Called and Formed: Personality Dimensions and Leadership Styles among Catholic Deacons and Men in Formation

Through a national survey, Roman Catholic deacons (n = 1349) and men in spiritual formation for the diaconate, called candidates (n = 205), completed on-line measures of personality dimensions (i.e., HEXACO-60) and transformational leadership, as well as demographic variables. Results indicated that for both candidates and deacons, personality dimensions of agreeableness and conscientiousness were the most important variables for predicting transformational leadership styles. For deacons only, higher levels of honesty/humility, extraversion, and openness to experience also led to higher transformational leadership styles. Adding demographic variables as co-variates (age, years in a parish, number of children, and number of families in a parish) in the models did not seem to affect the predictive models; however, years in formation (for candidates) and years as a deacon did affect servant leadership style. Implications for the personality and leadership attributes of Catholic “married clergy” are discussed.     

The role of leadership perception as a mediator between managers’ self-monitoring and subordinate attitudes

Although the role of social cognition in leadership perception has been emphasized frequently in recent years, research using this approach in an organizational context is rare. This study investigated subordinates’ perceptions of their managers as leaders (that is, to what extent they perceive their manager as a leader) as a potential mediating factor explaining the relationship between managers’ self-monitoring and their subordinates’ attitudes toward their organizations. The study was carried out with middle-level managers (N = 64) and their subordinates (N = 210) from various business organizations in Turkey. Results indicate that subordinates’ leadership perceptions of their managers mediate the relationship between managers’ self-monitoring and their subordinates’ affective and normative organizational commitment. These results provide insight into some of the antecedents and outcomes of leadership perception.     

Wisdom and Learning from Important and Meaningful Life Experiences

According to the wisdom literature, learning from important and meaningful life experiences can foster wisdom. Leading others is one such experience. This paper explores empirically whether and how learning acquired from leadership experience can foster wisdom, which is defined as a real-life process encompassing three core components: cognitive integration, embodiment in actions, and positive effects for oneself and others. This paper consists of two studies. Study 1 investigated the learning acquired from leadership experience and its relationship with wisdom. Eight leaders in higher education in Taiwan participated in five interviews spanning 2 years which explored the lessons learned from their leadership experience. Analysis of the interviews found that leaders acquired rich and multidimensional learning from their leadership experience and that components of wisdom were involved in their learning and their application of the lessons learned. Study 2 examined whether the results of Study 1 could be generalized to a wider population of higher education leaders. An inventory of learning and wisdom compiled from Study 1 was administered to 94 Taiwanese higher education leaders twice within 8 months. Multivariate statistical analysis showed that leaders’ responses to items of both acquired learning and components of wisdom increased in 8 months and that these increases were strongly correlated. Results suggest that learning from important and meaningful life experiences can foster wisdom.     

Burnout in the information technology sector: Does leadership matter?

The aim of the study was to examine subordinates' level of burnout in relation to how they perceive the leadership style of their direct superior. Subordinates (n = 289) in an Information Technology firm completed Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey, and rated their superior on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. High subordinate burnout was defined as high exhaustion, high cynicism, and low professional efficacy. A structural equation model revealed that transformational leadership was significantly related to cynicism and professional efficacy, while passive-avoidance was significantly related to exhaustion and cynicism. Transactional leadership was not linked to burnout. Neuroticism in subordinates was directly related to all burnout components. The link between passive-avoidant leadership and burnout's key component exhaustion indicates perception of negative leadership behaviours is more important for burnout than perception of positive leadership styles.     

