The role of employees' OCB and leaders' hindrance stress in the emergence of self-serving leadership

Media reports on self-serving leadership primarily focused on the negative consequences of such behavior for employees. However, much remains to be understood about the antecedents of self-serving behavior of leaders. In the present research we explore the role of employees' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the emergence of self-serving leadership. Using one multi-source field study and three experiments, we showed that employees' OCB towards coworkers (OCBI) negatively impacted self-serving leadership. Moreover, we also examine the underlying mechanism for this relation. Results indicate that employees' OCBI mitigated leaders' hindrance stress, which mediates the relationship between OCBI and self-serving leadership. As such, our findings indicate that self-serving leaders are not necessarily inherently bad and that employees have an important role in shaping leaders' self-serving behavior.     

Structural impacts on the occurrence and effectiveness of transformational leadership: An empirical study at the organizational level of analysis

This article empirically investigates the role of organizational structure in the transformational leadership (TFL) process. We examine organizational centralization, formalization, and size as antecedents of an organization's TFL climate, and as moderators of the relationship between TFL climate and productive organizational energy (POE). Hypotheses are tested using a sample of 125 organizations. Results show that both the centralization and size of an organization are negatively related to its TFL climate, whereas formalization has a positive association. Further, while there is a positive linkage between TFL climate and POE, both centralization and formalization moderate this relationship. The TFL climate–POE linkage is diminished under conditions of high centralization, and it is enhanced under conditions of high formalization. These findings point to the role of organizational structure as a boundary condition for both the occurrence and the effectiveness of TFL in organizations. The paper concludes by acknowledging its limitations and discussing its implications for practice and research.     

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.     

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

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

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.     

Task complexity and transformational leadership: The mediating role of leaders' state core self-evaluations

While substantial scholarly attention has been paid to the beneficial consequences of transformational leadership and the conditions in which this leadership style is most effective, there is a remarkable shortage of research on the contextual antecedents of transformational leadership behavior itself. To address this gap, a laboratory experiment was conducted in which we tested the relationship between task complexity and the emergence of transformational leadership behavior. In this experiment, 111 participants were divided in groups of three (comprising one leader and two subordinates), and were instructed to solve three decision-making tasks with varying levels of task complexity. Results indicated that task complexity was negatively related to transformational leadership behavior, and that this relationship was partially mediated by the leader's state core self-evaluations. In other words, when leaders encounter tasks that are overwhelmingly complex, they act in less transformational ways because they momentarily lack the psychological resources to do so. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.     

“To thine own self be true”: The effects of enactment and life storytelling on perceived leader authenticity

Although researchers have emphasized the importance of antecedents to the construct of authentic leadership, very little empirical research exists to confirm this notion. Combining theoretical approaches from dramaturgy and narrative research, we were able to identify possible antecedents that help followers perceive a leader's authenticity. Using two online experimental designs, we analyzed the concept of perceived leader authenticity. Specifically, we examined how a leader's enactment—that is, a leader's physical actions—(Study 1, n = 105) and a combination of leader enactment and life storytelling (Study 2, n = 334) influenced followers' perceptions of the leader's authenticity, and how this may impact leadership outcomes. The results of these studies, in which leader enactment in the context of authentic leadership was operationalized for the first time, indicate that leader enactment predicts perceived leader authenticity. Life storytelling, however, only partially predicted followers' perceptions of the leader's authenticity. Findings further revealed that followers' trust in the leader and positive emotions are outcomes of perceived leader authenticity. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

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

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

A meta-analytic review and future research agenda of charismatic leadership

Charismatic leadership is a critical construct that draws much attention from both academic and practitioner literatures. Despite the positive attention received by the charisma construct, some have criticized its conceptualization and measurement. These critiques have, in turn, cast doubt on what we know regarding the antecedents and outcomes of charismatic leadership. In this review, we adopt a recently developed definition of charismatic leadership and then conduct a meta-analysis of its antecedents and objective outcomes. Following an examination of 76 independent studies and 36,031 individuals, results indicate that the Big Five traits and cognitive ability vary in their association with charismatic leadership. Other findings show that dimensions of charismatic leadership predict outcomes of interest, such as supervisor-rated task performance, supervisor-rated citizenship behaviors, and group or organization performance. Several shortcomings are identified, however, in testing theoretical and methodological moderating variables. The present research ultimately provides a roadmap for new frontiers in theoretical, measurement and empirical work on charismatic leadership.     

