The impact of transformational CEOs on the performance of small- to medium-sized firms: does organizational context matter?

Although theory suggests that CEOs who engage in transformational leadership should have a positive effect on firm performance, most empirical examinations using data drawn from larger firms have failed to find support for this linkage. Given that the organizational complexity associated with larger firms has been viewed as a central obstacle to establishing this important link, the authors examined the impact of CEO transformational leadership on firm performance in smaller, privately held firms. After first explaining why the less complex context of these firms provides a setting for transformational CEOs to play a more direct role in enhancing firm performance, they then further clarified the nature of this link by hypothesizing 3 contingencies that they argued are particularly salient: firm size, CEO founder status (founder or nonfounder), and CEO tenure. Results from a multisource survey of CEOs and their top management teams in 121 firms and 2 time-lagged measures of performance, 1 objective and 1 perceived, provided consistent support for these hypotheses.     

Servant Leadership and Follower Outcomes: Mediating Effects of Organizational Identification and Psychological Safety

This study investigated the mediating role of organizational identification and psychological safety in the relationship between servant leadership and two employee outcomes: employee voice and negative feedback seeking behavior. The sample for this study comprised of 174 full-time employees drawn from a large food company based in Pakistan. Results showed that organizational identification and psychological safety partially mediated the effects of servant leadership on voice and negative feedback seeking behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.     

CEO变革型领导行为对中层管理者工作绩效和工作满意度的影响：组织支持知觉和价值观的作用

本文以社会交换的理论和价值观领导理论为基础,探讨了CEO变革型领导行为及其价值观对中层管理者工作绩效和工作满意度的跨层次影响以及影响的中介作用机制。研究结果表明,CEO变革型领导行为有助于提升中层管理者的工作绩效和工作满意度,而组织支持知觉则在其中起着部分中介的作用。同时,CEO价值观对CEO变革型领导行为与组织支持知觉之间的关系具有调节的作用。本文的研究成果有利于进一步完善变革型领导理论,对企业实践也有一定的启示意义。     

累并快乐着：服务型领导的收益与代价——基于工作-家庭资源模型视角

服务型领导被以往大量研究证实能够对下属产生积极的影响效果。然而, 我们对服务型领导如何影响领导者自己还知之甚少。基于此, 文章根据工作-家庭资源模型, 探讨了服务型领导的收益与代价。采用经验抽样法, 对广州市76名企业单位中的主管进行为期5天的日记研究, 并运用多层线性模型进行数据分析。结果表明：主管每日从事服务型领导行为既可以产生更多的积极情绪, 从而改善工作-家庭关系, 又可能会引发资源损耗, 从而恶化了工作-家庭关系。主管感知的组织支持是服务型领导行为双刃剑效应的“门阀”, 当主管感知到高的组织支持时, 从事服务型领导行为会带来更多的积极情绪, 而当主管感知到低的组织支持时, 从事服务型领导行为可能更容易增加资源损耗。以上结果能拓宽我们对服务型领导影响效果的认识, 并为如何干预服务型领导行为提供一些新的启发。     

Shared leadership and team effectiveness: The examination of LMX differentiation and servant leadership on the emergence and consequences of shared leadership

This study examined the effects of leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation on team-shared leadership and team effectiveness. Drawing on the group engagement model, we suggested that LMX differentiation negatively affects team-shared leadership and team effectiveness (i.e., team performance and team organizational citizenship behavior [OCB]). Servant leadership weakens the negative effects of LMX differentiation on shared leadership. We tested our predictions using data from a sample of 336 salespersons nested in 110 sales teams in China. We found that shared leadership mediated the relationships between LMX differentiation with both team performance and team OCB. In addition, servant leadership moderated the relationship between LMX differentiation and shared leadership and the indirect relationship between LMX differentiation with both team performance and team OCB.     

Individual and organizational consequences of CEO claimed handicapping: What’s good for the CEO may not be so good for the firm

Previous research on organizational impression management has focused on verbal accounts proffered by leaders in response to organizational-threatening events. The present studies examined the effectiveness of an anticipatory verbal tactic, claimed handicapping, in which CEOs warn stakeholders of factors that may adversely affect future firm performance. We studied the effect of two types of claimed handicapping on CEO compensation and firm value. One claimed handicap consisted of factors external to the firm whereas the other claimed handicap consisted of factors internal to the firm. In two very different research venues (an experiment and archival study), we found that, under certain conditions, claimed external handicapping had diametrically opposed effects on CEO compensation and firm value. Specifically, when prior firm performance was favorable, external claimed handicaps had a positive effect on CEO pay but a negative impact on firm value. Moreover, the results of both studies highlighted the need to distinguish between external claimed handicaps and internal claimed handicaps, in that all significant effects were produced by external rather than internal claimed handicaps. Contributions to theory and research on organization impression management, self-handicapping, and executive compensation, as well as cross-disciplinary implications, are discussed.     