Kedushah: The Sexual Abstinence of Married Men in Gur, Slonim, and Toledot Aharon

Kedushah (holiness) developed as a pietistic ideal for the virtuous few, encouraging married men to limit to the minimum the frequency and modes of sexual intercourse with their wives. Today, the hasidic groups of Gur, Slonim, and Toledot Aharon (Toldes Aaron) radicalize this ideal by imposing it on the community as a whole. Gur’s version is the most restrictive and the only one formalized as a set of ordinances (takunes), while Toldes Aaron’s version is the most lenient. The radical kedushah norms have given rise to controversy and dissent. Prominent rabbis have argued that they were at odds with the halakhah, offensive to women, and harmful to men, while marriage guides within the Gur community have debated their rigidity and universal applicability. The hasidic Rebbes themselves are reticent about the topic, addressing it only in unpublished homilies and personal letters, from which excerpts appear in print for the first time in the present paper. The rise of these kedushah norms in modern Hasidism should be attributed to (a) the inherent hasidic quest for spiritual renewal, which has generated a range of “mysticism substitutes”; (b) resistance to modern “promiscuity”; (c) the historical legacies of these particular hasidic groups, which they strove to revive after the Holocaust by generating new spiritual energies that would attract “virtuous” young men to their ranks. One of the ways to achieve this was to renew the old battle against the traditional enemy—the sexual drive.     

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.     

A Profile of Chinese Family Therapists

It is helpful for professional organizations, policy makers and regulators, third-party payers, and clients to have access to empirical data about family therapists and the practice of family therapy. Nevertheless, there is no such data available in China. This study attempts to fill this gap by profiling Chinese family therapists. A questionnaire was designed and delivered to family therapists and trainees. A total of 117 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. The findings show that the majority of Chinese family therapists are female, in the age range of 31–40 years, hold master’s degrees, and attend continuous training programs that last 20–40 days over 2–3 years and short-term workshops for family therapy training. They are mainly motivated by the need for personal growth in their career choice. Most of them work in the institutional setting. They have worked in the counseling field for 6.6 years on average, and they have practiced family therapy for an average of 3.4 years. They perform counseling for 9.2 h per week, and 4 h involve working with families. They received an average of 30.6 h of family therapy supervision in the past year. They mainly see individuals and families with adolescents, and their approach is eclectic. This paper compares the findings in China with findings from North America, discusses possible reasons for differences in the findings, and provides suggestions for future development and studies of family therapy in China.     

Training Leader Emotion Regulation and Leadership Effectiveness

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to test whether we could train the regulation of affective displays of leaders in terms of the emotion regulation strategy of deep acting (displaying feelings one also experiences) and display of positive affect. We also tested whether this resulted in improved leadership effectiveness (i.e., a mediation model in which the training results in greater leadership effectiveness through improved emotion regulation).

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained from a field experiment. We randomly assigned N = 31 leaders (rated by N = 60 subordinates) to a control group without training or an experimental group with emotion regulation training. Before and 2 weeks after the intervention, deep acting (leader-rated) and positive affective displays and leadership effectiveness (subordinate-rated) were assessed.

Findings

The training had positive effects on deep acting, positive affective displays, and leadership effectiveness. Deep acting and positive affect mediated the relationship between the intervention and leadership effectiveness.

Implications

We discuss how this helps build the case both for an emotional labor approach to leadership and for the leadership development potential of such an emotional labor approach.

Originality/Value

The findings of this study represent the first causal evidence that leader emotion regulation can be trained, improved emotion regulation results in greater leadership effectiveness and is one of the first empirical studies that integrates emotional labor theory to leadership effectiveness. It is therefore important from a theory development perspective.

     

A Research Note: Happiness by Age is More Complex than U-Shaped

Happiness varies with age, but there is no general agreement regarding the feature of the variation. Many studies have found that it is U-shaped such that there is a minimum between approximately 40 and 50 years of age. The result largely depends on the control variables used in the happiness modeling. Some authors do not even allow the use of any control variables, but the conventional theory of U-shaped studies stipulates the inclusion of such controls that essentially influence the basic living conditions of people. In this study, we do not strictly follow earlier findings but estimate our age-shape with different versions of them, using the data of 28 or 30 European countries. We also estimate a model without proper controls. This does not give any minimum age and thus supports some studies. Moreover, using any or all of our three controls some type of U-shape is found in most countries. Our U-shapes are not as simple as conventional research suggests. Minimum happiness can occur either below 40 years, or much above 50 years. A special feature is that the U-shape phenomenon holds better for males than for females. We also estimated models to see what happens after the minimum age happiness. In the case of gender models, the turning points for males are substantially lower than for females. This means that the old-age happiness of males stops to increase approximately at 70 years but more than 10 years later for females.     

