Getting older and living up to implicit followership theories: Implications for employee psychological health and job attitudes

Abstract

Age discrimination at work is a widespread destructive phenomenon that often takes subtle forms. Based on negative stereotypes about older employees, we argue that older employees often experience that they are perceived as less ideal followers than younger employees. We propose that older and younger employees do not differ in what they assume their supervisors expect of an ideal follower (implicit followership theories, IFTs). Thus, we hypothesize that older employees perceive that they compare less favorably to their supervisors' IFTs than younger employees (i.e., worse IFT‐fit). This should entail lower quality of the relationship between leader and follower (leader‐member‐exchange, LMX), which, in turn, should have detrimental effects on employees' health (i.e., burnout) and job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and identification). We tested our model in a field study with 379 employees. Results differed for ideal and counter‐ideal follower attributes. Concerning counter‐ideal follower attributes (e.g., being incompetent), age had the proposed negative effect on psychological health and job attitudes that mediated through IFT‐fit and LMX. Concerning ideal follower attributes (e.g., thinking ahead), older employees expected their supervisors not only to think less of them than of their younger colleagues, but also expected them to have less demanding IFTs—contrary to our expectations. Employee age was negatively related to psychological health and job attitudes, mediated through lower perceived IFTs, worse perceived appraisal of the actual employee and their joint effects on LMX.

Implicit followership theories and resistance to leaders’ unethical requests: the mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior

“…In the followership literature, the concept of implicit followership theories (IFTs) refers to the cognitive structures in people’s minds that characterize the traits and behaviors of an ideal follower (Epitropaki et al , 2013; Stegmann et al , 2020). Since the IFTs can impact followers’ decisions and behaviors in interacting with the leader (Stegmann et al , 2020), this study aimed to find out whether the IFTs could affect the followers’ constructive resistance to unethical requests of the leader. Another variable considered in this study is organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), which is also known as extra-role behaviors (de Geus et al , 2020).…”

Followership: a review of current and emerging research

“…The impact of IFTs can extend to leader ratings on perceived follower performance (Junker and van Dick, 2014; Epitropaki et al. , 2013), and even how much they are willing to invest in the relationship with the follower (Stegmann et al. , 2020, p. 69).…”

“…, 2016, p. 950). Ideas of ideal or typical followers (IFTs) are held by both leaders and followers (Stegmann et al. , 2020, p. 68), and when investigated from a follower perspective, IFTs are follower self-schemas (Epitropaki et al.…”

“…The study of followership encompasses followership role orientations, context, follower role enactment, follower styles, implicit followership theories (IFTs) and social constructions of followership (Carsten et al, 2010(Carsten et al, , 2018Uhl-Bien et al, 2014;Stegmann et al, 2020;Aghaei et al, 2021). Through the study of followership, we have an opportunity to add "descriptions of follower styles and followership behaviors" to expand our understanding of the leadership process (Carsten et al, 2010, p. 543).…”

“…The study of followership encompasses followership role orientations, context, follower role enactment, follower styles, implicit followership theories (IFTs) and social constructions of followership (Carsten et al ., 2010, 2018; Uhl-Bien et al. , 2014; Stegmann et al. , 2020; Aghaei et al.…”