Die Ko-Konstruktion von Führung in veränderungsbezogenen Interaktionen zwischen Führungskräften und Mitarbeitenden

Dieser Beitrag in der Zeitschrift Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organsationspsychologie (GIO) befasst sich damit, wie Führung in Veränderungsprozessen als dynamischer, wechselseitiger Einflussprozess zwischen Führungskräften und Mitarbeitenden verstanden werden kann und welches Potenzial diese Perspektive für die Effektivität von Führung bietet. Die Hauptaufgabe von Führungskräften wird häufig in der Leitung und Beeinflussung ihrer Mitarbeitenden gesehen. Diese Aufgabe stellt insbesondere im Kontext organisationaler Veränderungen eine Herausforderung dar, wenn es darum geht, Mitarbeitende für eine Verhaltensänderung zu motivieren. Vor dem Hintergrund kontinuierlich stattfindender Veränderungen in der heutigen Zeit gilt es daher, ein Verständnis für die Entwicklung positiver und negativer Interaktionsdynamiken in Gesprächen zwischen Führungskräften und Mitarbeitenden zu entwickeln. In der Führungsforschung bestehen dazu unterschiedliche theoretische Perspektiven, die verschiedene Betrachtungsweisen zu Entstehung und Verlauf von Führung und den Einflussprozessen zwischen Führungskräften und Mitarbeitenden bieten. Der vorliegende Artikel beleuchtet die unterschiedlichen Führungsperspektiven vor dem Hintergrund der Herausforderungen organisationaler Veränderungen und leitet praktische Implikationen ab. Sowohl auf der Ebene von Mitarbeitenden, Führungskräften als auch auf der organisationalen Ebene werden Wege aufgezeigt, wie mit Hilfe des Verständnisses von Führung als dynamischer, wechselseitiger Prozess positive Führungs- und Veränderungsprozesse gestaltet werden können. = This article in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organsationspsychologie (GIO) aims at presenting how leadership at times of change can be understood as a dynamic, mutual influence process between leaders and followers and shows the potential this perspective holds for the effectiveness of leadership. The main task of leaders is often seen in managing and influencing their followers. This task is challenging, especially in the context of organizational change, when it comes to motivating employees to change their behavior. Against the background of continuous change nowadays, it is therefore important to develop an understanding of the emergence of positive and negative interaction dynamics in conversations between leaders and followers. Leadership research offers different theoretical perspectives on the emergence and development of leadership and the influence processes taking place between leaders and followers. The present article examines the different leadership perspectives against the background of the challenges of organizational change and derives practical implications. This article shows how the understanding of leadership as a dynamic, mutual process can be used to design positive leadership processes at the level of followers, leaders, and the organization

Guiding Change: Using Motivational Interviewing Within Organizations

This contribution to the journal “Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)” portraits Motivational Interviewing (MI) as a useful communication approach for evoking change readiness among employees. In today’s complex and dynamic business environment, organizations should be capable of adaptively responding to external demands. Such an organizational setup requires employees to constantly cope with change. However, eliciting change-supportive mindsets and behaviors is challenging. First, to better understand employees’ psychological responses when confronted with change, we review change-related attitudes, whereby we emphasize ambivalence as employees’ most common response when confronted with change. Next, we explain how the MI spirit, the MI process, and methods used by MI practitioners form the MI gestalt. Furthermore, to illustrate how MI extends existing inquiry approaches, we discuss how the focus of MI on the language of change may help to improve change agents’ communication skills and make MI an evidence-based communication approach. Moreover, we exemplify how MI can be applied at the individual, group, and organizational levels. For these practical applications, we note how MI can improve existing management practices such as appraisal interviews (individual level), team meetings (group level), and job crafting (organizational level). Finally, we outline the questions that further research needs to address to better understand how MI can be more effectively interwoven into organizational structures. Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag der Zeitschrift „Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)“ stellt Motivational Interviewing (MI) als einen nützlichen Kommunikationsansatz dar, um Veränderungsbereitschaft bei Mitarbeitenden hervorzurufen. Die heutige komplexe und dynamische Arbeitswelt verlangt von Organisationen adaptiv und agil zu sein, um auf externe Anforderungen reagieren zu können. Solche organisationalen Rahmenbedingungen fordern Mitarbeitende dazu auf, sich kontinuierlich mit Veränderungen auseinander zu setzen und darauf zu reagieren. Nichtsdestotrotz fällt es Organisationen immer wieder schwer veränderungsunterstützende Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen bei Mitarbeitenden hervorzurufen. Um die Reaktionen von Mitarbeitenden auf Veränderungen besser zu verstehen, geben wir einen Überblick über mögliche Haltungen gegenüber Veränderungen, wobei wir die Ambivalenz als häufigste Reaktion von Mitarbeitenden hervorheben. Darauffolgend erläutern wir wie die verschiedenen Komponenten von MI, bestehend aus dem MI-Spirit, dem MI-Prozess und konkreten Gesprächsmethoden, in ihrer Gesamtheit den MI Ansatz bilden. Um darüber hinaus zu verdeutlichen, wie MI bestehende Ansätze erweitert, legen wir dar, wie MI durch den Fokus auf Veränderungssprache einen evidenzbasierten Ansatz darstellt und dazu beitragen kann, die Kommunikationskompetenzen von Change Agenten zu verbessern. Anschließend liefern wir Empfehlungen, wie MI auf individueller, Gruppen- und Organisationsebene angewendet werden kann. Wir erläutern, wie MI Mitarbeitergespräche (individuelle Ebene), Teambesprechungen (Gruppenebene) und Job-Crafting (Organisationsebene) verbessern kann. Schließich umreißen wir die Fragen, die von zukünftiger Forschung zu beantworten sind, um besser zu verstehen, wie MI in organisationale Strukturen integriert werden kann