The communality-bonus effect for male transformational leaders – leadership style,gender, and promotability

Women have made considerable inroads into the workforce but remain underrepresented in leadership positions. Even though studies show that men and women hardly differ in their leadership behaviours, we argue that male and female leaders are evaluated differentially contingent on the gender-congruence of their leadership style. Drawing arguments from expectancy violation theory, we investigate evaluations of men and women who show transformational leadership (a style consisting of communal behaviours in line with stereotypes about women) and autocratic leadership (a style consisting of agentic behaviours in line with stereotypes about men). We employed a three-study research design combining two experimental studies and a two-wave field study with business leaders (overall N = 344). Overall transformational leadership resulted in higher evaluations of promotability due to higher perceptions of leaders’ communality and leadership effectiveness. Importantly, these effects were stronger for men, and men showing transformational leadership were evaluated to be more promotable than women. This implies a communality-bonus effect for male transformational leaders. There was no difference in promotability evaluations for women versus men showing autocratic leadership. This effect was mediated by agency and effectiveness perceptions for women but not for men. Implications are discussed.     

Korah in the Midrash: The Hairless Heretic as Hero

Perhaps the least likely hero in the Bible is Korah, the Levite who challenges Moses’s leadership in Numbers 16 and whom later tradition regarded as an archvillain. This article examines how the rabbinic, Christian, and Islamic traditions appropriated this figure and turned him, if not into a full-fledged hero, then at least into a kind of trickster whose challenge to Moses reinforces the authority of Orthodox tradition. An example of this transmutation is the way rabbinic Midrash turns Korah into a kind of hyperlegalistic rabbi. He poses typical rabbinic questions to Moses that are intended to undermine the law, but by drawing limits around his questions the Midrash constructs the boundaries of rabbinic dissension. Another set of themes puts women at the center of the Korah story and also plays with Korah as bald: in these stories, sexuality and power are linked to hair. In patristic writings, Korah becomes the exemplar of a heretical bishop and is also made fabulously wealthy (a theme common also to Jewish and Muslim traditions). Korah’s wealth symbolizes the Israel of the flesh: this biblical villain now comes to stand for the Jewish people as a whole. In Muslim sources, he is also transmuted into “the enlightened one.”     

Who is empowered? Relative importance of dispositional and situational sources to psychological empowerment

Major reviews of psychological empowerment (PE) suggest four broad sources to becoming empowered: organizational, leadership, job, and dispositional. This study examines the redundancy, uniqueness, and relative importance within and across these situational and dispositional domains using commonality and dominance analyses. Across multiple samples, we find (a) within socio-structural domains, empowering leadership, knowledge sharing, and task significance are the most unique organizational sources of PE, (b) dispositional predictors augment situational features in explaining PE, and, perhaps most importantly, (c) job characteristics (JC) along with core self-evaluation (CSE) occupy the most dominant role on PE. In study 1 (N = 229), rank and CSE accounted for 64% of the variance in PE after accounting for information distribution, leadership, and the Big Five. Controlling for expanded Big Five inventory, leadership constructs, and socio-structurally features, study 2 (N = 171) finds general dominance of task significance (14%), empowering leadership (19%), and reduced, albeit incremental, effect of CSE (10%). Finally, study 3 (N = 386) replicates the large (30%) and moderately (10%) dominant effects of multiple JC dimensions and CSE. Implications call for a micro-level approach to PE emphasizing expanded roles, broadened self-concept, and personal impact on society rather than inspiring managers or organizational practices.     

