How do Leader Emotional Displays Influence Employees’ Information Security Effort?

The leader has been considered important in influencing employees’ behavior and performance. However, the research identifying the mechanism about the role of leader in the information systems (IS) security context is still scant. According to the Emotion as Social Information (EASI) theory, this study posits that emotional displays by leaders play a critical role in influencing employees’ information security effort. Motivated thus, this study proposes that leader displays of happiness or anger towards organizational information security significantly influence employees’ subsequent efforts on information security protection and employees’ personalities (extraversion and openness to experience) moderate the process. In essence, this study sheds new light on the interaction effect between leader emotional display and employees’ personalities on employees’ information security effort. This study contributes to the IS security literature by unveiling the importance of leader emotional displays

Leading For The Bottom Line: A View Of Leadership In A Bottom-Line Context

This paper sets out to establish and describe a new approach to leadership called Bottom Line Leadership. The essence of Bottom Line Leadership is that a leader’s most critical responsibility is to clearly identify, communicate and gain buy-in for the ultimate bottom-line objective of the organization he/she leads, subject to constraints imposed by the market and by the organization itself. In comparison to other leadership models that focus on the general attributes or behaviors characterizing effective leaders, Bottom Line Leadership emphasizes the link between an organization’s purpose and a leader’s behavior. The philosophy that serves as the foundation for this article stipulates that employees, in any type of organization, need to be crystal clear about the purpose and bottom-line objective of the organization they work for. Having this clarity of objective enables employees to not only understand the importance of an organization’s strategy and mission; it also allows them to make sound decisions in support of the organization’s goals. We believe that it is essential that leaders in organizations instill this clarity of purpose and help create the conditions that allow people to channel their energies into the appropriate activities. What results from our leadership and management research is a “virtuous circle” model coupled with a checklist that prescribes precisely what Bottom-Line Leaders do. To arrive at our model of Bottom-Line Leadership, we review the teachings of some of the most popular leadership and management thought leaders. We conclude that effective leadership actually encompasses both traditional leadership attributes (create / inspire / influence) and traditional management capabilities (deploy / control / execute). In short, what we find is that Bottom-Line Leaders instill clarity of purpose in their organization, gain commitment to the ultimate bottom-line objective, and engage employees in these efforts. They do this by deploying methods of communication, inspiration and motivation that constantly maintain a connection to, and are aligned with, the ultimate bottom-line objective the organization is striving to achieve. They also work tirelessly to ensure that employees are in a position to make decisions and take actions in manners supporting the bottom-line objective. In our view, leaders are those who do the right things right and get their people to do likewise

Gurus on Leadership: A Book Review

Author Mark A. Thomas examines in his best seller Gurus on Leadership the many styles and contributions associated with noted leaders and experts on leadership throughout history. Rao’s review points out the salient features of each style and reasserts the author’s desire for the principled leader to choose the best characteristics and managerial traits offered from this vast repertoire of experiences and philosophies

Unlocking the black box: line managers and HRM performance in a call centre context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show the way to unlock the black box of HRM and performance linkages by exploring one of the key variables that mediates the link, namely whether line managers can stimulate improvements in firm performance by eliciting appropriate employee outcomes in a call centre context. Design/methodology/approach – The research draws on Purcell's "People-Performance Model" as a sensitising framework to inform an in-depth case study of a call centre. This provides a mechanism to unlock the HRM-Performance black box by focusing on the ability, motivation and opportunities for line managers to perform and any subsequent impact on employee outcomes. Data were collected over multiple site visits by means of multi-level interviews and a survey of telesales representatives (TSRs). Findings – Research findings indicate that one large client exerted significant control over the HRM policies developed within the call centre. Evidence suggests, however, that line managers'interventions ameliorated some of the negative aspects of work tasks and the HRM imposed by this dependency relationship. Research limitations/implications – This research is an exploratory attempt to better understand HRM-Performance linkages in one specific context. Results are not generalisable across contexts or even within call centres, which can vary extensively. Nonetheless, the research suggests that exploring line management behaviour is a promising avenue for more extensive research. Originality/value – This paper considers HRM-Performance linkages in a service context. Results indicate that both external relations and line managers are critical mediating variables conditioning HRM-Performance linkages, thereby lending support to the notion that hard and soft HRM practices are not necessarily irreconcilable

