Does Seeing “Eye To Eye” Affect Work Engagement and Organizational Citizenship Behavior? A Role Theory Perspective on LMX Agreement

Abstract

Despite meta-analytic evidence demonstrating that leader-member exchange (LMX) agreement (consensus between leader and subordinate perceptions) is only moderate at best, research on LMX typically examines this relationship from only one perspective (either the leader's or the subordinate's). We return to the roots of LMX and utilize role theory to argue that agreement in leader and subordinate perceptions of LMX quality has meaningful effects on employee motivation and behavior. In a polynomial regression analysis of 280 leader-subordinate dyads, employee work engagement (and subsequent organizational citizenship behavior [OCB]) was maximized (at each level of LMX quality) when leaders and subordinates were in agreement as to the quality of their LMX relationship, but these outcomes suffered when they did not see "eye to eye." Indeed, situations where leaders and subordinates both evaluated their relationship as low quality were associated with higher work engagement (and subsequent OCB) compared to situations of disagreement where only one member evaluated their relationship as high quality. Further, this effect was consistent regardless of whether leaders or subordinates evaluated the relationship highly. We conclude that to fully understand the implications of our only dyadic leadership theory, one must consider the perspectives of both members of the LMX dyad simultaneously.Despite meta-analytic evidence demonstrating that leader-member exchange (LMX) agreement (consensus between leader and subordinate perceptions) is only moderate at best, research on LMX typically examines this relationship from only one perspective (either the leader's or the subordinate's). We return to the roots of LMX and utilize role theory to argue that agreement in leader and subordinate perceptions of LMX quality has meaningful effects on employee motivation and behavior. In a polynomial regression analysis of 280 leader-subordinate dyads,

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