Developmental stability and leadership effectiveness

Developmental stability is the degree to which we can withstand environmental or genetic stressors during development. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), concerns the extent to which the right and left side of the body is asymmetrical and is one way to measure developmental stability. Two studies were carried out that examined both the predictive value of leader FA with leadership behaviors and its role in facilitating group performance. The first study examined the hypothesis that a leader's FA is correlated with scores on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The results revealed individuals with a more asymmetrical morphology scored higher on the transformational, but not transactional, dimensions of leadership behavior. A second study examined the hypothesis that asymmetrical morphology and leadership effectiveness would share a positive relationship. In this study participants who led a business game exercise, revealed a positive relationship between FA and self-reported well-being and task satisfaction. Importantly, there was also a positive correlation between the leader's FA score and group performance. The role that developmental stability may play in leadership effectiveness is discussed in the wider context of evolutionary psychology.     

A 25-year perspective on levels of analysis in leadership research

The purpose of this article is to present a comprehensive 25-year review of the incorporation of levels of analysis into conceptual and empirical leadership research published within Leadership Quarterly throughout its history. We assessed the population of Leadership Quarterly's research (790 research articles) on four key levels of analysis-based issues: (1) explicit statement of the focal level(s) of analysis; (2) appropriate measurement given level of constructs; (3) use of a multi-level data analysis technique; and, (4) alignment of theory and data. Prior reviews regarding levels of analysis incorporation into leadership research have been limited to major research domains. Results revealed that while both conceptual and empirical articles only explicitly state the focal level of analysis in approximately one-third of the articles, appropriate levels-based measurement and alignment between theory and data are relatively strong areas of achievement for the articles within Leadership Quarterly. Multi-level data analysis techniques are used in less than one-fifth of all articles. Although there is room for improvement, there is evidence that Leadership Quarterly is a premier outlet for levels-based leadership research. Given the increasing complexity of organizational science with regard to groups, teams and collectives, Leadership Quarterly has an opportunity to model for organizational research on how to build and test complicated multi-level theories and models.     

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

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

Extending the boundaries of strategic leadership research

This special issue was developed to extend the boundaries of strategic leadership research, to help bridge the micro-macro divide regarding theories of strategic leadership, and to bring together theories that have emerged independently. In this introductory editorial, we provide an overview of the research on strategic leadership and emphasize the need for further integration of research from the organizational behavior, industrial and organizational psychology, organizational economics, behavioral strategy, and strategic management fields. We then introduce and summarize the eleven articles we accepted for this special issue by classifying them into two broad themes: (a) Chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics and (b) the dynamics of interactions among the CEO, the top management team, and the board. Finally, we propose recent theoretical and empirical foci for advancing strategic leadership research and offer a research agenda for future research highlighting several important research questions related to extending the dialogue among scholars across the different leadership and strategy domains.     

Culture and leadership: women in nonprofit and for-profit leadership positions within the European Union

Research has shown that women commonly hold positions of leadership within nonprofit organizations, while men typically hold the leadership positions within for-profit organizations. However, little research on women's leadership roles has been conducted within European Union countries. The purpose of this article is to examine women's leadership positions within nonprofit and for-profit organizations within the European Union and, using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory, to further investigate a potential correlation between national culture and female leadership. Fifty-one companies were examined based on type, country characteristics and gender dominance. A significant difference was found between organization type (nonprofit/for-profit) and organizational dominance (masculine/feminine). The findings suggest that the European Union has patterns of gendered leadership positions similar to patterns found previously in the USA. However, countries that were characterized as feminine had more than expected nonprofit organizations, while masculine countries had more for-profit organizations.     

The depleted leader: The influence of leaders' diminished psychological resources on leadership behaviors

While much is understood about the outcomes of different leadership styles, less is known about the antecedents of leadership, particularly with regards to how leaders' own psychological well-being impacts leadership behaviors. Using conservation of resources theory as a framework, we investigated the relationship between leaders' depleted resources and their leadership behaviors. Conceptualizing depressive symptoms, anxiety, and workplace alcohol consumption as resource depletion, we predicted that depletion would be associated with lower levels of transformational leadership, and higher levels of abusive supervision, and when taken together, would further exacerbate these effects on leadership behaviors. In a study of 172 leader–subordinate pairs, leaders' depressive symptoms, anxiety, and workplace alcohol consumption separately predicted lower transformational leadership, and higher abusive supervision. Furthermore, partial support was found for an exacerbating effect on transformational leadership and abusive supervision.     

