Leading well: Challenges to researching leadership in occupational health psychology – and some ways forward

ABSTRACT

Studies on the effects of leadership in occupational health psychology build on the assumption that leaders influence their followers’ health and well-being. Although this assumption has received support, this introductory paper to a special issue of Work & Stress on leadership argues that a number of questions regarding leadership and follower health and well-being remain unanswered. We identify four issues that we argue warrant further attention. First, what is “good” leadership? Particular leadership types are associated with increases in employee performance, but since this will involve higher effort expenditure, adverse outcomes for employee health are to be expected. Although many types of leadership are associated with favourable outcomes, we still need to identify the leadership characteristics can be identified that account for these positive outcomes. Second, how can good leadership be promoted? There is a need to develop interventions that are effective in promoting desirable leadership styles. Third, what are the inter-mediate and long-term effects of leadership on follower health? Finally, we need to understand the boundary conditions for good leadership, including the resources available to leaders. Based on these considerations, we conclude that further research is needed to fully understand the effects of leadership on employee health and well-being.     

Leader cognition in vision formation: Simplicity and negativity

Models describing how leaders think point to a complex set of cognitive processes. To execute these processes it may be necessary for leaders to simplify the problem at hand with respect to critical contingencies. In the present effort, undergraduates were asked to work on a vision formation task with the resulting vision statements being appraised for quality, originality, elegance, perceived utility, and affective reaction. Manipulations were made to encourage application of more or less complex mental models, a larger, or smaller, number of relevant concepts and cases, and forecasting of positive or negative outcomes. It was found that the strongest visions were produced when people used relatively simple mental models, few schema and cases, and they focused on forecasting negative outcomes. Thus leader performance appears to reflect simplification and an attempt to minimize negative outcomes. The implications of these observations for understanding leader cognition and leader performance are discussed.     

What is strategic leadership? Developing a framework for future research

We attempt to bring clarity to the concept of strategic leadership and guide its development by reviewing and synthesizing the existing management literature on how top managers and board directors influence organizations. We propose a new definition of strategic leadership and offer a framework organized around the essential questions of what strategic leadership is, what strategic leaders do, why they do it, and how they do it. To answer these questions, we organize our review around the eight functions strategic leaders serve, the key attributes of strategic leaders, the theories scholars have used to relate these functions and attributes to outcomes, contextual factors, and the organizational outcomes that strategic leaders affect. We identify how strategic leadership research is concentrated in five streams that rarely interact with each other, and offer suggestions for connecting these streams. Our review provides a big picture of what is known about individuals at the top levels of organizations and highlights the key areas where future investigation is essential.     

Follower behavior renders leader behavior endogenous: The simultaneity problem,estimation challenges,and solutions

Traditionally, leadership research has focused on unidirectional questions in which leader attributes are considered to determine follower outcomes. However, many phenomena between leaders (x) and followers (y) involve a simultaneous influence process in which x affects y, and y also affects x (i.e., simultaneity). Unfortunately, this simultaneity bias creates endogeneity and is often not properly addressed in the extant leadership literature. In three studies, we demonstrate the challenges of simultaneity bias and present two methodological solutions that can help to correct problems of simultaneity bias. We focus on simultaneity that occurs between follower resistance and leader control. We mathematically demonstrate the simultaneity bias using a simulated dataset and show how this bias can be statistically solved using an instrumental variable estimation approach. Furthermore, we present how the simultaneity bias can be resolved using an experimental design. We discuss how our approach advances theory and methods for leadership research.     

Unlocking the mask: a look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes and behaviors

The conceptual and empirical links between authentic leadership and follower attitudes, behaviors, and performance outcomes have not been fully developed. Although we have a number of articles developing the theory of authentic leadership and testing propositions that will appear in a forthcoming special issue of The Leadership Quarterly (Vol. 16, Issue 3, 2005), the focus of this article is to provide some of the initial foundation work for the broader theoretical framework of how authentic leaders influence follower attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Here, we draw from positive organizational behavior, trust, hope, emotion, identification, and identity theories to describe the processes by which authentic leaders exert their influence on followers' attitudes and behaviors. Research propositions based on the proposed theoretical model and implications for future theory building and research are presented.     

