The Emotion of Admiration Improves Employees’ Goal Orientations and Contextual Performance

Abstract

Admiration is the other-praising emotion elicited by the display of outstanding skills, talents, or achievements.Most leadership theories state that effective leaders are ad mired role models that fo llo wers emu late. Nevertheless, no demonstration has been provided so far about the actual role of ad miration in the leader-follower relationship. This paper shows that leaders who display technical and managerial co mpetences motivate employees by means of the positive emotion of admiration they elicit. Specifically, we hypothesized and demonstrated that admirat ion elicited in employees by their leader's skills increases both their goal orientation to prove and imp rove their own skills and their contextual performance. In a first field experiment on 137 sales representatives we observed an indirect positive relationship between leader's skills and followers' state-goal orientations. Admiration mediated the positive effect o f leader's skills on emp loyees' motivation. In this study, we also observed a direct and detrimental impact of leaders' skills on employees learn ing and proving goal orientations. In a second, cross-sectional, study on 146 full-t ime teachers we observed that admiration -co mpared with happiness and gratitude-is the best predictor of state-learning-goal orientation and organizat ional citizenship behaviors. Implications and limits are d iscussed.

“I don't want to be near you, unless…”: The interactive effect of unethical behavior and performance onto relationship conflict and workplace ostracism

“…Employees and work groups focus heavily on achieving high performance because of organizational expectations and the allocation of desirable rewards (Kerr, ; Latham & Locke, ). Employees with high performance are regarded as being particularly useful to the organization's survival and continued success (Borman & Motowidlo, ), and tend to be role models and admired among other employees (Galliani & Vianello, ). Hence, when employees behave unethically, but are also high performers, their overall behavior is judged to align with a politically preferable conclusion (Ditto et al., ; Gino et al., ; Haidt, )—to support high job performance for the good of the organization and its members.…”

Crying Is in the Eyes of the Beholder: An Attribution Theory Framework of Crying at Work

“…Other emotions are more likely to be neutral with regard to helping behaviors. Admiration strengthens positive feelings toward the one being admired and can also lead the observer to strive harder to achieve their own organizational goals (Galliani & Vianello, 2012). Admiration results from upward comparisons, such that the observer may feel additional assistance or support is not needed by the one being admired (Smith, 2000).…”

The Effects of Occupational Status and Sex-Typed Jobs on the Evaluation of Men and Women

“…Furthermore, emotions (admiration and envy) can trigger positive interpersonal effects in subordinates. Considering that admiration is a source of motivation to emulate role models (e.g., Haidt and Keltner, 2004 ), subordinates could be motivated to improve their own skills or to demonstrate competence in achieving goals ( Galliani and Vianello, 2012 ) in order to gain favorable judgements from their leaders. Furthermore, admiring displayed warmth could also promote behaviors relevant to peer relationship formation ( Algoe and Haidt, 2009 ) (e.g., cooperating with one another), while elicited envy would serve to protect workers’ self-esteem in relation to competent competitors who achieve relatively superior outcomes ( Fiske et al, 2002 ).…”