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.     

Perceptions of politics and organizational cynicism: An attributional and leader–member exchange perspective

As the political perspectives of organizations gain acceptance, leadership is increasingly viewed as a political process. While some researchers have begun to shun the notion that politics should be viewed as necessarily bad and undesirable, it is still commonly seen as a negative attribute of the organizational environment. Moreover, organizational members who perceive themselves to be working in negative political environments may develop cynical attitudes toward the organization. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the role that attributions play in eliciting negative cognitive and affective reactions to the political environment. We argue that because the quality of the leader–member exchange (LMX) is often central to these reactions, LMX theory and research possess considerable promise for enhancing our understanding of these processes. We explore attributional processes in detail, with special attention to (a) how these attributional processes occur within a leader–member relationship and (b) how attributions ultimately impact perceptions of politics, as well as organizational cynicism.     

Newcomers’ reactions to unfulfilled leadership expectations: An attribution theory approach

This paper examines newcomers’ reactions when facing unfulfilled leadership expectations. Although leaders are ascribed a key role in newcomers’ socialization, very little is known about newcomers’ expectations of leadership and their subsequent behaviors when these expectations are not fulfilled. Against the background of a follower-centered perspective, we develop a differentiated model of newcomers’ leadership attributions. As general attribution theory has recently shown, causal links are not always made in clear-cut ways. Thus, there may be several steps between the attribution and non-attribution of leadership. As our qualitative empirical study in Germany reveals, different unfulfilled leadership expectation types lead to equally different leadership attribution levels, with various behavioral consequences for newcomers. We suggest a dynamic model, starting with investing in a relationship before newcomers choose refusing reactions such as confrontation or withdrawal.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Modeling Retrospective Attribution of Responsibility to Hazard‐Managing Institutions: An Example Involving a Food Contamination Incident

Perceptions of institutions that manage hazards are important because they can affect how the public responds to hazard events. Antecedents of trust judgments have received far more attention than antecedents of attributions of responsibility for hazard events. We build upon a model of retrospective attribution of responsibility to individuals to examine these relationships regarding five classes of institutions that bear responsibility for food safety: producers (e.g., farmers), processors (e.g., packaging firms), watchdogs (e.g., government agencies), sellers (e.g., supermarkets), and preparers (e.g., restaurants). A nationally representative sample of 1,200 American adults completed an Internet‐based survey in which a hypothetical scenario involving contamination of diverse foods with Salmonella served as the stimulus event. Perceived competence and good intentions of the institution moderately decreased attributions of responsibility. A stronger factor was whether an institution was deemed (potentially) aware of the contamination and free to act to prevent or mitigate it. Responsibility was rated higher the more aware and free the institution. This initial model for attributions of responsibility to impersonal institutions (as opposed to individual responsibility) merits further development.     

Does an attractive partner make you a better leader? Only if you are a male!

We integrate the research on evolutionary leadership with the evolutionary psychology of mate choice to argue that a facially attractive partner signals unobservable leadership qualities of their mate, and thus, partner's attractiveness spills over to their mate's perceived leadership. Study 1 found that while partner's attractiveness enhanced the perceived leadership of male CEOs, female CEOs' leadership was downgraded in the presence of an attractive partner. Study 2 validated that the leadership penalty for female CEOs increased when they were seen with more attractive males than with less attractive males. Study 3 found that conservative candidates that were male benefitted more from an attractive partner than their liberal counterparts but female candidates were penalized regardless of political ideology. Our findings suggest that indirect cues that emanate from the partner are critical for leadership assessment. They invoke attributions that enhance the perceived leadership of males but disapprove of females as leaders.     

Traversing the storm: An interdisciplinary review of crisis leadership

An organizational crisis is a low-probability, high-impact event that threatens the survival of organizations and individuals, often with little warning. In response, people seek clarity, reassurance, and hope from organizational leaders. Yet, crises also vary in nature and impact (e.g., a product failure versus the COVID-19 pandemic), which presents diverse challenges to leaders and differing stakeholder perceptions. Based on a critical analysis of 69 empirical articles, we provide a comprehensive, systematic, interdisciplinary review of the crisis leadership literature. Our review utilizes the Coombs and Holladay (1996) crisis typology, where crises are categorized according to mutually exclusive attributional dimensions (i.e., internal–external and intentional–unintentional). We conduct a thematic analysis of crisis leadership within and across these four crisis categories and find that each is associated with a different leadership theme. We also examine the methodological quality and rigor of the qualitative and quantitative articles in our review. Based on our findings, we also offer suggestions to guide future crisis leadership research, and provide guidance for organizational leaders in how to respond to various crises.     

