“Perfect Leader, Perfect Leadership?” Linking Leaders’ Perfectionism to Monitoring, Transformational, and Servant Leadership Behavior

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in perfectionism and its many facets, there is a lack of research on this phenomenon in the context of leadership. Attending to this deficit, the present study is the first to investigate the relationship between the three facets of perfectionism (self-oriented, socially prescribed, and other-oriented perfectionism) and three types of self-rated leadership behavior. In Study 1 (N = 182), leaders’ perfectionism and its association to their organizational, goal-oriented leadership behavior—self-rated as transactional (management by exception) and transformational leadership—is explored. In Study 2 (N = 185), the relationship of leaders’ perfectionism to their servant leadership as a people-centered leadership behavior is investigated. In line with the perfectionism social disconnection model (PSDM), we assume other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism to be positively related to management by exception (i.e., monitoring behavior) and negatively related to transformational and servant leadership, whereas the opposite pattern is primarily predicted for self-oriented perfectionism. Our findings in Study 1 reveal a negative relationship between leaders’ self-oriented perfectionism as well as positive relationships to their other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism in management by exception, while no substantial correlations with transformational leadership have emerged. In Study 2, a negative association between other-oriented perfectionism and the forgiveness dimension of servant leadership is revealed, indicating a possible barrier to building interpersonal relationships of acceptance and trust. Additionally, self-oriented perfectionism has been proven to be a rather favorable trait in servant leadership.

The Trend of Authentic Leadership Skills in Nursing Education: The Key Role of Perfectionism and Self-Efficacy

“…In another study, the relationship between perfectionism (self-oriented, socially prescribed, and other-oriented perfectionism) and three types of self-rated leadership behavior (Monitoring, Transformational, and Servant Leadership) was noted. However, this relation is not clear and requires a deeper insight [ 32 ]. It should be noted that this has not been verified in relation to nursing students.…”

“…There are limited studies analyzing the relationship between perfectionism and self-efficacy for shaping or improving leadership skills in nursing. An association between perfectionism and self-efficacy with regard to leadership skills was found between emergency medicine students [ 31 ] and the empirical study conducted with German leaders [ 32 ]. For this reason, studies looking to determine the mechanisms of a positive relationship between self-efficacy and leadership skills with high maladaptive perfectionism are required.…”

Do Servant Leadership Self-Efficacy and Benevolence Values Predict Employee Performance within the Banking Industry in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Using a Serial Mediation Approach

“…The leader is to serve their people. It is better to be benevolent, doing a little kindness near or at home, than go far away to burn anger (DeYoung 2020; Otto et al 2021). Being centered; everyone can attempt to do good and do all kinds of kind actions and small acts with Loving one's fellow people benevolence is a fundamental concept in a value belief system.…”

The Big Three Perfectionism Scale–Short Form: An item response theory analysis of Italian workers

“…Furthermore, selforiented perfectionism (Stoeber et al, 2013) and perfectionistic strivings (Stoeber and Damian, 2016;Spagnoli et al, 2021b) and concerns (Stoeber and Damian, 2016;Spagnoli et al, 2021a) have been found to be positively associated with workaholism. Moreover, other-oriented perfectionism in leaders was found to be associated with monitoring behaviors and highlighted as a barrier to building trusting relationships (Otto et al, 2021). Other results investigated the effects of the interaction between managers' perfectionism and employees' perfectionism on work addiction, revealing that employees' socially prescribed perfectionism and work addiction was strongest when a manager was perceived to be addicted to work (Morkevičiûtė and Endriulaitienė, 2022).…”