The relationship between employees’self-monitoring and occupational self-efficacy and transformational leadership

The topic of the present study is the relationship between transformational leadership as perceived by followers and follower characteristics such as self-monitoring and self-efficacy. Self-monitoring was hypothesized to be positively related to transformational leadership, as persons with high self-monitoring are a) sensitive to expressive behaviors of others and b) able to control their own expressive behavior. The correlations found here, however, are too small to confirm this assumption. With respect to self-efficacy, past research leads to two contradictory assumptions concerning its relationship to transformational leadership: a) Self-efficacy is negatively related to a perception of transformational leadership as "weak" employees (i.e. persons with low self-efficacy) are especially susceptible to transformational leadership or b) Self-efficacy is positively related to a perception of transformational leadership as employees with high self-efficacy see themselves as being similar to their leaders and thus tend to perceived transformational leadership in their leaders. Whereas the first hypothesis had to be rejected, the second was supported. The sample was then subdivided into groups in order to test extreme group differences. No extreme group differences could be found

On the Romance of Leadership – In Memory of James R. Meindl

It was a shock to the community when three years ago James Meindl suddenly passed away. Leadership research lost one of its best scholars. This special issue is dedicated to one of Meindl\u27s most influential research contributions, the Romance of Leadership perspective. First introduced in 1985 by Meindl, Ehrlich, and Dukerich, the Romance of Leadership refers to the tendency to attribute responsibility for company performance to leaders, thereby disregarding other factors that might be of influence

Leadership attributes valence in self-concept and occupational self-efficacy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between leadership-relevant attributes and occupational self-efficacy in management students. It is assumed that leadership-relevant attributes are related to high self-efficacy beliefs. Design/methodology/approach – In the present study management students from three different countries, namely Germany, Australia, and India, described to what degree they possess task- and person-oriented leadership attributes and indicate their occupational self-efficacy for their future profession. Data were analysed using regression analyses. Findings – As expected, leadership-relevant attributes were related to occupational self-efficacy. Some support was found for the assumption that ratings of the importance of relevant attributes moderates the relationship between reported leadership-relevant attributes and occupational self-efficacy but only for task-oriented attributes. Research limitations/implications – The sample size was small so that comparisons between subgroups were not possible. All data were self-reported. Practical implications – The results are relevant for career counselling. Looking at self-description of individuals in terms of attributes relevant to their future job rather than working directly on their occupational self-efficacy could be emphasised. Originality/value – The study provides initial hints at the relationship between self-description and occupational self-efficacy in connection with future managers

The relationship between employees' occupational self-efficacy and perceived transformational leadership-replication and extension of recent results

The relationship between transformational leadership and self-efficacy is not yet fully explained. Different hypotheses have been posed ranging from positive to negative relationships between the constructs. The aim of this study is to further clarify how transformational leadership and self-efficacy relate. In addition, this paper considers possible moderators of this relationship. Task demands and climate are tested as moderators of the relationship between transformational leadership and self-efficacy. Although the relationships between transformational leadership and self-efficacy are virtually zero in the correlational analysis, interaction effects of transformational leadership and task demands are found. In an overall analysis, task demands is the best predictor for self-efficacy

Mood and the evaluation of leaders – A replication using an employee sample

A recently published study in Current Research in Social Psychology (Schyns & Sanders, 2003) focused on the relationship between mood and the perception of leadership. Although this experimental study showed a relationship between mood and the perception of management-by-exception passive, most of the hypotheses could not be confirmed. The present study tries to overcome the most important restrictions of that prior study and seeks to examine the same hypotheses using an employee sample and a different assessment of mood. Results indicate that mood and the perception of leadership are indeed connected, especially in the case of less active leadership styles. Controlling for effects of contact with the leader did not alter these results

A model of task demands, social structure, and Leader-Member Exchange and their relationship to job satisfaction

In the present study, we examine task demands, leader-member exchange, and social structure in their relationship to job satisfaction. Based on the reflections of Seers and Graen in their dual attachment model, in the present study we combined task demands, leader-member exchange, and social structure in a model of antecedents of job satisfaction. The resulting model was tested using structural equation modelling. While task demands and leader-member exchange are related to their respective equivalents in job satisfaction, social structure is positively related to a latent factor job satisfaction, indicating that the social structure of a job has an impact on different facets of job satisfaction. The results are discussed with respect to sample characteristics

Four not six: revealing culturally common facial expressions of emotion

As a highly social species, humans generate complex facial expressions to communicate a diverse range of emotions. Since Darwin’s work, identifying amongst these complex patterns which are common across cultures and which are culture-specific has remained a central question in psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and more recently machine vision and social robotics. Classic approaches to addressing this question typically tested the cross-cultural recognition of theoretically motivated facial expressions representing six emotions, and reported universality. Yet, variable recognition accuracy across cultures suggests a narrower cross-cultural communication, supported by sets of simpler expressive patterns embedded in more complex facial expressions. We explore this hypothesis by modelling the facial expressions of over 60 emotions across two cultures, and segregating out the latent expressive patterns. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, we first map the conceptual organization of a broad spectrum of emotion words by building semantic networks in two cultures. For each emotion word in each culture, we then model and validate its corresponding dynamic facial expression, producing over 60 culturally valid facial expression models. We then apply to the pooled models a multivariate data reduction technique, revealing four latent and culturally common facial expression patterns that each communicates specific combinations of valence, arousal and dominance. We then reveal the face movements that accentuate each latent expressive pattern to create complex facial expressions. Our data questions the widely held view that six facial expression patterns are universal, instead suggesting four latent expressive patterns with direct implications for emotion communication, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and social robotics

Trapped at Work: The Barriers Model of Abusive Supervision.

While research on abusive supervision is thriving, we still know very little about the sustained nature of the phenomenon. Additionally, most papers focusing on the prolonged character of the detrimental relational dynamic take a within-dyad perspective, largely ignoring within-person, group or other external influences. Addressing these gaps in the literature, we introduce the Barriers Model of Abusive Supervision. This model posits a hierarchically organized set of obstacles that make it difficult for followers to escape the abusive supervisor, explaining why abuse can continue over long periods of time. Specifically, we present an onion-shaped model in which the follower has a central position with each subsequent layer representing a more external cluster of barriers to leaving the abusive supervisor. Ranging from external to internal, these layers are: Barriers in the larger societal context (Layer 1; e.g., ambiguous laws), barriers in the organizational context (Layer 2; e.g., unclear policies), barriers due to the abusive supervisor (Layer 3; e.g., isolating followers), and barriers within the abused follower (Layer 4; e.g., implicit leadership theories). We hope that our model inspires future research on the sustained nature of abusive supervision and provides practitioners with the necessary background information to help abused followers escape their supervisors

Understanding the relationship between span of control and subordinate consensus in leader-member exchange

Leader-member exchange (LMX) refers to the relationship quality a leader shares with members of his or her work group, typically described as differentiation in quality within the group. Numerous empirical studies demonstrate that the quality of this relationship is positively related to followers' attitudes and organizational outcomes. It has been proposed that the quality of possible relationships between the leader and the led will be affected by the number of employees directly reporting to the leader, with empirical findings showing a slight negative relationship between span of control and LMX. Little is known, however, about how span of control influences variability in the quality of leader-member exchange within the context of work groups. Therefore, following a recognized assumption to strive for as many as possible leadership relations on a high LMX level, we examine how individual- and group-level (consensus in) LMX can be based on different dimensions of the LMX relationship. We suggest how LMX consensus and a high LMX level can be established even in large spans of control