Unjust punishment in organizations

What causes leaders to punish subordinates unjustly? And why might leaders keep punishing subordinates unjustly, even when this increases workplace misconduct? In the current paper we address these questions by suggesting that power and status cause leaders to punish unjustly. We review evidence on the effects of power and status on punishment, review how unjust punishments foster misconduct, and highlight how this creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop—leaders are more likely to punish in an unjust manner when subordinates engage in misconduct, but subordinates’ misconduct is partly caused by unjust punishments. We also discuss how leader-subordinate distrust may be at the heart of this phenomenon and how organizations may counteract unjust punishments. We draw attention to research areas that have received little attention and draw up an agenda for future research. Taken together, we integrate the literatures on power, status, punishment and trust, review evidence on when unjust punishments become perpetuating, challenge research suggesting that leaders are cautious when punishing, and guide future research on the topic of punishment in organizations.     

Not all leader–member exchanges are created equal: Importance of leader relational identity

Recent research by leadership scholars has emphasized the important role of follower self-identity. For example, leaders influence subordinate attitudes and behaviors by activating a collective identity level among their subordinates. We extend existing identity-based approaches by examining the relational identity level of leaders. Previous work has focused predominantly on followers (vs. leaders) and on collective (vs. relational) identity. Using data from two samples, we supported our hypothesis that leader relational identity moderates relationships of leader–member exchange (LMX) with subordinate task performance and citizenship behaviors. The nature of the interaction was such that the negative relationships of low-quality LMX with performance are mitigated when subordinates had supervisors with strong relational identities. These findings highlight the need to consider not only the identities of followers but those of leaders as well.     

Emotion in strategic management: A review and future research agenda

Emotion in strategic management has attracted increasing scholarly interest during the past twenty-five years. Researchers have demonstrated the nature and significance of emotion in strategic management from a broad range of perspectives across different levels of analysis. Given the expanding research on the topic, the time is ripe to synthesize this diverse and multifaceted body of knowledge. In a thematic synthesis of the literature, we address the following questions: how does emotion influence strategic management, and how can the field be further developed? We review emotion constructs used in the extant literature and identify three themes related to how emotions influence strategic management: the nonconscious influence of emotions, emotion regulation, and collective emotions. Based on these themes and our analysis, we propose three areas of future research to inspire the field to develop further: (1) scope conditions of emotion research in strategic management; (2) capturing emotion in strategic management; and (3) the ethics, power and politics of emotions in strategic management.     

Trust: Missing Piece(s) in the Safety Puzzle

While trust is increasingly recognized as a factor that impacts on safety behavior, the exact nature of trust and its role in shaping organizational safety is poorly understood. This special issue contains six articles that examine the relationship between trust and safety behavior in a range of high-risk work contexts. The issue begins with two articles that introduce the complex nature of trust and the positive and negative roles that trust can play in shaping an organization's safety culture. This background is then developed by two articles that explore the role of trust and distrust in safety performance, and uncover a range of significant but often counterintuitive relationships between forms of trust and safe behavior. Finally, the issue concludes with two articles that examine the role that leadership may play in developing trust. These articles examine the conditions important for the development of trust in leaders, and the trust-promoting actions that leaders can employ to influence employees' engagement in safety participation.     

Sickness presenteeism and sickness absence over time: A UK employee perspective

This paper examined the influence of sickness presenteeism (SP), defined here as going to work despite illness, and sickness absenteeism (SA) behaviour on employee psychological well-being, work performance and perceived organisational commitment in a sample of 552 UK workers. Self-report measures were administered on 2 occasions, separated by 1 year, to employees from 4 public sector and 2 private sector organisations. Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate simultaneous influences of SP and SA on outcomes over time. Results suggested that employees reporting SP reported lower work performance in comparison to those reporting no SP, when measured concurrently but not over time. Employees reporting any SP in the previous 3 months showed relatively reduced psychological well-being but there was no significant association over time. Six or more days SP was associated with a reduction in employee perceptions that their organisation was committed to them, concurrently and over time. There were no significant influences of SA on any outcome measure. Our results strengthen previous research and suggest that SP, but not SA, has implications for individual outcomes. The findings have implications for the way organisations manage their sickness absence systems.     