Aligning job redesign with leadership training to improve supervisor support: a quasi-experimental study of the integration of HR practices

In this quasi-experimental study, we examine the alignment of a job redesign initiative with leadership training aimed at increasing supervisors’ opportunities for providing support to employees. In addition, we examine intervention-mediated effects on climate for innovation through increases in perceived supervisor support. To test the hypothesized process, we used employee ratings (N = 524) of perceived supervisor support and climate for innovation collected at three time points over 2 years in the home help services in seven Swedish municipalities. Results of latent growth curve analyses showed that employees in the intervention group had a stronger and positive slope of perceived supervisor support relative to the comparison group. Further, the growth trajectories of perceived supervisor support were positively associated with climate for innovation at the 24-month follow-up. The study contributes to the human resource management literature by showing that alignment of employment practices such as training with work practices such as job redesign may be a promising strategy for achieving positive outcomes at multiple levels in organizations.     

Of exile and Halakhah: Fourteenth-century Spanish Halakhic literature and the works of the French exiles Aaron ha-Kohen and Jeruham b. Meshulam

This article discusses the halakhic works of two authors who shared the experience of exile and displacement. Both authors, R. Aaron ha-Kohen of Lunel and R. Jeruham b. Meshulam, wrote halakhic compendia after leaving their homes in Southern France and settling in Spanish territory after the expulsion of 1306. The article suggests that there is a connection between a scholar's experience of being displaced and his desire to devote his time to assembling, restructuring and giving order to the law. R. Aaron ha-Kohen authored a work that was a collection of opinions, a compilation to consult regularly, one that can best be described as a portable library for the wanderer and the homebound person alike. Aaron in his introduction explicitly links his motivation for composing such a work to his personal experience of exile. R. Jeruham b. Meshulam composed a handbook or guide for the practicing judge of Castile. His primary motivation was to correct a situation he found in his new home – the lack of qualified judges in issuing legal decisions. Jeruham, as well, describes at length his exile experience in his introduction and indicates that his motivation to write such a work emerges from it. One can suggest that behind the émigré's diligence in ordering the law lay an attempt to recapture a lost world and to recreate on paper or parchment what was forever lost.     

Think crisis–think female: Further evidence

Many studies have demonstrated that interpersonally oriented leadership abilities such as being empathetic, supporting work relationships, or explicitly stating an interest in helping others are particularly relevant in crisis contexts. Since these leadership abilities coincide with stereotypically feminine roles and traits, it has been proposed that a “think crisis–think female” association may exist (Ryan, Haslam, Hersby, & Bongiorno, 2011). In a field study (N = 301 workers and managers) we examined this association and identified two relevant factors that may hinder the acceptance of female leaders and stereotypically feminine characteristics in crisis management: instrumental (male) leadership role models and sexist attitudes. In doing so, we provide new insights into the “think crisis–think female” relationship and illustrate the potential implications of this occurrence for gender studies and for research into work and organizational psychology.     

Expertise effects in the Moses illusion: detecting contradictions with stored knowledge

People frequently miss contradictions with stored knowledge; for example, readers often fail to notice any problem with a reference to the Atlantic as the largest ocean. Critically, such effects occur even though participants later demonstrate knowing the Pacific is the largest ocean (the Moses Illusion) [Erickson, T. D., &; Mattson, M. E. (1981). From words to meaning: A semantic illusion. Journal of Verbal Learning &; Verbal Behavior, 20, 540–551]. We investigated whether such oversights disappear when erroneous references contradict information in one's expert domain, material which likely has been encountered many times and is particularly well-known. Biology and history graduate students monitored for errors while answering biology and history questions containing erroneous presuppositions (“In what US state were the forty-niners searching for oil?”). Expertise helped: participants were less susceptible to the illusion and less likely to later reproduce errors in their expert domain. However, expertise did not eliminate the illusion, even when errors were bolded and underlined, meaning that it was unlikely that people simply skipped over errors. The results support claims that people often use heuristics to judge truth, as opposed to directly retrieving information from memory, likely because such heuristics are adaptive and often lead to the correct answer. Even experts sometimes use such shortcuts, suggesting that overlearned and accessible knowledge does not guarantee retrieval of that information.     

