Leadership is a key predictor of employee, team, and organizational creativity and innovation. Research in this area holds great promise for the development of intriguing theory and impactful policy implications, but only if empirical studies are conducted rigorously. In the current paper, we report a comprehensive review of a large number of empirical studies (N = 195) exploring leadership and workplace creativity and innovation. Using this article cache, we conducted a number of systematic analyses and built narrative arguments documenting observed trends in five areas. First, we review and offer improved definitions of creativity and innovation. Second, we conduct a systematic review of the main effects of leadership upon creativity and innovation and the variables assumed to moderate these effects. Third, we conduct a systematic review of mediating variables. Fourth, we examine whether the study designs commonly employed are suitable to estimate the causal models central to the field. Fifth, we conduct a critical review of the creativity and innovation measures used, noting that most are sub-optimal. Within these sections, we present a number of taxonomies that organize the extant research, highlight understudied areas, and serve as a guide for future variable selection. We conclude by highlighting key suggestions for future research that we hope will reorient the field and improve the rigour of future research such that we can build more reliable and useful theories and policy recommendations.

This paper reports a meta-analysis that examines the relation between Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationship quality and a multi-dimensional model of work performance (task, citizenship and counterproductive performance). The results show a positive relationship between LMX and task performance (146 samples, ρ= .30), citizenship performance (97 samples, ρ= .34) and negatively with counterproductive performance (19 samples, ρ= -.24). Of note, there was a positive relationship between LMX and objective task performance (20 samples, ρ = .24). Trust, motivation, empowerment and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between LMX and task and citizenship performance with trust in the leader having the largest effect. There was no difference due to LMX measurement instrument (e.g., LMX7, LMX-MDM). Overall, the relationship between LMX and performance was weaker when (i) measures were obtained from a different source or method and (ii) LMX was measured by the follower than the leader (with common source and method biased effects stronger for leader-rated LMX quality). Finally, there was evidence for LMX leading to task performance but not for reverse or reciprocal directions of effects.

This paper reports a meta‐analysis that examines the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship quality and a multidimensional model of work performance (task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance). The results show a positive relationship between LMX and task performance (146 samples, ρ = .30) as well as citizenship performance (97 samples, ρ = .34), and negatively with counterproductive performance (19 samples, ρ = ‒.24). Of note, there was a positive relationship between LMX and objective task performance (20 samples, ρ = .24). Trust, motivation, empowerment, and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between LMX and task and citizenship performance with trust in the leader having the largest effect. There was no difference due to LMX measurement instrument (e.g., LMX7, LMX‐MDM). Overall, the relationship between LMX and performance was weaker when (a) measures were obtained from a different source or method and (b) LMX was measured by the follower than the leader (with common source‐ and method‐biased effects stronger for leader‐rated LMX quality). Finally, there was evidence for LMX leading to task performance but not for reverse or reciprocal directions of effects.

Summary The concept of empowering leadership (EL) has seen increasing scholarly interest in recent years. This study reports a meta‐analysis investigating the effects of EL on employee work behavior. On the basis of data from 105 samples, we found evidence for the positive effects of EL on performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and creativity at both the individual and team levels. We further examined these relationships by exploring potential boundary conditions and the incremental contribution of EL over transformational leadership and leader–member exchange. Furthermore, at the individual level, both trust in leader and psychological empowerment mediated the relationships of EL with task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and creativity. We also found evidence that leader–member exchange was a significant mediator between EL and task performance. At the team level, empowerment mediated the effects of EL on team performance, whereas knowledge sharing showed no significant indirect effect. Our results have important theoretical and practical implications and suggest some areas that require further research.