Leader political support: Reconsidering leader political behavior

Historically, organizational politics and political leader behavior have been framed and characterized negatively, as self-serving and counter-productive. However, scholars have noted that political acts can achieve positive ends, and have called for further discussions of positive forms of political leadership. Continuing in this recent stream of research on positive perspectives on organizational politics, a framework of leader political support is proposed, suggesting that the positive features of leader political behavior, and testable propositions are developed. The leader political support construct is defined and its antecedents are explicated utilizing a social capital perspective. Additionally, social exchange theory is used to explain the consequences of leader political support. Contributions to both leadership and organizational politics literatures and directions for future research are discussed.     

The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure

There is an extensive private sector literature on organizational change management. However, recent studies have suggested that the specific context of public organizations may have consequences for the management organizational change. This study examines to what extent different change approaches and transformational leadership of direct supervisors contribute to the effective implementation of organizational change in public organizations, and to what extent the bureaucratic structure of public organizations makes the implementation of organizational change s3pecific. The implementation of an organizational change in a Dutch public organization is studied using quantitative methods and techniques. The results indicate that bureaucratic organizations may effectively implement organizational change with both planned and emergent change approaches. The contribution of transformational leadership depends on the type of change approach and organizational structure. Transformational leadership behavior of direct supervisors contributes little to planned processes of change, but is crucial in emergent processes of change in a non-bureaucratic context. Although the literature on change management mostly emphasizes the leadership of senior managers, the leadership role of direct supervisors should not be overlooked during organizational change in public organizations.     

Leader diffuse status and leadership outcomes: Towards an integrative framework

This review seeks to enrich our understanding of how a leader's status influences leadership outcomes such as motivation to lead, leader emergence and perceived leader effectiveness. The focus is on the leader's diffuse status, that is, status derived from demographic (e.g., gender and race) and physical (e.g., height and body shape) characteristics. Drawing insights from empirical findings and their theoretical underpinnings, we (1) highlight the need to explicitly model the leader's diffuse status as a mediator in the relationship between leader demographic and physical characteristics and leadership outcomes, (2) differentiate the effects of the leader's diffuse status as perceived by others (interpersonal level) and the leader's diffuse status as perceived by the leader (intrapersonal level) and (3) synthesize a wide range of contextual factors that influence the degree to which the leader's demographic and physical characteristics affect leadership outcomes through the leader's diffuse status. Moreover, we explain how other status types, such as status derived from the leader's position in the organizational hierarchy and status related to task-relevant leader characteristics, can moderate the effects of the leader's diffuse status. Finally, we discuss the utility of our proposed integrative framework for researchers and practitioners and outline promising future research opportunities.     

A conceptual replication of ambidextrous leadership theory: An experimental approach

Ambidextrous leadership theory proposes that a leader's interplay between opening behaviors and closing behaviors enhances followers' exploration and exploitation behaviors, which ultimately increases innovative outcomes. Unfortunately, previous research suffers from problems with causal interpretation and endogeneity concerns threatening the validity of the theory. Our aim was to constructively replicate previous research with an experimental design, more rigorous measures, and state-of-the-art data analytical approaches (2SLS). In two randomized experiments (Study 1: N = 395, Study 2: N = 229), we manipulated four leadership styles (opening, closing, ambidextrous, and transformational leadership) and tested their effects on participants' exploration/exploitation behaviors as well as objective innovation outcomes. We only found partial support for the hypotheses from ambidextrous leadership theory. We discuss implications in terms of refining central concepts of the theory and offering more accurate assumptions about timing. We also elaborate on more general insights from our constructive replication studies for the leadership field.     

To whom does transformational leadership matter more? An examination of neurotic and introverted followers and their organizational citizenship behavior

Despite the massive amount of transformational leadership research, the role of followers has not been well-examined in the transformational leadership literature. To understand how leader–follower interactions influence follower organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), we examined the cross-level interactions between transformational leadership and two follower personality traits (neuroticism and extraversion). Using a sample of 215 leaders and 1284 followers, results showed that follower neuroticism moderated the relationships between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior directed toward other individuals (OCB-I) and toward the organization (OCB-O), such that relationships were stronger for those high in neuroticism. Further, follower extraversion moderated the relationships between transformational leadership and OCB-I and OCB-O, such that relationships were stronger for those low in extraversion. Therefore, the inspirational and developmental nature of transformational leaders can offset follower neuroticism and introversion and guide these employees to perform more OCB despite their tendencies to worry, lack confidence, and be shy and withdrawn.