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This article reexamines the relation between personality traits and leadership perceptions or extent of leader emergence. We maintain that prior research on trait theories and leadership has been misinterpreted as applying to a leader's effect on performance, when it actually pertains to the relation of leadership traits to leadership emergence. Further, based on current theories of social perceptions, several traits were expected to be strongly related to leadership perceptions. Using the metaanalytic technique of validity generalization, results supported this expectation with intelligence, masculinity-femininity, and dominance being significantly related to leadership perceptions. Also, findings showed that variability across studies in the relation of these traits to leadership perceptions could be explained largely by methodological factors, indicating that contingency theories of leadership perceptions may not be needed. Both of these results contrast with the conclusions of earlier nonquantitative literature reviews on traits and leadership perceptions and with conventional thinking in the leadership area.Trait theories have not been seriously considered by leadership researchers since Mann (1959) and Stogdill (1948) reported that no traits consistently differentiated leaders from nonleaders across a variety of situations. The thesis of this article is that, first, these reviews have often been misinterpreted, and second, there are both theoretical and methodological reasons for reconsidering the relations between the traits of potential leaders and their tendency to be perceived as leaders by others.The findings of the Mann and Stogdill reviews have been misinterpreted in three respects. First, though both reviews dealt with only leadership emergence or the perception of leadership in groups with no formal leader, many current theorists (Landy, 1985;Muchinsky, 1983) report that their conclusions pertain to the topic of leadership effectiveness. This confusion probably stems from the title of Mann's (1959) review, "A Review of the Relationships Between Personality and Performance in Small Groups." Though Mann mentions performance, the relations he investigated were between personality and attained leadership status as indexed by peer ratings, observer ratings, or by being formally nominated as a leader by group members. None of the leadership studies he reviewed used group task performance or ratings of group effectiveness by observers as dependent variables. Second, there were many consistently significantThe authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Ralph Alexander on an earlier version of this article.

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Self-regulation at work is conceived in terms of within-person processes that occur over time. These processes are proposed to occur within a hierarchical framework of negative feedback systems that operate at different levels of abstraction and with different time cycles. Negative feedback systems respond to discrepancies in a manner that reduces deviations from standards (i.e., goals). This is in contrast to positive feedback systems in which discrepancies are created, which can lead to instability. We organize our discussion around four hierarchical levels-self, achievement task, lower-level task action, and knowledge/working memory. We theorize that these levels are loosely connected by multiple constraints and that both automatic and more conscious processes are essential to self-regulation. Within- and cross-level affective and cognitive processes interact within this system to motivate goal-related behaviors while also accessing needed knowledge and protecting current intentions from interference. Complications common in the work setting (as well as other complex, real-life settings) such as the simultaneous pursuit of multiple goals, the importance of knowledge access and expertise, and team and multiperson processes are also discussed. Finally, we highlight the usefulness of newer research methodologies and data-analytic techniques for examining such hierarchical, dynamic, within-person processes.

We develop and test a model linking ethical leadership with unit ethical culture, both across and within organizational levels, examining how both leadership and culture relate to ethical cognitions and behaviors of lower-level followers. The data were collected from 2,572 U.S. Army soldiers representing three organizational levels deployed in combat. Findings provide limited support for simple trickle-down mechanisms of ethical leadership but broader support for a multilevel model that takes into account how leaders embed shared understandings through their influence on the ethical culture of units at various levels, which in turn influence followers' ethical cognitions and behavior. The influences of ethical leadership occur not only directly, among immediate followers within a unit, but also indirectly, across hierarchical levels, through the cascading of ethical culture and senior leaders' influences on subordinate leader behavior. We discuss scholarly and practical implications for understanding how leaders transmit ethical influence both down and across large organizations.