Personality And Leadership Composition in Top Management Teams: Implications For Organizational Effectiveness

This study examines whether top management team (TMT) personality and leadership are associated with organizational effectiveness beyond the effects of CEO personality and leadership, as suggested by upper echelons theory. Using direct measures of personality and leadership, rather than proxy variables from archival sources or demographic data, we found that mean levels of conscientiousness among TMT members were related to lagged indicators of organizational performance, as were CEO conscientiousness and transformational leadership. Follower commitment to the organization was found to be associated with higher levels of transformational leadership from both the CEO and TMT. The results are consistent with the upper echelons perspective that organizational effectiveness is influenced not only by the CEO but also by a dominant coalition of leaders. Yet, the results also show that the CEO plays a distinct role in influencing organizational financial performance and collective organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

中国组织情境下公仆型领导有效性的追踪研究

公仆型领导以服务员工为导向, 在本质上超越了以往任何一种以组织利益为先的领导方式。然而, 国内该主题的研究还很不系统。本研究首先在中国组织情境下, 采用质化研究与量化研究相结合的方式, 探讨公仆型领导的结构维度, 建构公仆型领导的测量量表; 然后以团队及其成员为研究对象, 采用追踪研究设计, 收集“管理者-员工”配对数据, 运用结构方程模型、多元回归分析以及多层线性模型技术进行统计分析, 从而探讨公仆型领导的有效性。具体包括三个研究：(1)公仆型领导的结构与测量研究; (2)公仆型领导有效性的追踪研究—— 基于领导行为比较的视角(是否有效); (3)公仆型领导有效性的追踪研究—— 基于作用机制的视角(如何有效)。研究结果有助于澄清公仆型领导的内涵与维度结构, 识别和测量公仆型领导行为, 证实公仆型领导的有效性, 比较公仆型领导与家长式领导、变革型领导的影响效果, 揭开公仆型领导对个体绩效和团队绩效的作用机制。     

Antecedents of team potency and team effectiveness: an examination of goal and process clarity and servant leadership

Integrating theories of self-regulation with team and leadership literatures, this study investigated goal and process clarity and servant leadership as 3 antecedents of team potency and subsequent team effectiveness, operationalized as team performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Our sample of 304 employees represented 71 teams in 5 banks. Results showed that team-level goal and process clarity as well as team servant leadership served as 3 antecedents of team potency and subsequent team performance and team organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, we found that servant leadership moderated the relationships between both goal and process clarity and team potency, such that the positive relationships between both goal and process clarity and team potency were stronger in the presence of servant leadership.     

Servant leadership and employee outcomes: the moderating role of subordinates’ motives

Drawing from implicit leadership theories we advance servant leadership theory by examining moderating mechanisms that explain under what conditions servant leader behaviours impact followers in organizations. Specifically, we focused on the moderating role of subordinates’ motivational orientations—prosocial values or impression management motives—in relationships between servant leadership behaviours and job satisfaction, as well as subordinate organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). Using time-lagged data collected from 192 supervisor-subordinate dyads, we found that servant leadership was positively associated with employees’ job satisfaction, but not significantly related to their performance of OCBs. We also found evidence that subordinates’ motives moderate the relationships between servant leadership and outcomes. Specifically, employees high on impression management experienced lower levels of job satisfaction than their lower scoring counterparts. Our findings suggest that servant leadership may not be equally beneficial for all followers. We discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Servant leadership and follower voice: the roles of follower felt responsibility for constructive change and avoidance-approach motivation

