An examination of "nonleadership": From laissez-faire leadership to leader reward omission and punishment omission.

Abstract

Laissez-faire leadership has received much less attention than have the 3 transactional leadership dimensions of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). However, laissez-faire leadership has shown strong negative relationships with various leadership criteria, and the absence of leadership (laissez-faire leadership) may be just as important as is the presence of other types of leadership. This article focuses on a single type of laissez-faire leadership (i.e., the lack of response to subordinate performance). Using a reinforcement perspective, the authors developed measures and examined the effects of the lack of performance-contingent reinforcement in 2 forms: reward omission (leader nonreinforcement of good subordinate performance) and punishment omission (leader nonreinforcement of poor subordinate performance). They found strong evidence in support of the construct validity of the new measures and found that omission was related to follower satisfaction with the leader, subordinate-rated leader effectiveness, subordinate-perceived role clarity, and supervisor-rated subordinate performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effects of Active Constructive and Passive Corrective Leadership on Workplace Incivility and the Mediating Role of Fairness Perceptions

“…In a similar vein, the harmful effects of passive types of leadership, as opposed to the more active forms of abusive supervision, have also been overlooked in the literature. Thus, this study adds important evidence to the emerging stream of research Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2008;Skogstad et al, 2007) on the substantially detrimental consequences of passive leadership, as well.…”

“…Examining the FRL model in the context of workplace deviance is important because this model includes transformational leadership and contingent reward leadership, which are most commonly associated with positive follower outcomes , as well as management by exception and laissez-faire leadership, which are often deemed as negative leadership styles Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2008;Skogstad, Einarsen, Torsheim, Aasland, & Hetland, 2007). In the FRL model, it is theorized that a leader engages in various leadership styles, ranging from the highly proactive to the highly avoidant, and that these different behaviors can be present in the same individual (Bass, 1985;Bass & Avolio, 1990).…”

Transformational leadership across hierarchical levels in UK manufacturing organizations

“…There are, however, concerns about the lack of supporting evidence for the factor model of transformational leadership represented by the MLQ that have led some researchers to suggest alternative factor models (Bycio, Hackett, and Allen, 1995;Carless, 1998;Deluga and Souza, 1991;Den Hartog, Van Muijen, and Koopman, 1997;Hinkin and Schriesheim, 2008a;Hinkin and Tracy, 1999;Howell and Avolio, 1993;Kantse, et al, 2007;Koh, 1990;Lievens, Van Geit, and Coetsier, 1997;Rafferty and Griffin, 2004;Tepper and Percy, 1994;Yammarino and Dubinski, 1994). Although there are criticisms of the MLQ it has been suggested that they do not necessarily detract from the theory of transformational and transactional leadership (Avolio and Bass, 1993;Hinkin and Tracey, 1999).…”

Conceptualizing leadership perceptions as attitudes: Using attitude theory to further understand the leadership process

“…Therefore, following a technique developed by Hinkin and Tracey (1999) we conducted a more comprehensive content validity assessment, on a smaller number of leadership scales, using a method that utilizes analysis of variance (ANOVA) to empirically test item distinctiveness. This technique can be used with relatively small sample sizes (Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2008), and has been used previously to investigate the content validity of leadership measures (Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2008). For example, Schriesheim and Liu (2013) recently used the technique to assess the extent that the items in the LMX scales measure the three components of attitudes.…”