Heike Bruch

An Affective Events Model of Charismatic Leadership Behavior: A Review, Theoretical Integration, and Research Agenda

Although research has long focused on the consequences of leaders’ charismatic behavior, the antecedents of such leadership are increasingly gaining scholarly attention. Nevertheless, the antecedent-oriented literature on charismatic leadership has been fragmented to date and lacks theoretical integration. Also, important gaps remain within this developing line of inquiry. Therefore, this article systematically reviews extant research on charismatic leadership behavior emergence and advances a more comprehensive perspective by integrating previous work into an overall conceptual framework. Building on these considerations, the authors outline potentially fruitful directions for future research.

Age-Based Faultlines and Perceived Productive Energy: The Moderation of Transformational Leadership

This article addresses the role of age-based faultlines in relation to the perceived productive energy of work teams and transformational leadership as a potential moderator of this relationship. Based on social identity and social categorization theory, teams that have strong age-based faultlines— defined as age subgroup formation that is reinforced by internal alignment with other demographic characteristics (tenure and sex)—should show a lower level of perceived productive energy than do teams that have weak faultlines. In teams with high levels of perceived transformational leadership, this effect should be reversed. Study hypotheses were tested on a sample of 664 individuals in 72 teams from a multinational company. Results showed a marginally significant negative relationship between age-based faultlines and teams’ productive energy, although the moderation effect of transformational leadership was found to be significant. These results point toward transformational leadership as a promising strategy for overcoming the negative effects of age-based faultlines in team settings.

Social distance as a moderator of the effects of transformational leadership: Both neutralizer and enhancer

Following recent interest in contextual factors and how they might influence the effects of transformational leadership, we consider the social distance between leaders and followers as a cross-level moderator of the relationships between senior level managers’ transformational leadership and individual-level outcomes. Our sample comprised 268 individuals in 50 leader-follower groups. Results revealed that high social distance reduced or neutralized transformational leadership’s association with followers’ emulation of leader behavior. In contrast, high levels of social distance between leaders and followers enhanced the effects of transformational leadership on individuals’ perceptions of their units’ positive emotional climate and individuals’ sense of collective efficacy. Results not only highlight the importance of social distance as a contextual variable affecting leader-follower relations but also suggest that the same contextual variable may have differential effects, enhancing some relationships and neutralizing others.

Age, resistance to change, and job performance

Purpose – In light of the increasingly aging workforce, it is interesting from both a theoretical and practical perspective to investigate empirically the commonly held stereotype that older workers are more resistant to change (RTC). Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the age/RTC relationship, considering tenure and occupational status (blue/white collar employees) as additional boundary conditions. Furthermore, the paper investigates the relationship between RTC and individual performance, thereby introducing RTC as a mediator in the age/job performance relationship. Design/methodology/approach – Study hypotheses are tested among a sample of 2,981 employees from diverse companies. Structural equation modeling with bootstrapping procedures is applied to investigate the moderated-indirect model. Findings – Contrary to common stereotypes, employee age is negatively related to RTC. Tenure and occupational status are further identified as boundary conditions for this relationship. Moreove...

Strategic change decisions: doing the right change right

Abstract We use the case of German aviation Group Deutsche Lufthansa and its strategic change program, ‘D-Check Maintaining Leadership’, to illustrate how a large company was able to execute group-wide change in order to effectively secure its future despite a highly turbulent environment. In this context, we found that top executives must systematically make two decisions. First, they need to decide what the right change is for their company and second, they need to decide how to implement the change correctly. In the process of making these decisions, various critical factors also need to be taken into individual consideration in a methodical, deliberate way. Details of Lufthansas program are provided and the benefits of and insights into pre-implementation decision-making processes are assessed for framing and subsequently implementing strategic change. The impact of leadership and management decisions for successful strategic change is discussed in the analysis. We round up our discussion with major lessons learned.

