Labels and leaders: The influence of framing on leadership emergence

In two studies, this paper examines the influence of task framing on leadership emergence in mixed-gender dyads. In Study 1, we found that males are more likely to emerge as leaders when a paper-folding task is framed as masculine (i.e., Building Project) relative to feminine (i.e., Art Project). Furthermore, females are more likely to emerge as leaders when a paper-folding task is framed as feminine relative to masculine. In Study 2, we conceptually replicate these results using a weaving task (framed as Knot-Tying Task vs. Hair-Braiding Task) and find that perceived competence is the mechanism through which task framing affects leadership emergence. Taken together, these results suggest that task framing can influence the emergence of leaders because of changes in perceptions of competence. These findings are discussed in the context of related theoretical findings and managerial implications are elaborated on.     

The face of leadership: Perceiving leaders from facial expression

The aim of the two studies presented here was to add to our knowledge about the contribution of facial expression to the perception of leadership. We assessed participants' prototypes of leadership. In addition, participants were shown pictures of different facial expressions. First impressions of leadership from the facial expressions were compared to the participants' prototypes. The results indicate that the participants used all available information, including facial appearance, expression, context of communication, appropriateness, and authenticity of expression to form complex prototypes. When the facial expressions in the studies matched the participants' prototypes, first impressions of leadership were higher. Therefore, understanding what is inside the perceiver's mind is significant for understanding leadership perceptions. On the basis of these two studies, we recommend that leaders should be aware of the influence their facial expressions have on their followers' perception of their leader-likeness.     

Transformational versus transactional leadership styles and project success: A meta-analytic review

Despite the fact that the reliance on project teams and project-based organizations has significantly increased over the past decades, previous meta-analyses paid no attention to the examination of leadership styles in the context of projects. The purpose of this study was to meta-analytically synthesize and investigate the contradictory evidence on the effects of transformational leadership and transactional leadership on project success. The study also examined several project-level and country-level moderators in such effects. The study used 64 effect sizes from 41 primary studies on projects to examine the proposed relationships. The findings suggested that transformational leadership had a stronger effect on project success than transactional leadership. The results further indicated that project-level factors (i.e., project size and project type) moderated the relationships of leadership styles with project success. Moreover, the country-level factors (i.e., power distance, collectivism, and economic status of the country) also moderated some of the relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are provided in the end.     

Promoting post-conventional consciousness in leaders: Australian community leadership programs

This study explored the impact on consciousness development of participating in either standard or enhanced community leadership programs (CLPs) in Australia. Aligned with Manners' and Durkin's (2000) conceptual framework, CLPs offer experiences that are interpersonal, emotionally engaging, personally salient and structurally disequilibriating for later conventional consciousness stages. Enhanced CLPs include additional psychosocial challenges. Participants were 335 adults who took part in one of 4 standard CLPs, 7 enhanced CLPs and 2 (control) management programs. Modal program length was 10 months. Standard and enhanced CLPs were successful in facilitating consciousness development (as measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test—WUSCT) within the conventional stages. However, enhanced CLPs were significantly more successful in triggering post-conventional development, and specifically in those participants who had a preference for Sensing (as measured by the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator—MBTI). Enhanced CLPs could provide a model for other development programs aimed at promoting post-conventional consciousness.     

Flattening the learning curve of leadership development: reflections of five women higher education leaders during the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020

ABSTRACT

For an adult, non-traditional student focused college, the pandemic brought into stark reality the challenges that the dislocation brought ‘home,’ literally, for many people. This article presents a set of reflections of five women leaders at a public institution of higher education. Through their reflections, they discuss their responses to the challenges faced by faculty, staff and students during the pandemic. Issues of gender, race, class, precarious work, technological access, and related challenges are raised to the surface. We offer three implications for HRD and leadership development research and practice.     

