leadership: current theories, research, and future directions (avolia, walumbwa & weber, 2019)
authentic leadership
Authentic leadership emerged from the writings of transformational leadership.
Authentic leadership is a pattern of transparent and ethical leader behaviour that encourages openness in sharing information needed to make decisions while accepting followers inputs.
components of authentic leadership
General agreement on four factors that cover the components on authentic leadership: balanced progressing, internalised moral perspective, relational transparency and self-awareness.
balanced progressing → objectively analysing relevant data before making a decision.
internalised moral perspective → being guided by internal modal standards, which are used to self-regulate one’s behaviour.
relational transparency → presenting one’s authentic self through openly sharing information and feelings as appropriate for situations (i.e., avoiding inappropriate displays of emotion).
self-awareness → demonstrated understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses and the way one makes sense of the world.
these four measures represent unique scales that are reliable, hey are loaded on a high-order factor labeled authentic leadership - a significant and positive predictor of organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational commitment, and satisfaction with supervisor and performance.
future focus required
defining and measuring authentic leadership is in early stages.
need to offer additional evidence for construct validity
need to demonstrate how authentic leadership relates to other constructs within its nomological network.
need to examine how authentic leadership is viewed across situations and cultures.
authentic leadership development
heritability and leadership
are leaders born or made?
studies investigating identical and fraternal twins
preliminary evidence: approx. 30% of the variation in leadership style and emergence was accounted for by heritability; the remaining variation was attributed to environmental factors such as different role models and early opportunities for leadership development.
authors concluded that the life context one grows up in ad later works in is much more important than heritability in predicting leadership emergence across one’s career.
evidence for positive leadership interventions
most models for leadership have a causal prediction - however - very small percentage of literature have empirically investigated the predictions using controlled leadership interventions.
qualitative and quantitative review review of the leadership intervention literature was undertaken.
6 types of leadership interventions examined: training, actor/role play, scenario/vignette, assignments, expectations, others.
results showed that leadership interventions had a positive impact on work outcomes (e.g., ratings of leader performance), even when the duration of those interventions was less than one day.
In terms of utility, participants in the broadly defined leadership treatment condition had on average a 66% chance of positive outcomes versus only a 34% chance of success for the comparison group.
cognitive psychology and leadership
area of research containing a wide range of approaches, they are united by their focus on explaining the way leaders and followers think and process information.
emerging cognitive constructs
literature on self concept distinguishes between the structure of self-concept and its contents.
the content refers yothe evaluations one makes of oneself as well as self-beliefs
the structure refers to ways in which the self-concept content in organised for processing.
new-genre leadership
new genre vs traditional leadership
traditional leadership → described leader behavior in terms of leader-follower exchange relationships, setting goals, providing direction and support, and reinforcement behaviors
new leadership models → emphasized symbolic leader behavior; visionary, inspirational messages; emotional feelings; ideological and moral values; individualized attention; and intellectual stimulation.
theory of charismatic/transformational leadership → leaders raise followers’ aspirations and activate their higher-order values (e.g., altruism) such that followers identify with the leader and his or her mission/vision, feel better about their work, and then work to perform beyond simple transactions and base expectations
studies find → charismatic/transformational leadership was positively associated with leadership effectiveness and a number of important organizational outcomes across many different types of organizations, situations, levels of analyses, and cultures such as productivity and turnover.
boundary conditions for new-genre leadership
what are the boundary conditions that make transformational leadership more or less effective in predicting follower attitudes and behaviours?
there are studies investigating:
contextual variables (e.g., idiocentrism)
moderating effects of follower dispositions such as:
efficacy
physical and structural distance
perceived environmental uncertainty
social networks
technology to support group decision making
cultural orientations such as collectivism.
complexity leadership theory
complexity leadership → is viewed as an interactive system of dynamic, unpredictable agents that interact with each other in complex feedback networks, which can then produce adaptive outcomes such as knowledge dissemination, learning, innovation, and further adaptation to change.
According to complex systems leadership theory, “leadership can be enacted through any interaction in an organization… leadership is an emergent phenomenon within complex systems”
complexity and traditional leadership theory
leader-member exchange (LMX)
focused on the relationship between the leader and follower
central principle: leaders develop different exchange relationships with their followers, whereby the quality of the relationship alters the impact on important leader and member outcomes. Thus, leadership occurs when leaders and followers are able to develop effective relationships that result in mutual and incremental influence.
a higher-quality LMX relationship not only predicted higher levels of performance, but also organizational citizenship behaviors.
perceptions of supervisor competence, centralization, and organizational politics influenced their willingness to exert effort on the job beyond what would be typically expected in a less-than-effective exchange relationship.
extentions to LMX
terms and definitions
Transformational leadership : leader behaviours that transform and inspire followers to perform beyond expectations while transcending self-interest for the good of the organisation.
Positive organisational behaviour: literature that is focused on positive constructs such as hope, efficacy, resilience, optimism, happiness and well-being as they apply yo organisations.
Broader-and-build theory: suggests positive emotions explain cognition and behavioural tendencies, and encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions.
ethical leadership: demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct.
nomological network: a representation of a construct, its observable manifestation, and the relationship between the two.
cognitive leadership: broad range of approaches to leadership emphasising how leaders and followers think and process information.
transactional leadership: leadership largely based on the exchange of rewards contingent on performance.
new-genre leadership: leadership emphasising charismatic leader behaviour, visionary, inspiring, ideological and moral values, as well as transformational leadership such as individualized attention, and intellectual stimulation.
mediated moderation: a moderating relationship that is mediated by another variable.
moderated mediation: a mediating relationship that is moderated by another variable.
CAS: complex adaptive system
CLT: complexity leadership theory