Fake It Until You Make It? Female Leaders’ Emotional Expression Management and Subordinates’ Gender Stereotypes

As part of their organizational role, leaders manage their emotional expressions for the purpose of maintaining influence over followers, a concept that has received far less attention than the impact of other leadership behaviors. Further, there is almost no existing research regarding an employees’ reactions to the female supervisors’ emotional expression management (EEM), or the influence of subordinates’ underlying gender stereotypes on the relationship between leaders’ EEM and subordinate outcomes. To gain a better understanding of how EEM and the followers’ perception of gender roles interactively influence affective and attitudinal outcomes, this study used multi-source data from female leaders and their followers to examine the moderation effect of subordinates’ sex-based stereotypes on the relationship between leaders’ EEM and three dyadic outcomes: trust, satisfaction with communication, and commitment to goals set by the leader. Results from hierarchical multiple regressions found mixed support for the proposed relationships. As predicted, the relationship between genuinely felt emotional expressions and both subordinate trust and goal commitment was more positive for followers with stronger nontraditional views of women than for those with lower levels of nontraditional views. Additionally, genuinely felt expressions had a weaker positive relationship with trust for subordinates who held stronger communal stereotypes than for employees with lower levels of communal stereotypes. Unexpectedly, the associations between faked positive and suppressed negative EEM and the subordinate outcomes examined were not significantly affected by followers’ stereotypes about how women should act in general. The hypotheses for employee satisfaction with communication were also not supported. Given these results, I speculate that that female leaders may be subject to different behavioral norms than their male counterparts and that employee stereotypes may only have an impact on attitudes toward the leader when she deviates from these norms by expressing genuinely felt emotions. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed

A study of the techniques for building morale used by business and industry which can be applied to personnel administration in education

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Modification of the gold standard ? leadership selection from an attachment lens: a critical analysis.

The demands of corporate America are placing increased pressures on supervisors and executives to create and manage optimal organizational cultures. Relational capabilities and emotional intelligence have come to the fore as an essential component of effective and successful business leadership. When leaders are unable to create positive relationships with their working teams and navigate the day-to-day stressors of the workplace, the costs can be significant. In addition to losses in productivity, absenteeism, stress, burnout, and demoralization all take a heavy toll. From the perspective of attachment theory, the ability to connect with others, cope with stress, and engage in productive behavior all stem from positive early relationships with caregivers. It is thought that early experiences create attachment schema, which continue to organize the way we relate at home and in the workplace. Preliminary research suggests that leaders with secure attachment styles are able to drive optimal employee behaviors and performance outcomes. Similarly, leaders with neglectful, dismissive, and critical interpersonal styles grounded in insecure attachment schema lead to more undesirable and less productive employee behaviors. There is an abundance of research utilizing self-report measures to assess attachment and leadership behaviors in the workplace and the potential to use attachment behavior as an additional criterion for leadership selection. The current study will explore the following questions: 1. What does the research say about the integration of adult attachment, assessment, and leadership? 2. Can the well-established Adult Attachment Interview be modified for the purpose of leadership selection? As such, the goal is to apply attachment research to selecting more effective leaders capable of creating healthier and more productive working cultures

Power of Attachment Styles in Servant Leadership: A Conceptual Paper

The paper aims to advance an understanding of the relationship between servant leadership and attachment styles. This paper provides a review of servant leadership and attachment styles to explain how this understanding can be used to confront challenges faced by leaders due to a crisis. A proposed conceptual model is posited to investigate the moderating effect of followers\u27 attachment styles on the relationship between servant leadership and desired follower outcomes. Additionally, this study adds support to the criticism of the leader-centric approach of research by investigating the moderating role of followers\u27 characteristics, such as followers\u27 attachment styles. The practical implications of this study highlight how servant leadership can positively revolutionise relationships at work, thereby making it an interesting field for research and practice