Sleep and napping in young shiftworkers: A 5-year follow-up

Abstract

The present study examined sleep characteristics in young workers who entered rapidly rotating shiftwork for the first time and stayed on shifts for 5 years. Data were collected when the subjects had shiftwork experience of approximately 1.5, 3.5 and 5.5 years and a mean age of 22, 24 and 26 years. Data are presented showing significant differences in the main sleep durations between situations within the shift cycle and a small reduction in overall sleep over the observed period, primarily due to a sleep reduction on afternoon shift days. Data on sleep quality did not show any change over this early period of shiftwork exposure. In addition, napping strategies did not change, with the exception of a small increase in those taking naps on night-shift days between 1.5 years and 3.5 years of shiftwork exposure. At all the observed phases there were more young shiftworkers taking a nap on the morning shift days than on the night-shift days. The data suggested that reduced sleeps on morning and night-shift days were not compensated by taking a nap, but rather with an increase in main sleep duration on afternoon shift days and days off. A weak tendency for individuals to be relatively long or short sleepers irrespective of sleep conditions could be seen.     

The demise of leadership: Positivity and negativity biases in evaluations of dead leaders

Five studies compared evaluations of living versus dead leaders. In Studies 1 and 2, participants displayed a death positivity bias, forming more favorable impressions of dead leaders than of equivalent living leaders. Study 3 demonstrated the death positivity bias in evaluations of real-world leaders in politics, sports, and entertainment. Study 4 showed that death polarizes morality judgments: Moral leaders were posthumously judged as more moral while immoral leaders were posthumously judged as more immoral. Study 5 demonstrated the St. Augustine effect: Dead leaders who had changed from sinners to saints were judged more favorably than living leaders who had undergone the same change. The implications of these findings for theory and research on leadership legacy and organizational impression management are discussed.     

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.     

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.     

Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28

Although research on servant leadership has been expanding over the past several years, a concise, valid scale for assessing global servant leadership has been lacking. In the current investigation a 7-item measure of global servant leadership (SL-7), based on Liden, Wayne, Zhao, and Henderson's (2008) 28-item servant leadership measure (SL-28), is introduced. Psychometric properties of the SL-7 were assessed at the individual level with data collected from 729 undergraduate students, 218 graduate students, and 552 leader–follower dyads from 11 organizations, and at the team level with a study consisting of a total of 71 ongoing intact work teams. Results across three independent studies with six samples showed correlations between the SL-7 and SL-28 scales ranging from .78 to .97, internal consistency reliabilities over .80 in all samples, and significant criterion-related validities for the SL-7 that parallel those found with the SL-28.     

Is training leaders in functional leadership a useful tool for improving the performance of leadership functions and team effectiveness?

Departing from the functional leadership model, we propose a team leadership training model as a way to improve the performance of leadership functions and foster team effectiveness. Based on a longitudinal quasi-experimental study involving ninety 6-person teams, 45 trained leaders were compared to 45 untrained leaders at two points in time: before the intervention group was subjected to training experience (time 1), and 6 months after the intervention group had completed their training (time 2). Results showed that, compared to the non-trained leaders, the trained leaders registered an improvement in their enactment of leadership functions. Moreover, these results also showed that training leaders led to an improvement in team effectiveness through the development of team leadership functions. The current findings offer new insights into the way that leaders can improve team effectiveness.     

Ethical leadership and employee success: Examining the roles of psychological empowerment and emotional exhaustion

The current study aims to advance ethical leadership theory and research in two ways. First, we propose that psychological empowerment is a comprehensive motivational mechanism linking ethical leadership with employee current in-role success and future success potential. Second, we propose that employee emotional exhaustion is a disruptive psychological state that dampens the empowering effects of ethical leaders. Findings from two field studies illustrate that emotional exhaustion impairs the motivational efforts of ethical leaders by attenuating the direct effects on psychological empowerment and the indirect effects on employees' current success and success potential. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Paradox versus dilemma mindset: A theory of how women leaders navigate the tensions between agency and communion

A wealth of literature documents that women leaders can face simultaneous and yet conflictual demands for both agency and communion, due to the incongruence of their leader role and gender role demands. However, we still know little about why some women cope with the tensions between agency and communion better than others and what implications are involved. Using a paradox perspective, we develop a theoretical model to explain how women leaders experience and respond to agency-communion tensions, which impacts their intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes. Specifically, we propose that in response to experiencing tensions fueled by the dual demands for agency and communion, women leaders can adopt a paradox mindset that simultaneously embraces agency and communion, or a dilemma mindset that dichotomizes agency and communion. The paradox mindset helps women leaders build psychological resilience, identity coexistence, and leadership effectiveness, whereas those who adopt a dilemma mindset experience depleted resilience, identity separation, and lowered leadership effectiveness. Further, our model highlights individual, interpersonal, and organizational conditions that shape women's experience and stimulate a paradox mindset versus a dilemma mindset. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of our model.     