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.     

Perceptions of ethical climate and organizational justice as antecedents to employee performance: The mediating role of employees' attributions of leader effectiveness

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of employee attributions of leader effectiveness on relationships between perceptions of (a) ethical climate and (b) organizational justice and both positive and negative types of performance. We argue that these relatively under-investigated perceptions are critical antecedents to effective productivity in the workplace. Accordingly, this study is the first to examine the associations of both ethical climate and organizational justice on both positive and negative performance within the context of mediation via employee attributions of leader effectiveness. Based on online survey data from 2486 Romanian employees, our SEM-based findings reveal that the attribution of leader effectiveness functions as a mediator between the associations of ethical climate and justice perceptions on two distinct types of performance: (1) Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and (2) Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWB).Additionally, the results revealed that trait negative affect moderates the mediating role of leader effectiveness with OCB but not with CWB. This study contributes to the recent and growing interest in the mediating role of attributions regarding work performance. Several theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed concerning leader-specific attributions, employee empowerment, and employee performance. Most prominently, we discuss why individuals with strong trait negative affect may engage in CWB without the influence of ethical climate or organizational justice.     

Leadership and the three faces of integrity

Recent scholarship in business and leadership strongly suggests that integrity is not fundamentally a moral concept. This paper presents an account of leadership integrity that defends its ethical meaning while identifying important cognitive structures that clarify the confusion surrounding integrity attributions. The paper begins with a brief review of historical, philosophical, and business discussions of integrity. Using the insights from these discussions, I argue that integrity is fundamentally, but not exclusively, a moral concept that supports the ethical claims of leadership theories. I then review current leadership theories and derive a definition of integrity as a moral concept. Using this definition, I explain how a leader's integrity is founded on identity-conferring commitments to values and then describe three types of leadership integrity to better understand these constructs. I conclude with a few research questions that seek to advance leadership integrity research with the goal of advancing our understanding of ethical leadership.     

Followers' Personality and the Perception of Transformational Leadership: Further Evidence for the Similarity Hypothesis

Managers and supervisors are thought to affect their followers' attitudes and behaviour. Within leadership research, behaviour of leaders and managers is usually considered as the independent variable whilst followers' reactions are considered the dependent variable. In this study, we reverse this order and investigate the degree to which the evaluation of leadership is a result of followers' perceptions and attributions. In order to corroborate and extend previous experimental research, a field study was conducted to analyse the influence of followers' personality and perceived leader personality on followers' perception of leadership within an organizational setting. The results provide further evidence that followers' personality influences the perception of transformational leadership and commitment to the supervisor. Moreover, the perception of leaders' personality was related to the perception of leadership and commitment to the supervisor. The finding that the perception of supervisors' personality mediates both the relationship between followers' personality and the perception of leadership and commitment provides support for the similarity hypothesis. Results are discussed in the light of feedback and leader development.     

What goes around comes around: How meso-level negative emotional contagion can ultimately determine organizational attitudes toward leaders

We present a follower-centric model of leadership that integrates multiple levels of analysis, and includes emotional contagion as a key meso-level process. In our model, leadership at the individual level is manifested in terms of the leader's favoritism toward members and affective displays. Drawing upon affective events theory, we argue that member perceptions of a leader's behaviors and member attributions of insincerity result in negative emotions. Through a process of emotional contagion, the negative emotions then spread to other individuals in the group. These are in turn reflected in the group's affective climate and trust climate, and also in the quality of leader-member and team-member relationships. In the end, this results in organizational-level disapproval of the leader and cynicism towards the leader. Included as moderators in the model are task interdependence, the temporal context, reward systems, emotional labor requirements, organizational culture, and power distance. We conclude with a discussion of boundary conditions, and implications of our model for research, theory, and practice.     

Professional networks,science ability,and gender determinants of three types of leadership in academic science and engineering

This paper examines the factors associated with holding leadership positions among men and women academic scientists. We develop hypotheses for three determinants of leadership: professional networks, science ability, and gender. We test the resulting model on the likelihood of holding three different types of academic science leadership—research center leadership, university administrative leadership, and discipline leadership. Findings show that while science productivity and reputation are strongly associated with having either a center or discipline leadership position, they are less strongly associated with administrative leadership. Also, larger and more dense collaboration networks predict having a center leadership position, but the opposite is true for holding an administrative leadership position. Women are more likely to be in discipline leadership positions and less likely to be a leader of a research center or have an administrative university leadership position. Finally, having more women in the network reduces the likelihood of holding discipline or center leadership positions. Interpretations of findings and conclusions explore the potential implications for theory, practice and policy.     

