Examining Malaysian Leader Characteristics in a Manager-Subordinate Relationship

Abstract

The paper discusses the findings of the first stage of data collection from a study on the characteristics of leaders in manager-subordinate relationship in Malaysian organizations. The findings are based on in-depth interviews conducted with focus groups involving Malaysian employees, which focused on employee perspectives on key qualities that leaders possess to uphold and maintain superior-subordinate relationship. The adoption of qualitative approach in this phase of data collection process is crucial in deriving leadership behaviors that are essential in the workplace. The identification of these behaviors could help us generate items for the final phase of our data collection process. The research takes into consideration the argument posed by Bass (2008), which has contended that methodological and substantive issues are likely to broaden through the combination of multiple research approaches such as qualitative interview and focus group discussion. The inclusion of eastern perspectives in a western model would bring a holistic description of a communication model. The interviews were conducted with the hope of identifying the themes of leader-characteristics which would help strengthen the relationships between a manager and his or her employees. This would facilitate further understanding of leader characteristics in superior-subordinate relationship. Eight themes emerged from the interviews. Consequently, this paper furthers theoretical contributions to the research on LMX, and expands the literature on superior-subordinate relationship in the workplace. The paper also highlights the limitations of the study for future research. Keywords: Leader characteristic, superior-subordinate relationship, leader-member agreement, leader-member differentiation, dialogue communication INTRODUCTIONAs a method of communication, dialogue plays an essential role in enhancing organizational effectiveness, transforming organizational participations and influencing relationship development among members of the organization. A research by Cogliser, Schrieshein, Scandura and Gardner (2009) has demonstrated that mutual understanding of superiorsubordinate relationships is crucial as it has relational consequences, which would eventually affect follower outcomes. Despite the encouraging findings, the model has not incorporated cultural elements, and this should be taken into consideration to understanding the relational alignment or "congruence", assessing what we value, thus, maintaining cross cultural relationships (Hofstede, 2001). Demonstrating the effect of cultural conditions is a necessary next step in augmenting our understanding on leader-member agreement and its effects on relationships.

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