Leader decision speed as a signal of honesty

Decision speed is emerging as an important topic to organizations, yet its consequences for leaders have received little research attention. The present research builds on this notion by examining how the speed with which leaders come to decisions shapes observers' perceptions and behaviors. In three incentivized experiments, participants evaluated leaders who decided whether to include or exclude followers from participating in consequential decisions. Leaders were seen as more honest when they were fast (vs. slow) to include followers, but as less honest when they were fast (vs. slow) to exclude followers from decisions. These perceptions influenced several key outcomes: the willingness to reward leaders (Experiment 1) and the willingness to cooperate with leaders (Experiment 3). Consistent with a signaling perspective, these effects disappeared when observers learned that leaders were externally pressed to decide quickly or slowly (Experiment 2). The present research offers new insights into the cues that people use when judging leaders' decision-making processes, and the behavioral consequences of these judgments.     

Leader cognition: Approaches and findings

Although few scholars would dispute the point leaders must think, cognition has not, perhaps, received the attention it warrants in studies of leadership. The intent of the present special issue is to examine how cognition influences leader emergence and performance. In this introductory piece we argue that cognitive skills, often domain specific cognitive skills, strongly influence leader emergence and performance. The conditions that moderate the impact of these skills are also examined along with the ways in which cognitive capacities shape subsequent leader behavior. The implications of cognition for leader development and directions for future research are discussed.     

Pathways to social value and social change: An integrative review of the social entrepreneurship literature

Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an important means of addressing grand challenges. Although research on the topic has accelerated, scholars have yet to articulate an overarching framework that links the different pathways taken by social entrepreneurs with the positive effects of these efforts. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a systematic literature review which enabled us to conceptually differentiate between social value and social change as distinct outcomes of social entrepreneurship and identify seven pathways for achieving these outcomes. Building on our analysis, we outline a research agenda for questions pertaining to: the dynamics between social value and social change; how contextual factors and social entrepreneurs influence various pathways; design principles of business models and innovations that facilitate social value and social change; and defining, measuring, and ensuring accountability for social value and social change.     

Leader–member exchange and organizational dehumanization: The role of supervisor’s organizational embodiment

This research examined the negative relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and organizational dehumanization (i.e., employees’ perceptions that their organization treats them like tools), and specifically the consequences of this LMX–dehumanization relationship on employees’ emotional exhaustion, affective commitment, and voice behaviors. Further, given that supervisors act as representatives of the organization, we argued that these relationships would be stronger for employees identifying their supervisor with the organization (i.e., high supervisor’s organizational embodiment). Across two samples, results showed that high-quality LMX was negatively associated with organizational dehumanization. Further, organizational dehumanization was found to mediate the relationships between LMX and outcomes (i.e., emotional exhaustion, affective commitment, and voice behaviors). Finally, the mediation model was moderated by supervisor’s organizational embodiment. More specifically, the negative effects of LMX on organizational dehumanization and its subsequent outcomes were stronger when leaders were perceived as sharing many characteristics with their organization. This research expands the recent and scarce knowledge on the determinants, boundary conditions and outcomes of organizational dehumanization. Our findings suggest that interpersonal relationships at work and, in particular, very common supervisor-related perceptions should be considered when examining organizational dehumanization.     

Linking perceived organizational support with employee work outcomes in a Chinese context: Organizational identification as a mediator

Perceived organizational support (POS) is viewed as an important explanatory framework for understanding the relationship between employees and the workplace, and is regarded by some researchers as central in understanding job-related attitudes and behaviors of employees. However, less research has taken into account the role of organizational identification, which reflects how individuals define the self with respect to their organization, as a potential influence on such relationships. Drawing on a cross-organizational sample of 238 subordinate-supervisor dyads from the People’s Republic of China, we examined whether organizational identification mediates the effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on work outcomes including turnover intentions, work performance, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results from the current study showed that organizational identification fully mediates the relation of POS to OCB-directed to individuals, and partially mediates relations between POS and other work outcomes (turnover intention, work performance, OCB-directed to organization). Implications for management theory and practice are discussed.     

