Instrumental leadership and organizational change

This dissertation examines the influence of instrumental leadership in the framework of the extended full-range of leadership model on employees’ reactions to change. Positive employee reactions are regarded as crucial for the success of organizational change processes. Besides, current research leaves many questions about effective leadership in the context of change unanswered. Therefore, the main goal of this dissertation is to investigate how instrumental leadership as an extension of the full-range of leadership model can foster employees’ positive change reactions. Within a framework model that links leadership behaviors with differentiated change reactions, three empirical multimodal studies using a triangular approach contribute to a deeper understanding of the impact of instrumental leadership during change. The first study analyzes whether instrumental leadership is a theoretically and empirically meaningful addition to the full-range of leadership behaviors by investigating interdependencies among the leadership behaviors and their change-related consequences. In the second study, the mechanisms and conditions of how instrumental leadership affects employees’ individual and team change reactions were examined in more detail. Finally, in the third study, a training for the two change-promoting leadership styles of the model – instrumental and transformational leadership – was developed and evaluated. In summary, this dissertation extends the leadership literature by demonstrating that instrumental leadership plays an important role in the change context. This strengthens the theoretical and empirical relevance of instrumental leadership as part of the extended full-range of leadership model. The main findings are that transformational leadership only has a positive influence on change support if instrumental leadership is highly developed. The results thus question the change-enhancing effect of transformational leadership on its own and expand the literature by confirming the integrative view of the extended model in times of change. Furthermore, it was shown that instrumental leadership has a positive effect on team change success and individual change support through cognitive attitudes in the team. The indirect effects are reinforced by the cognitive attitudes of the leader. Moreover, instrumental leadership can be actively enhanced by training interventions, and it became apparent that the positive development of leadership behaviors caused by the training led to an intended variation in employees’ change reactions

Transformational leadership and communication Evaluation of a two-day leadership development program

Cohrs C, Bormann K, Diebig M, Millhoff C, Pachocki K, Rowold J. Transformational leadership and communication Evaluation of a two-day leadership development program. LEADERSHIP & ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL. 2019;41(1):101-117.Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a leadership development program with focus on transformational leadership and communication. It is explored whether these aspects of leadership can be trained in the course of a two-day intervention. Furthermore, it is tested if pre-training differences among leaders have an influence on the effectiveness of participating in the leadership intervention. Design/methodology/approach In the study, 38 leaders took part in the two-day training session. The control group consisted of 59 leaders. Information was collected from participating leaders' followers (n=356) on pre- and post-training measures of transformational leadership as well as on communication skills (attentive and impression-leaving style). Findings Results show that transformational leadership behaviors improved more after training in the experimental group (EG) than they did in the control group. Also, ratings of the attentive communication style improved more in the EG compared to the control group. Furthermore, participants of the leadership development program benefitted to different degrees from their training. Participants who initially had a medium score showed the best improvement. Originality/value The present study advances the scope of leadership development by also considering the trainability of communication skills. Also, insights on the contingency of training effects are provided

On the destructiveness of laissez-faire versus abusive supervision: a comparative, multilevel investigation of destructive forms of leadership

Klasmeier KN, Schleu JE, Millhoff C, Poethke U, Bormann K. On the destructiveness of laissez-faire versus abusive supervision: a comparative, multilevel investigation of destructive forms of leadership. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology . 2021.Different forms of destructive leadership are prevalent in organizations, but rarely studied together. Additionally, most studies take an individual-level view on the consequences of destructive leadership. However, while most supervisors lead teams, it remains unclear how destructive leadership behaviours affect team processes and outcomes from a multilevel perspective. Building on this premise, we analysed the relationship of abusive supervision and laissez-faire leadership with OCB on the individual and team-level. As an important team process, we considered team trust as a mediating mechanism. Further, we investigated whether laissez-faire leadership is more harmful to OCB compared to abusive supervision. We tested our proposed model in a three-wave study with data from 658 team members out of 149 teams. Bayesian multilevel analysis generally supported our assumptions: Abusive supervision lowered team trust and subsequently OCB at the individual and team-level, whereas laissez-faire was not related to team trust on the team-level. Additionally, our results indicated that laissez-faire was more harmful to OCB than abusive supervision on both levels. Finally, implications for theory and practical use in organizations are discussed