The Emergence of Employees' Change Readiness for Energy-Conservation Behavior During Guided Group Discussions

Studies of energy conservation efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in the residential sector are abundant; however similar efforts in organizations have not received as much attention as they deserve. In this study, we focus on methods for increasing employees' readiness to change their behaviors in favor of energy conservation, specifically examining the use of guided group discussions (GGDs). We use observational research methods to examine the micro-level of behavioral dynamics and understand the emergence of change readiness. We describe how facilitators ("change agents") can conduct GGDs and foster employees' change readiness using the established communication approach of Motivational Interviewing (MI). We also explore how employees can increase each other's change readiness regarding energy conservation behavior. Based on our sample of eight videotaped GGDs (5430 behavioral events), interaction analysis reveals that solution-focused communication elicits change readiness in employees, whereas problem-focused communication prompts resistance to change. We further show that employees can motivate their co-workers to express "green" intentions: when employees verbalized statements in favor of energy saving, this increased other employees' change readiness, while verbalized statements against energy saving had the opposite effect. This demonstrates that GGD participants are active individuals who can spark behavior change in their co-workers. Finally, based on our findings we propose several communication guidelines for working with groups and discuss the importance of solution-focused energy management practices to facilitate change readiness for energy saving in the workplace

The reciprocity of shared and empowering leadership

Leadership has mostly been considered as a unidirectional process centered on leaders influencing their followers. However, recent theoretical developments indicate that followers may also have an impact on their formal leader. In this pre-registered study, we investigate the interplay between shared leadership and formal team leadership (i.e., empowering leadership). We predict that leaders interpret their team’s shared leadership as an investment to reach for common goals. Accordingly, their team’s effort should improve leader trust in the team, which in turn should increase empowering leadership behavior of the leader. Further, we propose that this indirect relation is first-stage moderated by leader self-efficacy. We invited 721 team members and their leaders nested in 169 teams to join a three-wave longitudinal study. Results from Bayesian cross-lagged panel modeling support our predicted mediation effect while also pointing to a reverse effect of empowering leadership on shared leadership. The moderation effect was not supported. This study provides insights into the dynamic and reciprocal interplay between shared and formal leadership. Our findings underline that formal leaders do not perceive shared leadership as a threat but instead value the team effort reflected in higher trust and decision latitude

Tailored communication increases the perceived benefits of solar energy

To invest in solar energy, users must be convinced about the benefits this technology offers. Thus, we need a better understanding how these advantages can be communicated and how a message's effectiveness depends on individual characteristics. Relying on the regulatory focus theory (RFT), we suggest that the effectiveness of a message is contingent on users' personal regulatory focus. According to RFT, two systems guide information processing: a promotion focus (being eager to attain gains) and a prevention focus (being vigilant to avoid losses). Utilizing data from 369 people surveyed in four mid-sized cities in Germany, we measured their chronic focus and exposed them to one of four conditions: promotion framing, prevention framing, both framings combined, or no framing. An ANOVA revealed no framing differences between groups regarding perceived benefits of solar energy. However, a moderated regression analysis showed that promoters perceived more advantages if the message highlighted the gains achieved by using solar energy, whereas preventers were more convinced if the message highlighted how solar energy helps to avoid losses. As perceived benefits were related to actual investment, we suggest that advantages associated with solar energy should be conveyed in a manner that fits users' regulatory focus

The Power of Followers That do not Follow: Investigating the Effects of Follower Resistance, Leader Implicit Followership Theories and Leader Negative Affect on the Emergence of Destructive Leader Behavior

This study focuses on follower resistance as a potential antecedent of destructive leader behavior and examines leader-related moderators and mediators to help explain the relationship between follower resistance and destructive leader behavior. Drawing from implicit followership theories, we propose that the relationship between follower resistance and destructive leader behavior is moderated by leaders’ Theory X schema. Furthermore, we build on affective events theory to hypothesize that follower resistance increases destructive leader behavior via leaders’ negative affect. We tested our hypotheses in a within-subjects online field experiment. Our study findings demonstrate that follower resistance increases destructive leader behavior and that this relationship is mediated through leaders’ negative affect and moderated by leaders’ Theory X schema. We discuss theoretical implications regarding the impact of (resistant) follower behavior on destructive leadership and offer methodological advances in terms of research design and analytical approaches to deal with endogeneity issues and derive causal inferences. Lastly, we derive practical implications for utilizing follower resistance