How top management team behavioural integration can impact employee work outcomes: Theory development and first empirical tests

This article explores whether a top management team’s (TMT) behavioural integration relates to the work outcomes of employees. We first discuss likely theoretical mechanisms for such a relationship by integrating the literature on top management team behavioural integration with the literature on organizational climate, productive energy and employee work outcomes. Subsequently, we test our hypotheses in a dataset containing the responses of 191 top management team members and 5048 employees from 63 organizations by using structural equation modelling. The results show that top management team behavioural integration is related positively to an organization’s productive energy, which in turn is related to employees’ increased job satisfaction and decreased turnover intentions. By providing first insights into the consequences of top management team behavioural integration for employees, this article opens a new avenue for scientific inquiry on the organizational impact of top management team behaviour.

Investigating the Emotional Basis of Charismatic Leadership: The Role of Leaders' Positive Mood and Emotional Intelligence

The relevance of affective factors in the charismatic leadership process has been widely acknowledged in leadership research. Building on this notion, the present study empirically investigated the role of leaders’ positive mood and emotional intelligence in the development of charismatic leadership behaviors. We developed hypotheses linking these constructs and tested them in a sample of 34 leaders and their 165 direct followers from a multinational corporation. Results showed that both leaders’ positive mood and leaders’ emotional intelligence were positively related to their charismatic leadership behaviors, as rated by followers. Further, we found leaders’ emotional intelligence to moderate the relationship between leaders’ positive mood and their charismatic leadership behaviors. Emotionally intelligent leaders exhibited charismatic leadership behaviors to a high extent, largely irrespective of their degree of positive mood. In contrast, leaders low on emotional intelligence were more likely to exhibit charismatic behaviors when their positive mood was high, while they were less likely to exhibit such behaviors when their positive mood was low. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for leadership theory, research, and practice.

Age diversity, age discrimination, and performance consequences - A cross organizational study

The article presents the results of research on the relationship between age diversity in the workplace and corporate performance. It focuses on perceptions of ageism in the workplace. An overview of related previous studies is provided, along with details of the research protocol, which involved a survey of over 18,000 employees and executives. It was found that increased age diversity correlated with higher levels of perceived age-based discrimination. Perceived age discrimination was also negatively correlated with performance.

Consequences of Collective-Focused Leadership and Differentiated Individual-Focused Leadership Development and Testing of an Organizational-Level Model

Recent advances in leadership research suggest that collective-focused leadership climate and differentiated individual-focused leadership might simultaneously, yet oppositely, affect collective outcomes. The present study extends this literature by addressing open questions regarding theory, methods, statistics, and level of analysis. Therefore, a new and more parsimonious theoretical model is developed on the organizational-level of analysis. Drawing on the commitment literature, we argue for opposite relations of the two leadership constructs on the affective organizational commitment climate. We subsequently theorize that contingent-reward leadership climate moderates these opposing relationships, making our study the first in this field to investigate moderators. Last, we reason that organizational effectiveness is enhanced when affective commitment is “put into action” and raises the organizational citizenship behavior climate. Our three-path moderated-mediation hypotheses are tested, and supported, by structural equation modeling analyses in a multisource data set containing 16,911 respondents from 157 companies. Extensive alternative model testing shows that our theory and findings are robust.

How to empower employees: using training to enhance work units’ collective empowerment

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, whether an employee training program can enhance the collective perception of empowerment of work units within an organization. The authors hypothesized that training participation relates to empowerment by enhancing the potency, meaningfulness, impact, and autonomy of the employees. Design/methodology/approach - – The authors collected data at two time points, before and after the training intervention. Over the two periods, the sample consisted of an average of 2,383 employees nested in 36 work units of a large multinational company. Findings - – The results indicated a positive relationship between training participation and increased levels of collective psychological empowerment, with differential effects on the dimensions of empowerment. Practical implications - – This study provides evidence of the positive relationship between training and empowerment, suggesting training effects across levels of analysis. The results indicated dimensions of empowerment that are more and such that are less prone to training. Such knowledge may help to inform organizations in developing training strategies. The authors provide recommendations for a respective training program. Originality/value - – This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between training participation of individual employees and shared empowerment perceptions within their work units, adding an important antecedent to the research on empowerment. In addition, the authors propose ways of how individual employees can affect shared perceptions among work-unit members. The study offers insights into the development of empowered work units, the vertical transfer of training across levels of analysis and implications for training programs.