Research suggests that when leaders, as servant leaders, focus on their followers’ needs, this can have a positive effect on organizational functioning. Yet results are inconsistent in establishing the strength of the relationships, limiting understanding of the theoretical impact and practical reach of the servant leadership (SL) construct. Using a quantitative meta‐analysis based on 130 independent studies, the current research provides evidence that SL has incremental predictive validity over transformational, authentic, and ethical leadership. Further, the link between SL and a range of individual‐ and team‐level behavioural outcomes can be partially explained by trust in the leader, procedural justice, and leader–member exchange. The paper also explores moderators to better establish SL's criterion‐related validity and to clarify the magnitude of effects across boundary conditions, such as research design, national culture, and industry. Practitioner points Servant leadership has predictive validity over other leadership approaches, and therefore, organizations would benefit by developing their current leaders into SLs. Organizations should aim to select SLs into influential positions: Training programmes and selection profiles and processes would need to be aligned and developed to capture attitudes and behaviours associated with SL inside and outside the organization. Servant leaderships should seek to create a culture that positively promotes the development of trust, fairness, and high‐quality leader–follower relationships, as these conditions collectively enable the effects of SL to be transmitted onto desirable follower outcomes.

Using 266 studies, this paper meta-analytically examines the link between thirteen leadership styles (transformational, transactional, ethical, humble, leader-member exchange (LMX), benevolent, authoritarian, entrepreneurial, authentic, servant, empowering, supportive, and destructive) and followers' creative and innovative performance. We address two main research aims: to examine the relative predictive utility of these different leadership styles and to explore boundary conditions of the link between leadership styles and both creativity and innovation. Our findings related to both the relative and moderating effects of leadership on creativity/innovation make a significant contribution to the literature. Our analyses demonstrate the fact that authentic, empowering, and entrepreneurial leadership show the most promise when it comes to predicting individual creativity. For innovation, both transactional (contingent reward) and supportive leadership appear particularly relevant. The current study synthesizes an important, rapidly growing and diverse body of research, and in doing so provides important evidence to help guide theoretical advancements, improve research designs, and practise regarding leadership, creativity, and innovation.

In this research, we examine the relationship between employee psychological entitlement (PE) and employee willingness to engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). We hypothesize that a high level of PE-the belief that one should receive desirable treatment irrespective of whether it is deserved-will increase the prevalence of this particular type of unethical behavior. We argue that, driven by self-interest and the desire to look good in the eyes of others, highly entitled employees may be more willing to engage in UPB when their personal goals are aligned with those of their organizations. Support for this proposition was found in Study 1, which demonstrates that organizational identification accentuates the link between PE and the willingness to engage in UPB. Study 2 builds on these findings by examining a number of mediating variables that shed light on why PE leads to a greater willingness among employees to engage in UPB. Furthermore, we explored the differential effects of PE on UPB compared to counterproductive work behavior (CWB). We found support for our moderated mediation model, which shows that status striving and moral disengagement fully mediate the link between PE and UPB. PE was also linked to CWB, and was fully mediated by perceptions of organizational justice and moral disengagement. Growing research has demonstrated that employees commonly engage in unethical behaviors that are intended to serve the interests of their organization (e.g., destroying incriminating files to protect an organization's reputation; disclosing exaggerated information to the public; Umphress and Bingham 2011). This type of behavior has been referred to as unethical proorganizational behavior (UPB) (Umphress et al. 2010), and it is carried out consciously, in a discretionary manner (i.e., it is neither ordered by a supervisor nor part of a formal job description), and in violation of moral hypernorms (Warren 2003). The intention to benefit an organization distinguishes UPB from many other forms of unethical work behavior, such as counterproductive or deviant behavior, which are performed with the intention of harming one's organization and/or its members (e.g., Spector and Fox 2005).UPB is an important phenomenon for companies to consider because, in the long term, it may hurt their reputations and expose them to lawsuits (Umphress and Bingham 2011). Due to the seemingly increasing number of high-profile events occuring in the public domain whereby ethical standards have been violated in the interest of organizational benefit, scholars have emphasized the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of UPB (Pierce and Aguinis 2015). Research has begun to systematically investigate and theorize about UPB with a particular focus on employee motivations to engage in such behaviors (e.g., Chen et al. 2016;Graham et al. 2015;Kong 2016). However, the research to date has largely focused on the examination of situational and attitudinal antecedents of UPB such as leadership (e.g., Effel...

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