Servant leadership,employer brand perception,trust in leaders and turnover intentions: a sequential mediation model

The study aimed to examine the impact of the servant leadership style on employee turnover intentions by investigating the sequential mediating effects of employer brand perception and level of trust subordinates have in their leaders. Results of the study were obtained by analysing data collected from 253 employees working in Indian organizations. The results fully support the hypotheses proposed in the study, illustrating that perceived servant leadership style is negatively associated with employee turnover intentions. Further, servant leadership-turnover intentions relationship is sequentially mediated by employer brand perception and the level of trust subordinates have in their leaders. The study also found that only the servant leadership style followed by leaders was not enough to directly influence the level of trust employees placed in their leaders. A positive and strong employer brand perception emerged as an important mechanism that helped servant leaders gain the trust of their followers. The theoretical and managerial implications are further discussed in the light of these findings.     

Perceptions of leadership success from nonverbal cues communicated by orchestra conductors

Research has suggested that people can extract information relevant to leadership from thin slices of behavior. Nearly all of this research has been conducted in the context of large organizations where the relationships between leaders and followers are relatively indirect, however. We therefore examined here whether participants could extract similar information about leadership success from contexts with direct leader–follower interactions: conductors of orchestras. We found that perceivers could accurately discern conductors' success from brief video clips and that perceptions of expressiveness and age formed the basis for this accuracy. Thus, the current work demonstrates that leadership success is perceptible from nonverbal cues not only for the leaders of large organizations, but also in the context of groups where leaders and followers must continually and dynamically interact to produce successful outcomes.     

Identities under scrutiny: How women leaders navigate feeling misidentified at work

The identities of women leaders can fall under intense scrutiny; they are often confronted with other's perceptions of them—perceptions that may not be wholly accurate. Through in-depth qualitative interviews of senior women leaders working in male-dominated industries, we explore how they experience and respond to feeling misidentified (internal identity asymmetry; Meister, Jehn, & Thatcher, 2014) throughout their careers. Employing grounded theory methods, we uncover how women are likely to experience asymmetry, and discover it becomes most salient during personal and professional identity transitions. We build theory with respect to how women leaders navigate feeling misidentified, and find with time and power the experience becomes less salient. Our study draws together and contributes to both the identity and leadership literatures by exploring an important identity challenge facing women leaders in industries that are striving for a greater gender-balance in senior positions.     

Queens of the hill: Creative destruction and the emergence of executive leadership of women

Despite penetrating the middle management ranks of many U.S. businesses, women continue to lag far behind men in their appointments to top leadership positions. Many explanations exist for why the glass ceiling exists, but few theories offer suggestions for how women break through this ceiling. In this paper we propose that the concept of ‘creative destruction’ can help us understand why some women ascend to leadership positions. Using empirical research and anecdotal evidence from the experiences of several high-profile female executives, we argue that women may rise to leadership positions in turbulent environments that are receptive to new talent and open to innovative, bold ideas. Further, we propose that under these conditions women may be seen as especially attractive candidates to guide organizations because they are perceived to utilize a leadership style that promotes openness and inclusion, and facilitates change.     

Ethical leadership: A review and future directions

Our literature review focuses on the emerging construct of ethical leadership and compares this construct with related concepts that share a common concern for a moral dimension of leadership (e.g., spiritual, authentic, and transformational leadership). Drawing broadly from the intersection of the ethics and leadership literatures, we offer propositions about the antecedents and outcomes of ethical leadership. We also identify issues and questions to be addressed in the future and discuss their implications for research and practice. Our review indicates that ethical leadership remains largely unexplored, offering researchers opportunities for new discoveries and leaders opportunities to improve their effectiveness.