Leader attributes, behavior, and leadership outcomes: An enrichment of implicit leadership theories

Abstract

This thesis enriches the understanding of implicit leadership and followership theories (ILTs and IFTs) by revealing the benefits of persons holding the leader role as being perceived as matching with certain attributes that are more commonly associated with followership prototypes. Specifically, quantitative results from Studies 1-3 of show that attributes previously associated with ILTs and IFTs can usefully be categorized into three groups: (1) leader-specific prototypical attributes (LSP; i.e., attributes that are commonly specifically used to describe a typical leader in the organization), (2) follower-specific prototypical attributes (FSP; i.e., attributes that are commonly specifically used to describe a typical follower), and (3) role-common prototypical attributes (CP; i.e., attributes that are viewed to be possessed by both leaders and followers). Using these empirically derived categories of attributes, I examined the unique contributions of leaders’ FSP to leadership outcomes in two additional studies. Results from a follower-only, cross-sectional dataset (Study 4) demonstrated the unique value of FSP in predicting followers’ perceptions of their leader’s consideration behavior, which was further related to those followers’ affective commitment towards the leader and organizational citizenship behavior. These findings were further supported by a multi-wave, leader-follower matched design (Study 5). Moreover, the relationship between leader self-views on the three sets of attributes and that from followers’ eyes were investigated, as well as the direct effects of leader self-views on FSP and their structural and considerate behaviors (Study 5). Overall, this thesis has important implications for the current literature.