticizing, or complaining. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications for conceptualizing dynamic leader–follower processes as well as managerial implications for leading effective meetings in organizations.     

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.     

When do leaders sacrifice?: The effects of sense of power and belongingness on leader self-sacrifice

Past research on leader self-sacrifice has focused entirely on the effects of this leader behavior on followers and its implications for organizations. The present research focused on antecedents of leader self-sacrifice. We argued that self-sacrifice is positively influenced by leaders' sense of belongingness to the group they supervise. Furthermore, leaders' subjectively sensed power can serve as a moderator of this effect. We expected this because a high sense of power is known to facilitate goal pursuit. Given that organizational goals often prescribe serving the interests of the organization, leaders' sense of belongingness should promote self-sacrifice particularly among leaders low in subjective power; leaders high in subjective power should display self-sacrifice regardless of their sense of belongingness. Two field studies supported these predictions. A final experiment supported a critical assumption underlying our argument in showing that the sense of power × sense of belongingness interaction is restricted to situations that prescribe cooperative goals. When situations prescribe competitive goals, this interaction was absent.     

Exploring why leaders do what they do: An integrative review of the situation-trait approach and situation-encoding schemas

In order to enhance leaders' effectiveness, it is critical to clearly and accurately understand the underlying processes that contribute to leaders' decision making and behavior. The traditional trait approach to understanding leaders' underlying processing carries limitations and does not capture any of the situational characteristics that may be important. We thus advance the situation-trait approach by introducing the Cognitive Affective Processing Systems framework more fully into the leadership domain. A primary benefit of integrating this framework is that it identifies an attribute largely overlooked by leadership scholars, yet foundational to leaders' processing and behaviors: situation-encoding schemas. We integrate and review decades of research on four sets of situation-encoding schemas to demonstrate their important role in determining why leaders do what they do. This consensus shift, novel focus on situation-encoding schemas, and integration of four disparate sets of well-studied situation-encoding schemas has important implications for leaders' self-awareness, meta-cognition, effectiveness, and development.     

The social role theory of unethical leadership

Challenging the standard reasoning regarding leaders' ethical failures, we argue that a potent contributor to these failures is the social role expectations of leaders. We maintain that leaders' central role expectation of goal achievement contributes to the over-valuing of group goals and greater moral permissibility of the means used to achieve these goals. In studies 1 and 2 we demonstrated that the role of leader, relative to group member, is associated with an increased appraisal of group goals which is predicted by the leaders' role expectations and not driven by the psychological effects of power. Next, we experimentally demonstrated the importance of both role expectations of leadership and group goal importance in leaders' justification to engage in morally questionable behavior to achieve group goals. Finally, we supported the social role predictions in a laboratory experiment by assigning people to roles and assessing goal importance and unethical decision-making and behaviors.     

Charisma and organizational change: A multilevel study of perceived charisma,commitment to change,and team performance

What makes people perceive a leader as charismatic, and how do team leaders obtain performance outcomes from their followers? We examine leaders in times of organizational change and investigate the mechanisms through which leaders' change-promoting behaviors are associated with team performance. In a multilevel mediation model, we propose that the indirect relationship between change-promoting behaviors and team performance is sequentially transmitted through followers' perceptions of charisma and followers' commitment to change. A study of 33 leaders and 142 followers provides empirical support for the model, using multilevel structural equation modeling to analyze top-down relationships between leaders and followers and bottom-up relationships between followers and team outcomes. Results suggest that team leaders are perceived as more charismatic when they engage in change-promoting behaviors. These behaviors facilitate team performance through individual followers' perceived charisma and commitment to change.     

The moderating role of leader and follower sex in dyads on the leadership behavior–leader effectiveness relationships

Transformational leadership (TL) and leader–member exchange (LMX) literatures provide theoretical frameworks and accompanying empirical evidence for studying the relationship between leader behavior and effectiveness. Although prior attention has been given to gender differences in leadership style and leader effectiveness, the moderating effects of the sex of the leader and subordinate on the leadership–leader effectiveness relationship have not been investigated. In a field study of employees from a manufacturing plant, we examined whether leader and subordinate sex, and the sex composition of the leader–subordinate dyad, moderated the linkages of each set of leader behaviors (i.e., TL and LMX) with actual evaluations of leader effectiveness provided by the leader's subordinates and direct supervisor. Although female leaders were rated as more effective than male leaders overall, a fine-grained analysis of leader–subordinate dyads revealed that the male leaders benefited more than the female leaders from the use of transformational leadership in the leader behavior–leader effectiveness relationship. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Does valuing androgyny and femininity lead to a female advantage? The relationship between gender-role,transformational leadership and identification

The notion of ‘think manager–think male’ has been demonstrated in many studies. The current study examines whether leaders are perceived as more effective when they have ‘feminine’, ‘masculine’ or ‘androgynous’ characteristics, and how this relates to the leader's and followers' sex. Using carefully matched samples of 930 employees of 76 bank managers, we studied the relationship between managers' gender-role identity (perceived ‘femininity’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘androgyny’) and how this relates to leadership effectiveness in terms of transformational leadership and personal identification with the leader. Our findings show that among both male and female leaders, ‘androgyny’ was more strongly related to transformational leadership and followers' identification than ‘non-androgyny’, and that leaders' ‘femininity’ was more strongly related to leadership effectiveness than ‘masculinity’. Furthermore, the results show that women paid a higher penalty for not being perceived as ‘androgynous’ (mixing ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’), in comparison to men with regard to personal identification. When examining same- versus cross-sex relationships, we found that ‘non-androgynous’ male managers were rated higher by their male employees than by their female employees. Our findings suggest that women and men who are interested in being perceived as effective leaders may be well advised to blend ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ behaviors, and even more so when they are in situations of non-congruency (i.e., women in leadership roles and leading in cross-sex relationships). We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice.     

