How leaders influence organizational effectiveness

The flexible leadership theory explains how top executives and other leaders can influence the financial performance of a business organization. Three key determinants of financial performance are efficiency, adaptation, and human capital. A wide range of leadership behaviors, management programs, structural forms, and external initiatives can be used to influence these performance determinants. Management programs and systems are usually more effective when they are mutually compatible and appropriate for the situation. Effective performance requires a cooperative effort by the multiple leaders in an organization, and they must be flexible and adaptive as the situation changes. The theory provides a way to integrate findings from several different and largely separate literatures.     

领导理论的演化和前沿进展

对1个世纪以来领导理论研究中的主要历史性成果进行梳理,将其发展脉络分为3个历史阶段进行述评:传统领导理论丛林时期、变革领导理论主导时期和四因素理论萌芽时期;强调每一个领导理论都是在特定背景下对领导实践的一种特定反映和解释,都为该理论的发展做出了重要的历史贡献,并不存在一个绝对的最佳领导模型;最后对领导理论的未来研究进行了展望。     

家长式领导对组织学习的作用——基于家长式领导三元理论的观点

基于家长式领导三元理论的观点,研究了家长式领导与组织学习的关系.通过问卷调查获得711份有效问卷.层次回归分析结果显示:仁慈领导对组织学习的6个维度都有显著的积极影响;除开发式学习外,德行领导对组织学习的其他5个维度都有显著的积极影响;威权领导对团体学习、组织层学习、组织间学习和利用式学习4个维度都有显著的积极影响;仁慈领导和威权领导对开发式学习和利用式学习都有显著的交互作用,德行领导和威权领导对利用式学习有显著的交互作用.这些结果启发我国企业领导者需要表现出高仁慈、高德行和一定水平威权的领导风格.     

Contemporary public leadership in China: A research review and consideration

China garners great international attention due to its rapid economic development, unprecedented nationwide political reform, and significant social progress over the last 25 years. Contemporary public leadership in China is arguably a major force for the myriad of recent economic, political, and social transformations in the country. This article reviews the academic literature on that leadership, providing an overview of interest to scholars, teachers, and practitioners whose work deals with cross-cultural studies of leadership development. The review focuses primarily on materials published between January 1999 and June 2004 that explicitly address public leadership in China. The review identifies six areas of research to date: (1) leadership transition, (2) democratization, (3) prominent political figures, (4) local leadership, (5) cultural and historical traditions, and (6) other identified forms of public leadership (military versus Party leadership, women as public leaders, religion and public leadership, and student leadership). The article concludes with discussions of characteristics of the literature and directions for future theoretical and empirical work.     

复杂环境下企业适应性领导行为研究

竞争环境的复杂性要求企业领导行为具有较强的适应性。在复杂适应系统刺激-反应原理的基础上,构建复杂环境下企业适应性领导行为模型,指出在政府、市场、企业等组织内外部环境因素作用下,企业的适应性领导行为由文化识别、知识管理、风险管理和协同创造4个方面构成,并对员工绩效、组织承诺和员工满意度等领导有效性指标产生影响。在问卷调查的基础上,采用因子分析、相关分析、层次回归和逐步回归等方法对调查数据进行统计分析。实证研究结果表明,企业适应性领导行为对员工绩效、组织承诺、员工满意度等结果变量有不同程度的影响;企业文化、领导-成员交换关系与企业适应性领导行为和领导有效性存在相关关系,并且作为调节变量对企业适应性领导行为与领导有效性之间的关系起调节作用。企业应从适应性领导行为层面和调节变量层面加强管理,构建有效领导行为机制,提高环境变化中的领导有效性。     

国外跨组织领导研究前沿探析

首先对以往研究中跨组织领导的概念界定做总结归纳;进而以HUXHAM等提出的跨组织领导概念框架作为理论基础,就个体组织层面跨组织领导行为和协作网络层面周边领导要素2种领导力量各自的内涵及效能的现有研究开展综合评述,并进一步针对两者间的互动关系,提出新的跨组织领导效能演进机制框架。     

Charismatic,ideological, & pragmatic (CIP) model of leadership: A critical review and agenda for future research

Criticisms of the dominant leadership perspectives in the literature are increasing and, as such, a growing number of scholars are calling for more complex and conceptually sound theories of leadership. With a multi-faceted perspective on effective leadership, detailed conceptual underpinnings, and increasing body of empirical support, the Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic (CIP) model of leadership has the potential to address many of these concerns and substantively contribute to our understanding of effective leadership. Despite such advantages, however, wide scale proliferation of the model remains elusive. As such, this effort provides the first comprehensive review of the CIP model to analyze its potential to expand our understanding of leadership in science and practice. In doing so this review frames and organizes the existing CIP literature, identifies key strengths of the model, addresses key limitations of the model, and outlines future research opportunities that would benefit from adopting a CIP perspective.     