Transformational leadership,psychological empowerment,and flow at work

ABSTRACT

Frequent experiences of flow – an enjoyable state of optimal challenge – at work are associated with many positive individual and organizational outcomes. In our research, we examine how leaders affect subordinates’ flow experiences through subordinates’ work-related self-concept. Specifically, on the basis of self-concept theory, we propose that transformational leaders affect followers’ work-related self-concept, which we construe as followers’ psychological empowerment, consisting of the four sub-facets of meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. We further propose that psychological empowerment is positively related to flow experiences at work. In sum, we thus hypothesize that the effect of transformational leadership on employees’ flow experiences is mediated by psychological empowerment. Additionally, we propose that this indirect effect is moderated such that it is stronger for employees holding a formal leadership position. We tested the model with two two-wave questionnaire studies with employees (Study 1: N = 307 at time 1; N = 60 at time 2; Study 2: N = 611 at time 1; N = 271 at time 2) from different organizations. Path models reveal support for the mediation hypotheses in both samples but not for the moderated mediation hypothesis.     

Impact of Ethical Leadership on Organizational Safety Performance: The Mediating Role of Safety Culture and Safety Consciousness

We examined a largely ignored but imperative dimension of safety literature by testing the impact of ethical leadership style on organizational safety performance. We also tested dual mediating paths of safety culture and safety consciousness in the relationship between ethical leadership style and organizational safety consciousness. Data (N = 230) were collected from a large public sector telecom company in Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the reliability and validity of the study scales and model fit. Preacher and Hayes’s (2008) macro of mediation was employed to test the direct and indirect paths proposed in the study. The findings suggest that ethical leadership has a positive impact on organizational safety performance. Partial mediating roles of safety culture and safety consciousness were also found between the dependent and independent variables. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Continuity in Representation Between Children and Adults: Arithmetic Knowledge Hinders Undergraduates' Algebraic Problem Solving

This study examined if solving arithmetic problems hinders undergraduates' accuracy on algebra problems. The hypothesis was that solving arithmetic problems would hinder accuracy because it activates an operational view of equations, even in educated adults who have years of experience with algebra. In three experiments, undergraduates (N = 184) solved addition facts or participated in one of several control conditions. Those who solved addition facts were less likely to solve prealgebra equations (e.g., 6 + 8 +4 = 7 + __) correctly under speeded conditions. In a fourth experiment, the negative effects of solving arithmetic problems extended to undergraduates (N = 74) solving algebra problems with no time pressure. Taken together, results suggest that arithmetic activates knowledge that hinders performance on algebra problems. Thus, an operational view of equations, which is prevalent in children, does not seem to be revised or abandoned, even after years of experience with algebra.     

Employee voice at work: the role of employees’ gender,self-efficacy beliefs,and leadership

ABSTRACT

Building on social role theory, we investigated the association between gender and employee voice (employees’ speaking up in a challenging but constructive way about work-related issues) in a typically male-dominated sector. In two field studies in the logistics context, we tested how and when gender is related to employee voice. In Study 1 (N = 132), we examined whether the gender-voice association is mediated by general self-efficacy beliefs. In Study 2 (N = 99), we replicated the indirect effect of gender on employee voice via general self-efficacy beliefs and investigated whether this indirect effect is contingent on supportive leadership. Using path analytical procedures, we found a significant indirect effect moderated by supportive leadership: At low and medium levels of supportive leadership, women reported less self-efficacy than men, which in turn resulted in less voice. At high levels of supportive leadership, the indirect effect was nonsignificant. Our studies contribute to research on the mechanisms and boundary conditions of gender’s influence in the employee voice process and have practical implications for leaders in male-dominated working contexts who want to encourage their female employees to speak up about work-related issues.