All I need is a stage to shine: Narcissists' leader emergence and performance

Many of the world's leaders appear to possess narcissistic characteristics (e.g., Deluga, 1997). This begs a question as to whether and why narcissistic individuals are chosen as leaders and how they perform. Prior research has suggested that leadership emergence and performance of narcissistic personalities may depend on contextual factors. Of particular interests are those contextual factors that pertain to the interdependence of work relationships, because narcissists typically tend to “shine” in social settings where they can influence others. Therefore, the present study investigated the leadership emergence and performance of narcissistic individuals in low versus high reward interdependent teams that participated in an interactive team simulation task. We found that narcissists emerged as leaders irrespective of the team's level of reward interdependence and their individual performance. Yet, high narcissists performed better in the high reward interdependent condition than in the low reward interdependent condition.     

Strategic leadership for exploration and exploitation: The moderating role of environmental dynamism

This study advances prior theoretical research by linking transformational and transactional behaviors of strategic leaders to two critical outputs of organizational learning: exploratory and exploitative innovation. Findings indicate that transformational leadership behaviors contribute significantly to adopting generative thinking and pursuing exploratory innovation. Transactional leadership behaviors, on the other hand, facilitate improving and extending existing knowledge and are associated with exploitative innovation. In addition, we argue that environmental dynamism needs to be taken into account to fully understand the effectiveness of strategic leaders. Our study provides new insights that misfits rather than fits between leadership behaviors and innovative outcomes matter in dynamic environments. Hence, we contribute to the debate on the role of strategic leaders in managing exploration and exploitation, not only by examining how specific leadership behaviors impact innovative outcomes, but also by revealing how the impact of leadership is contingent upon dynamic environmental conditions.     

The leadership of pragmatism: Reconsidering Franklin in the age of charisma

In recent years, our quest to understand outstanding leadership has focused on the characteristics of charismatic or transformational leaders. In this article, however, we will argue that outstanding leadership need not always involve charisma but may instead be based on a functional, problem-centered approach we refer to as a pragmatic leadership strategy. Initially, certain key propositions pertaining to the nature of pragmatic leadership are described. Subsequently, these propositions are evaluated with respect to 10 cases of noteworthy leadership evidenced by Benjamin Franklin. It is argued that pragmatic leaders, such as Franklin, exercise influence by identifying and communicating solutions to significant social problems, working through elites in solution generation, creating structures to support solution implementation, and demonstrating the feasibility of these solutions. The conditions under which this pragmatic approach can effectively be applied are discussed and contrasted with current views of the conditions calling for charismatic, transformational, and transactional leadership.     

Does shared and differentiated transformational leadership predict followers' working conditions and well-being?

Transformational leadership has been widely researched and is associated with followers' performance, attitudes, and subjective well-being at the individual level. Less research has focused on transformational leadership as a group phenomenon. In a survey study (425 followers and 56 leaders), we examined how group-level and differentiated transformational leadership shape followers' perceptions of their working conditions and individual subjective well-being. There was stronger evidence that differentiated transformational leadership's relationships with indicators of well-being was mediated by perceptions of working conditions, in that 10 out of 20 tests for mediation using differentiated transformational leadership were significant, compared to just three out of 20 for group-level transformational leadership. The results suggest that transformational leadership needs to be studied as a group phenomenon considering how group-level perceptions may impact on followers' well-being and that leaders need to realize that there is an “I” in groups and addition to a “we” in groups.     

How Leaders Affect Followers’ Work Engagement and Performance: Integrating Leader−Member Exchange and Crossover Theory

Drawing on leader?member exchange and crossover theory, this study examines how leaders’ work engagement can spread to followers, highlighting the role of leader?member exchange as an underlying explanatory process. Specifically, we investigate if leaders who are highly engaged in their work have better relationships with their followers, which in turn can explain elevated employee engagement. For this purpose, we surveyed 511 employees nested in 88 teams and their team leaders in a large service organization. Employees and supervisors provided data in this multi‐source design. Furthermore, we asked the employees to report their annual performance assessment. We tested our model using multilevel path analyses in Mplus. As hypothesized, leaders’ work engagement enhanced leader?member exchange quality, which in turn boosted employee engagement (mediation model). Moreover, employee engagement was positively linked to performance and negatively linked to turnover intentions. As such, our multilevel field study connects the dots between work engagement research and the leadership literature. We identify leaders’ work engagement as a key to positive leader?follower relationships and a means for promoting employee engagement and performance. Promoting work engagement at the managerial level may be a fruitful starting point for fostering an organizational culture of engagement.