The possibilities of leadership: revisiting J.C. Rost’s leadership writings

In the 90s, J.C. Rost highlighted the possibilities for leadership to become inclusive, participative, and socially responsible. He explicitly questioned the leadership paradigm of the previous two centuries encouraging a new paradigm for the twenty-first century. His contribution to leadership studies was recognized through the International Leadership Association’s lifetime achievement award in 2008. However, his work has largely been overlooked within management and organization studies and today’s dominant leadership paradigm remains largely unchanged from that of the previous century. In this paper, the major elements of Rost’s approach; influence relationships, real intended change, and mutual purpose and their implications for developing good leadership are revisited and explained. Rost was unable to shift the dominant leadership paradigm which he encountered, but he was able to highlight the possibilities of what leadership could become. Conclusions are drawn with regards to the enduring separation between leaders and followers, the vested interests of stakeholders in leadership and the influence of a mythical leadership narrative.     

企业环境、领导行为、领导绩效互动影响分析

结合对价值观型领导理论的分析以及过去针对这一理论在中国所作研究的基本结论,将环境因素纳入到领导过程研究中,提出了一个关于企业竞争环境、价值观型领导行为以及领导绩效三者之间互动的理论模型并进行实证分析.结果显示:激烈的竞争环境会削弱企业内部的领导绩效,但实施价值观型领导,将有助于企业领导扭转不利局面,提升领导绩效,价值观型领导在严酷的竞争环境中适用.文章也讨论了此研究的局限性和未来的研究发展方向.     

The view from the crossroads: Brazilian culture and corporate leadership in the twenty-first century

The transfer of western leadership theories and practices across the globe has inspired criticism in recent years, suggesting the need for local/indigenous theories of leadership. Such search, however, is troublesome in countries with a heterogeneous cultural background where the constant influence of outside cultural/social/economic parameters abound. The purpose of this article is to identify local/indigenous practices of leadership in one country with a heterogeneous cultural background – Brazil. In this conceptual article, we explore selected literature to investigate the topic of Brazilian culture and its particular style of corporate leadership.     

Communicating collaborative leadership

Collaborative or shared leadership has frequently been advocated as an alternative to vertical or top-down leadership. Building on the conceptual and theoretical aspects of collaborative leadership developed in previous research, this study examined the specific communication behaviors and processes used to create collaborative leadership. Based on participant observation ethnography and interviews of all the major participants, the authors collaborated on this study to explore how the leader's attitudes, behaviors, and communication supported collaboration and how the group members participated in creating a collaborative culture. The findings may be transferable to other group endeavors in which leaders and members wish to create a collaborative group process.     

领导与权力分界视野下威权领导本质的探索研究

深入探讨了领导与权力二者在影响员工方面的本质差异,并在此基础上分析和揭示了威权领导的本质。研究结果表明:领导是通过构建领导者和追随者的共同目标来激励追随者积极主动地为实现共同目标而努力的过程,它和运用权力的行为有着本质的区别;威权领导在本质上是充分运用正式权力影响下属的行为。因此,威权“领导”与领导的本质相背离,不应纳入领导行为的范畴。     

Ethical and despotic leadership, relationships with leader's social responsibility, top management team effectiveness and subordinates' optimism: A multi-method study

In this multi-method study, we examined the relationships of leader's social responsibility with different aspects of ethical leadership (morality and fairness, role clarification, and power sharing) as well as with despotic leadership. We also investigated how these leadership behaviors relate to effectiveness and optimism, using multiple-source ratings. Interviews with CEOs (N = 73) were coded for the presence of leader's social responsibility and its facets. Also, using questionnaires, direct reports rated each CEOs' leader behavior (n = 130) and a second group of direct reports (n = 119) rated effectiveness and optimism. As expected, leaders high on social responsibility were rated higher on ethical leadership and lower on despotic leadership. Ethical leadership was also positively related to perceived top management team effectiveness and subordinates' optimism about the future of the organization and their own place within it.     

