Words and deeds – Experimental evidence on leading-by-example

The paper studies how leadership recommendations and leading-by-example shape group behavior. The experimental results from an intergroup contest show that the leaders are the key drivers of contest expenditure. They increase their expenditure substantially once they make recommendations to the followers. The leaders' expenditure recommendations have a highly significant impact on the investments of followers. The additional impact of leading by example confirms the relevance of the alignment of words and deeds. A second experiment replicates the treatments in a non-competitive voluntary contribution game. In this setting, the opportunity for making recommendations has an even stronger impact on the leader's expenditure. For a given level of leader expenditure, the behavior of followers remains remarkably consistent across the two experiments but the additional impact of leading by example is not significant anymore.