Predicting psychological ripple effects: the role of cultural identity, in-group/out-group identification, and attributions of blame in crisis communication

Incidents of intentional food contamination can produce ripple effects in consumers such as reduced trust and increased anxiety. In their postcrisis communication, food companies often direct the blame at the perpetrator in an effort to mitigate potential losses and regain consumer trust. The attempt to placate consumers may, in itself, potentially create psychological ripple effects in message readers. This study examined the interacting influence of two message characteristics: identity of the perpetrator of the crime (in-group/out-group membership), and the attribution of blame (reason why the perpetrator committed the crime), with message receiver characteristic (cultural identity) on psychological ripple effects such as blame, trust, anxiety, and future purchase intention. Results indicated that although group membership of the perpetrator was not significant in predicting outcomes for the organization, the attribution communicated in the message was. American message receivers blamed the organization more and trusted it less when personal dispositional attributions were made about the perpetrator. Asian message receivers blamed the organization more and trusted it less when situational attributions were made about the perpetrator. Lowered trust in the company and increased anxiety correlated with lower purchase intent for both American and Asian message receivers. Implications for crisis message design are discussed.     

The role of attributions in psychological reactions to job relocation

Job relocation refers to the process of simultaneously moving to a new job and house and this can cause considerable stress for the relocator and his/her family. Based upon an attributional analysis, we predicted that negative psychological reactions would be a function of (1) number of relocation problems, and (2) making pessimistic attributions for relocation problems (that is, the tendency to attribute negative events to internal, stable and global causes). Furthermore, these factors should interact, such that individuals with many relocation problems who also make pessimistic attributions will experience the worst psychological reactions. The results from a cross-sectional survey of 93 relocators supported these predictions. As expected, those relocators who had many relocation problems and made pessimistic attributions reported the worst mental health and relocation-specific stress. In addition, a reanalysis of a longitudinal study of relocators by Martin (1996) also supported the above predictions using attributions of perceived control. Furthermore, the relocators predicted to be most at risk (many problems}/low control) reported the worst changes in mental health during the course of the move.     

Perception of Risk and the Attribution of Responsibility for Accidents

Accidents, one often hears, “happen”; we accept, and even expect, that they will be part of daily life. But in situations in which injury or death result, judgments of responsibility become critical. How might our perceptions of risk influence the ways in which we allocate responsibility for an accident? Drawing from attribution and risk perception theory, this study investigates how perceived controllability and desirability of risk, in addition to perceived danger and recreational risk‐taking, relate to attributions of responsibility for the cause of unintentional injury in a unique setting: U.S. national parks. Three parks, Mount Rainier, Olympic, and Delaware Water Gap, provide the setting for this survey‐based study, which considers how park visitors (N = 447) attribute responsibility for the cause of a hypothetical visitor accident. Results suggest that respondents tended to make more internal (i.e., related to characteristics of the victim), rather than external (i.e., related to characteristics of the park, or park management) attributions. As respondents viewed park‐related risk as controllable, they were more likely to attribute the cause of the accident to the victim. Moreover, among other significant variables, having experienced a similar accident predicted lower internal causal attribution. Opportunities for future research linking risk perception and attribution variables, as well as practical implications for the management of public outdoor settings, are presented.     

Advancing the science of 21st-century leadership development: Theory,research, and practice

Leadership development seeks to understand, predict, and intervene effectively in addressing the questions of how individuals develop as leaders and how collections of individuals develop a capacity for leadership. These questions are attracting scholars interested in the factors and processes involved in developing leaders and leadership. Presented in the special issue is a set of state-of-the-science empirical studies and theory development articles representing 21st century leadership development. We also provide a brief overview of issues related to the leadership development field – broadly construed to include individual leader development – that are especially pertinent and where the research evidence is scarce or contradictory. These areas are theoretical foundations of leadership development, practices and methods of development and talent selection for development, accurately estimating return on investment for leadership development initiatives, the role of time in developing leaders and leadership, understanding and remedying biases and inequities in leadership development, and the role of development in mitigating the so-called dark side of leadership. Although we have learned much about leader and leadership development over the past 20 years, there is an ongoing need for more research and theory development especially with respect to identifying causally and practically relevant knowledge able to inform policy.