Our study contributes to research exploring the differential antecedents of employee promotive and prohibitive voice. We first examined the mediating role of employee felt responsibility for constructive change (FRCC) in the positive relationship between servant leadership and their prohibitive and promotive voice. We then tested the differential moderating effects of employee dispositional avoidance-approach orientation, where the indirect effect of servant leadership on prohibitive voice is weakened for the high avoidance-motivated, and the indirect effect of servant leadership on promotive voice is weakened for the high approach-motivated. To test our hypotheses, multi-source data were collected from 231 supervisor-supervisee dyads working in a range of companies and sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As predicted, employee FRCC mediates the positive relationship between servant leadership and prohibitive voice and these indirect effects are significantly weaker for the high avoidance-motivated. We did not observe the predicted weakening effects of high approach-motivation on the indirect relationship between servant leadership and promotive voice. It seems servant leaders may be less influential for those avoidance-motivated individuals already predisposed to enact prohibitive forms of voice, such as voicing concerns about harmful organizational processes and practices. Implications for social exchange and role theories, and managerial practice, are discussed.     

服务型领导影响工作繁荣的动态双向机制

本研究基于资源保存理论, 采用动态追踪设计与双向影响设计, 通过文献研究和追踪问卷调查研究等方法, 揭示服务型领导对个人及团队工作繁荣影响的跨层作用机制、边界条件以及服务型领导与下属的双向影响过程, 从而增进对服务型领导作用机制的理解, 深化对领导本身动态变化本质的理解, 拓展工作繁荣前因变量的研究, 也为各类组织改善领导方式、提高领导效能、促进员工工作繁荣提供指导。     

Servant leadership,leader gender,and team gender role: Testing a female advantage in a cascading model of performance

We integrate the theory of gender role congruity with extant research on servant leadership to propose and test a moderated process model in which we hypothesize that servant leadership's effects on outcomes are stronger when implemented by women, and when it takes place within teams high in feminine gender role composition. Specifically, we theorize that servant leadership's communal emphases on stakeholders and relationships align with female role prototypes, which should lead to female advantages for job performance through the proposed serial mediators of prosocial motivation and follower servant leadership behaviors. We test this moderated, serial‐mediation model in a temporally lagged field study with a multi‐organizational sample including 109 teams. We find evidence that the mediated process model is moderated at the first stage such that in teams higher in feminine gender role composition, servant leadership has greater direct effects on prosocial motivation, as well as indirect effects on follower servant leadership and performance. We do not find support for our hypothesis that a similar moderated effect would emerge for leader sex; instead, we find that the effect of servant leadership on follower servant leadership, and subsequently to performance, is stronger for women leaders than it is for men. The implications of these findings for the servant leadership and role congruity literatures are discussed.     

Ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behaviours: the moderating role of organizational identification

This study examines whether the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) is contingent on organizational identification. Drawing on substitutes for leadership theory, the study proposes that the relationship between ethical leadership and OCBs will be attenuated when employees strongly identify with their organization. Using a sample of Egyptian banking sector employees, this proposition was tested with hierarchal linear modelling (HLM). The results revealed that the positive relationship between ethical leadership and OCBs was stronger for those lower in organizational identification than for those higher in identification. Overall, the findings of the study shed new light on the conditions through which ethical leadership enhances OCBs.     

Leadership and Organizational Culture: Linking CEO Characteristics to Cultural Values

Purpose  The purpose of this study was to empirically examine organizational culture theorists’ assertions about the linkages between leadership and the cultures that emerge in the organizations they lead. Specific hypotheses were developed and tested regarding relationships between chief executive officers’ (CEO’s) personality traits, and the cultural values that are shared among their organization’s members. Design/Methodology/Approach  Thirty-two CEOs completed measures of the Big-Five personality traits and personal values. A total of 467 employees across the 32 organizations completed a competing values measure of organizational culture. Findings  Results indicate support for several hypothesized relationships between CEO personality and cultural values. Exploratory analyses indicated that several CEO personal values were related to culture values. Implications  Organizations need to seriously consider the “fit” between the current or desired organizational culture and CEO characteristics. Organizations attempting to change fundamental aspects of its functioning may need significant behavioral—or personnel—changes at the top of the organization in order to achieve those changes. Originality/Value  This is the first empirical study to establish a link between specific CEO characteristics and the cultural values of their organizations. This study provides evidence that CEO characteristics are felt throughout the organization by impacting the norms that sanction or discourage member behavior and decision making, and the patterns of behavior and interaction among members.     

