Meta-analytic and primary investigations of the role of followers in ratings of leadership behavior in organizations.

Abstract

Leader-centric views of leadership tend to regard followers as passive recipients of leaders' influences. As such, researchers often control for follower characteristics (e.g., age, gender, organizational tenure) when examining relations between leadership behaviors and other variables. However, reversing-the-lens theory suggests that followers' characteristics represent substantive factors that may affect how they perceive their leaders or how leaders behave toward different followers. We conducted two studies to investigate this possibility. In Study 1, we meta-analyzed data from 479 primary studies (N ϭ 172,494) and found meaningful relations between follower individual differences (e.g., gender, personality) and ratings of their leaders' behaviors (e.g., transformational leadership, abusive supervision). In Study 2, we conducted a primary study to estimate the extent to which actual leader behaviors or differences in follower perceptions of those behaviors account for these relations. Results suggest that follower perceptions and measurement error explain almost the same or more variance in follower ratings than do actual leader behaviors. In addition, other findings imply that relations between some follower characteristics (e.g., gender, neuroticism) and leadership ratings are likely to be due to perceptual differences associated with these follower characteristics. However, actual leader behaviors also appear to play a role, such that leaders tend to behave differently toward followers who possess high or low levels of certain characteristics (e.g., agreeableness). Taken together, this two-study investigation provides evidence that follower individual differences are related to ratings of leader behaviors and, thus, deserve more attention within leadership theory and research.

Psychometric properties of the human system audit-transformational leadership short scale in Germany and Philippines: A cross-cultural study

“…Results can be inf luenced by sample characteristics. Also, in this research, age mean was statistically significant comparing both samples, we follow Wang et al (2018) that found in their metaanalytic article that follower age was not related to their ratings of leadership behaviors. Nevertheless, data with more variability on demographics could be used in future studies in order to overrule possible effects of sample characteristics on the results.…”

“…All participants were employees without a supervisor function. Although participants' age distribution is different in the Philippines and Germany, we used both samples as Wang, Van Iddekinge, Zhang and Bishoff (2018) in their meta-analytic article did not find an influence of followers age on leadership ratings. (Berger et al, 2011) and validated in German (Kolbe, 2009).…”

Aligning Leader Behaviors With Innovation Requirements Improves Performance: An Experimental Study

“…Experiments have many advantages compared to field studies, particularly that it is easier to control influences that are not of central importance to the research questions under investigation ( Antonakis et al, 2010 , 2014 ; Antonakis, 2017 ; Hughes et al, 2018 ). Specifically, in this experiment, we controlled for additional situational cues such as performance information that could change the perception of leaders ( Lord et al, 1978 ; Wang et al, 2019 ). Therefore, causal conclusions can be drawn from our observed results, and we can be confident that leader behavior did influence performance and not vice versa.…”

“…Furthermore, there has been considerable debate on the influence of perception on self-report measures of leadership and innovation performance ( Reiter-Palmon et al, 2012 ; Antonakis, 2017 ; Hughes et al, 2018 ). For example, research shows that knowledge about leaders’ performance influences the evaluation of leader behaviors ( Lord et al, 1978 ; Wang et al, 2019 ).…”

Investigating Japanese Business Affiliates’ Cross-Border Knowledge Transfer In Northern Malaysia

“…They also encourage and motivate others with a common and mutual vision of future. These leaders are usually very skilled in communication and thus, are capable of effectively motivating team members who strive hard to acquire knowledge for personal development and workplace achievement (Para-González et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2019). When this happens, the learning intent will increase greatly and employees will be bound to connect more effectively in the process of knowledge transfer.…”