The role of attribution in how followers respond to the emotional expression of male and female leaders

We investigated how leaders' gender interacts with anger and sadness expression and followers' attributions for their emotional expression on evaluations made by followers. In a laboratory study concerning hypothetical leaders, people evaluated the competence of male and female leaders differently depending on their emotional displays (anger vs. sadness). These differences were observed only when observers made high dispositional attributions for leaders' emotional expression. Perceived leader role-based emotional expression mediated these relationships. In a field study concerning actual leaders, dispositional attributions for sadness and anger expression were negatively related to follower perceptions of the leader, and these attributions moderated the relationships between leader gender and various follower perceptions of the leader. Leader prototype fit mediated these relationships. We discuss the implications of these findings for leadership research and practice.     

The impact of positivity and transparency on trust in leaders and their perceived effectiveness

A critical challenge facing today's organizational leaders is gaining their followers' trust and having them view leaders as effective in addressing turmoil and change. Using a downsizing scenario as the context, this field experiment examined how a leader's positivity and transparency impacted followers' perceived trust, defined in terms of willingness to be vulnerable, and effectiveness of their leader. To test the hypotheses, 304 participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions of high (low) leader positivity × high (low) leader transparency. Results of our mixed methods study indicated both the leader's level of positivity and transparency impacted followers' perceived trust and evaluations of leader effectiveness. Besides limitations and suggestions for future research, we conclude with the practical implications that positive, transparent leaders may have on building trust and perceived effectiveness among their followers.     

A multi-level analysis of leader–member exchange and creative performance in research groups

We investigated the effects of LMX in leader and member ratings on leader and member creative performance among 137 leader–member dyads in academic and commercial R&D groups. By using the sub-dimensions of LMX-MDM (affect, loyalty, contribution, and professional respect) we wanted to show which dimensions of the leader–member relationship that is beneficial to creative performance. Analyses were conducted with consideration to nesting and dependencies occurring in the data. Findings indicated that certain sub-dimensions of exchanges between leaders and followers are substantive for creative performance in either positive or negative ways, depending on academic and commercial setting. LMX sub-dimensions were also differently related to creative performance depending on leaders' or members' perspective. The mixed results of this study indicate that LMX theory needs further analysis from a multidimensional, multitarget, and multilevel perspective.     

The role of self-regulation in developing leaders: A longitudinal field experiment

A longitudinal field experiment examined a leader self-regulation intervention in teams engaged in a Business Strategy Module (BSM) of a University course. The BSM, which is an integral part of the degree programme, involved teams of four or five individuals, under the direction of a leader, working on a (simulated) car manufacturing task over a period of 24 weeks. Various aspects of team performance contributed towards module assessment. All leaders received multi-source feedback of leader task-relevant capabilities (from the leader, followers and module tutor). Leaders were randomly allocated into a self-regulation intervention (15 leaders, 46 followers) or control (25 leaders, 109 followers) conditions. The intervention, which was run by an independent coach, was designed to improve leaders' use of self-regulatory processes to aid the development of task-relevant leadership competencies. Survey data was collected from the leaders and followers (on three occasions: pre- and two post-test intervention), team financial performance (three occasions: post-test) and a final team report (post-test). The leader self-regulation intervention led to increased followers' ratings of leader's effectiveness, higher team financial performance and higher final team grade compared to the control (non-intervention) condition. Furthermore, the benefits of the self-regulation intervention were mediated by leaders' attaining task-relevant competencies.     

Mutuality in leader–subordinate empowerment expectation: Its impact on role ambiguity and intrinsic motivation

Drawing on leader role set theory, we examine the relationship between the congruence of leaders' and subordinates' empowerment expectations and subordinates' experiences of role ambiguity and intrinsic motivation. Based on cross-level polynomial regression analysis using 168 subordinates and 33 leaders, the results indicated that the relationship between congruence and role ambiguity and intrinsic motivation vary depending on whether leaders misevaluate subordinate empowerment expectations, as well as whether the expectations match. Specifically, subordinates had low role ambiguity and low intrinsic motivation when leaders' and subordinates' empowerment expectations matched at low levels and when leaders underestimated subordinates' empowerment expectations. However, subordinates had low role ambiguity and high intrinsic motivation when expectations matched at high levels. Furthermore, role ambiguity was high and intrinsic motivation was low when the leaders overestimated subordinates' empowerment expectations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The lion's share: The impact of credit expectations and credit allocations on commitment to leaders

In this paper we examine how the relationship between leaders' credit allocation behavior and subordinates' commitment to their leader is influenced by the fulfillment of subordinates' expectations (i.e., expecting one type of behavior and having that behavior occur). We predicted that subordinates would display less commitment to their leader when their leader took credit for the subordinates' work. However, based on expectancy violations and psychological contracts research, we also predicted that expectation fulfillment would moderate this relationship. In two experimental studies we found that the negative effects of leader credit taking on commitment to the leader were mitigated when the subordinate expected the leader to take credit. However, when subordinates expected to receive credit and did not, the negative impact of leader credit taking was enhanced. We discuss the implications of these results for both theory and practice.