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.     

The roles of vertical and shared leadership in the enactment of executive corruption: Implications for research and practice

Recent scandals involving executive leadership have vaulted the topic of executive corruption to a central concern in the organizational literature. History suggests that power can corrupt and that absolute power can be an especially toxic influence. In this paper we propose that the propensity for corruption (as measured by CEO responsibility disposition) of leaders and the degree to which leadership is shared are key factors in understanding the potential for executive corruption. More specifically, shared leadership is proposed as a moderator that can deter corruptive tendencies by providing checks and balances capable of reducing the potential for corrupt behavior. A conceptual model is offered along with propositions to help guide future research and practice.     

Situational leadership theory: A test of three versions

Three versions of the leadership dynamics derived from Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership Theory were identified: (1) the original, 1972, statement of the theory; (2) the revised, 2007, theory; and (3) an alternative statement of the theory's essential principle of differential follower response to “autonomy afforded by the leader” in conjunction with “follower developmental level” (as indexed by employee job experience). Survey data collected from 357 banking employees and 80 supervisors, sampled from 10 Norwegian financial institutions, were analyzed for predicted interactions. Results indicated that the 2007 revised theory was a poorer predictor of subordinate performance and attitudes than the original version. The third, alternative, version (which predicted an autonomy × job experience interaction) offered promise for further exploration of the theory's essential principle that employee outcomes are associated with prescribed leader behaviors in combination with follower developmental level, although this version also did not add substantially to accounting for criterion variance.     

Empowering leadership and contextual ambidexterity – The mediating role of committed leadership for continuous improvement

Organisations nowadays try to be ambidextrous, that is, to balance exploitation and exploration, at the level of the organisational unit, or even at the individual level. Recent studies found that important drivers for contextual ambidexterity are a high level of empowerment and an orientation towards continuous improvement (CI) and innovation. It is, therefore, to be expected that empowering leadership and leader commitment to CI are associated with contextual ambidexterity. However, literature about the relationships between empowering leadership, committed leadership for CI and contextual ambidexterity is scant. Based on two separate survey studies, we validated both the relationship between empowering leadership and contextual ambidexterity, and the mediating effect of committed leadership for CI in the organisational unit level and the individual level. The managerial implications of this research is that organisations that want to facilitate contextual ambidexterity should not only empower employees so that they can decide more independently on how to organise their time and make choices when they conduct exploratory activities and when they perform exploitative activities. Management must also act as committed ambassadors for CI, as CI functions as an integration mechanism to create both alignment and adaptability, and hence contextual ambidexterity.     

社会化经历与本土文化对领导特质形成的影响研究

在研究范式上过于依赖基于问卷测量的统计分析验证,在研究内容上忽视个人社会化经历和文化因素对于领导的影响,是造成现有领导特质理论"片段化"特征明显、特质形成过程不明的主要原因。采用案例分析的方法,通过对组织关键事件中领导与客体互动行为的分析来呈现领导者的特质,并从个体社会化经历和本土文化2个视角阐释了领导特质的形成过程;发现个体社会化经历和本土文化是领导特质来源的2个主要路径,弥补了领导特质理论在此方面的不足,为中国本土化领导研究提供了一个新的视角。     

Assessing global leadership competencies: the critical role of assessment centre methodology

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to examine the use of assessment centre (AC) methodology for addressing the ever-increasing demand for effective talent management of global leaders. Research is reviewed on the most commonly used questionnaire tools for assessing global leadership competencies, which lack the AC’s ability to provide behavioural evidence of leadership competency. A literature search is conducted to identify the extent to which scholarly research to date has examined the use of ACs to measure global leadership competencies. Based on the findings from the review of the literature, the authors recommend further exploration of a leadership AC approach as a ‘best practice’ talent management tool for measuring global leadership competencies. A framework is provided for designing ACs to evaluate and provide developmental feedback on the competencies identified as critical for successful leadership performance in an organization’s global environment.