The Relationship Between Attributional Charismatic Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

This study examined the relationship between attributional charismatic leadership and subordinate organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Survey data were collected from 63 supervisor-subordinate dyads employed in the Engineering Division of a manufacturing firm. Hierarchical regression analysis supported the prediction that subordinate attributions of supervisor charismatic leadership would be positively associated with supervisor reports of subordinate OCB. The findings were interpreted in terms of how subordinate personal identification and internalization processes induced by charismatic leadership may activate OCB.     

Charismatic leadership,environmental dynamism,and performance

Most studies relating charismatic leadership to performance have limitations concerning selection of criterion measures and investigation of moderators. Therefore, this study examines relationships between charismatic leadership and multiple performance outcomes under different levels of environmental dynamism (i.e., level of environmental uncertainty, degree of technological change) and per type of Chief Executive Officer (firm owner versus managing director). Results revealed that charismatic leadership was positively related to common-source and multi-source perceptual performance outcomes (i.e., subordinates' positive work attitude) and to organization profitability, but unrelated to organization liquidity and solvency. The relationship between charismatic leadership and perceptual performance was stronger under conditions of environmental uncertainty than under conditions of environmental certainty. Furthermore, charismatic leadership was more strongly related to organization profitability for firm owners than for managing directors who do not own their firm. The results are discussed and several potentially fruitful avenues for future research on charismatic leadership and employee as well as organizational performance are presented.     

Does “the servant as leader” translate into Chinese? A cross-cultural meta-analysis of servant leadership

ABSTRACT

Servant leadership is a popular style of ethically-based leadership developed in the cultural context of the United States and other Anglo-Saxon (Anglo) countries with a similar culture and managerial context. However, much of the empirical research on this leadership style has been conducted in China, a country with very different cultural and managerial traditions. It is not known whether the results of research conducted in China can be integrated into a general theory of servant leadership. It is also unknown whether servant leadership, which is widely promoted as an effective leadership style in Anglo countries, will be equally effective for all employee outcomes in China. To answer these questions, we perform a meta-analysis of servant leadership research (k = 112, n = 35,716) which compares the effects of servant leadership on employees in China with its effects on employees in Anglo countries. Results show that there is no significant difference in effect sizes between Chinese and Anglo employees for job performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, creative behaviour, affective commitment, and job satisfaction. The effect of servant leadership on leader-member exchange may be stronger for Anglo employees. Implications for servant leadership theory and managerial practices in China are discussed.     

Narcissism and Leadership: A Meta‐Analytic Review of Linear and Nonlinear Relationships

Past empirical studies relating narcissism to leadership have offered mixed results. This study integrates prior research findings via meta‐analysis to make 4 contributions to theory on narcissism and leadership, by (a) distinguishing between leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness, to reveal that narcissism displays a positive relationship with leadership emergence, but no relationship with leadership effectiveness; (b) showing narcissism's positive effect on leadership emergence can be explained by leader extraversion; (c) demonstrating that whereas observer‐reported leadership effectiveness ratings (e.g., supervisor‐report, subordinate‐report, and peer‐report) are not related to narcissism, self‐reported leadership effectiveness ratings are positively related to narcissism; and (d) illustrating that the nil linear relationship between narcissism and leadership effectiveness masks an underlying curvilinear trend, advancing the idea that there exists an optimal, midrange level of leader narcissism.     

Serving first for the benefit of others: preliminary evidence for a hierarchical conceptualization of servant leadership

In this paper, we examine servant leadership as a promising leadership style for today's dynamic sales environments. Conceptual and empirical literature points to servant leadership's strong potential in facilitating benefits to salespeople and the organization. Yet that same literature evidences a problematic lack of consensus regarding components that distinctly reflect servant leadership. Existing conceptualizations include dimensions like humility and providing direction, which clearly overlap with various other leadership styles. In this paper, we first consider unique distinctives of servant leadership. We then propose an extension of the augmentation hypothesis from the transactional and transformational leadership literature. Specifically, we posit that servant leadership distinctives are hierarchically built on transformational characteristics, which themselves are built on transactional characteristics. Using secondary data from a sample of professional salespeople, we apply Guttman scaling and show this hierarchical conceptualization to be empirically tenable. We demonstrate that sales leadership at higher levels on the hierarchy produces incremental gains in salesperson satisfaction, salesperson performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and corporate social responsibility. We confirm our findings in a validation sample and demonstrate an additional relationship with customer-directed extra-role behaviors. Our results imply that sales organizations can reap enhanced multi-faceted benefits through higher levels of servant leadership.