Jeffrey C. Kohles

The importance of self‐ and shared leadership in team based knowledge work: A meso‐level model of leadership dynamics

Purpose – To address the increasing need for novel approaches to leadership that deal with the challenges organizations face as they flatten, diversify, and confront increasingly complex problems.Design/methodology/approach – A meso‐level theoretical model is developed that outlines the relationship between self‐ and shared leadership, focusing on the intermediary processes of trust, potency, and commitment that may lead to the development of shared leadership and ultimately more innovative knowledge creation.Findings – Nine propositions are developed, addressing the relationships between self‐ and shared leadership, concluding with some of the theoretical and practical implications of the model and specific recommendations for future empirical work in this area.Research limitations/implications – An important boundary condition of the model is that it assumes team and organizational incentives are in place to encourage team building and the facilitation of team over individual achievements.Practical impl...

Can I Trust You to Trust Me? A Theory of Trust, Monitoring, and Cooperation in Interpersonal and Intergroup Relationships

Drawing on the diverse literatures of game theory, negotiation, interpersonal trust, and interorganizational relationships, the authors develop a theoretical model of the relationships among trust, monitoring, and cooperation in interpersonal and intergroup interactions. They use the concept of isomorphism as a basis for developing this theory, observing that although the constructs may differ in structure across levels, they may still have similar functions. They also argue that a more explicit distinction between own and others trust, own and others monitoring, and own and others cooperation is critical for better understanding the relationships among trust, monitoring, and cooperation. By making this distinction between own and other and by drawing on four distinct literatures, the authors provide greater precision in how trust, monitoring, and cooperation are defined, and they provide a more comprehensive and variegated view of the relationships among the constructs through the development of specific research propositions. They conclude with potential contributions of the model for future research and practice.

Charting the Language of Leadership: A Methodological Investigation of President Bush and the Crisis of 9/11

In many ways, leadership is a phenomenon that is ideally suited for new and inventive research methods. For researchers who seek to reliably study and systematically compare linguistically based elements of the leadership relationship, computerized content analysis has the potential to supplement, extend, and qualify existing leadership theory and practice. Through an examination of President Bushs rhetoric and the media coverage before and after the crisis of 9/11. the authors explore how elements of the Presidents speeches changed in response to the post-crisis environment. Using this example, the authors illustrate the process of computerized content analysis and many of its strengths and limitations, with the hope of facilitating future leadership research that uses this approach to explore important contextual and symbolic elements of the leadership relationship.

Crisis and Charisma in the California Recall Election

The 2003 California recall election represented a unique opportunity to study leadership in the context of what has been described in the popular media as an economic and political crisis. Participants (N= 311) reported their perceptions of the current situation in California and their tendency to attribute outcomes to leaders rather than situational factors (the Romance of Leadership Scale, or RLS). They subsequently watched video clips of the incumbent, the incumbent party challenger and the outside challenger, and rated their delivery style, charisma and expected effectiveness in office. Results indicate that both challengers were rated as more charismatic than the incumbent, and crisis perceptions were related to expected effectiveness ratings for all three candidates. In addition, higher charismatic delivery was associated with higher ratings of charisma and effectiveness. Finally, the RLS was significantly related to ratings of the outside challenger’s charisma, and interacted with crisis perceptions to predict charisma ratings of both the incumbent party challenger and the outside challenger. Implications for the relationship between crisis and charisma, the importance of charismatic delivery style, and situational influences on the RLS are discussed.

Negotiating Gender Role Expectations: Rhetorical Leadership and Women in the US Senate

The historical paucity of US women senators has provided little opportunity to study women at one of the highest and most prestigious leadership levels. Through a content analysis of 12 months of public discourse in a variety of media, we explore the rhetorical leadership of women senators as they carry out their elected roles. Results indicate that women senators use significantly less aggressive and more ambivalent speech when compared to political norms, and are less likely to use terms denoting accomplishment, praise and human interest. Overall, our results suggest that women continue to feel the effects of gender stereotypes and expectations in higher levels of political office, and these effects may have important negative implications for perceptions of their leadership and effectiveness.

The vision integration process: Applying Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory to leader–follower communications

Involving followers in the communication of a new vision can be critical to its ultimate adoption. Viewing vision as a relatively novel guiding framework that may or may not “diffuse” throughout an organization, we apply Roger’s (2003) Diffusion of Innovations model to the visioning process. Employees from a large supermarket chain (n = 1481) completed surveys concerning vision knowledge, perceptions of the vision’s innovation characteristics (i.e. relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and complexity), bidirectional leader–follower communication about the vision, perceived integration of the vision into work behaviors, and organizational commitment. Perceptions of the innovation characteristics of the vision were related to both vision integration and commitment. Based on our findings, we argue that a new vision can be conceptualized as an innovation, in which followers are actively involved in decisions of adoption or rejection. We advocate a more balanced approach to vision integration that highlights both leader and follower roles.

Comparing leaders across contexts, culture, and time: Computerized content analysis of leader–follower communications

Computer-aided text analysis (CATA) has enormous potential for expanding the study of leadership communications. Building on previous calls for more creative methodologies for studying leadership, scholars need to be continually innovative in utilizing textual data from diverse sources (e.g. emails, letters, memos, annual reports, statements to shareholders, executive speeches, interview and meeting transcripts, training materials, newsletters, websites, blogs, etc.) to move beyond the “typical” leadership study in management and organizational psychology. We review the use of CATA to compare leadership communications across different contexts and historical time periods, providing examples of studies that have utilized this approach. Given both its strengths and limitations, we argue that CATA represents an important tool to help unravel further illustrations of rhetorical leadership in a wide variety of leadership contexts, particularly in situations in which impartial comparisons of leaders across situations are of primary interest.

Leadership in “Confucian Asia”: a three-country study of justice, trust, and transformational leadership†

Increasing globalization and the economic uncertainty inherent in the recent financial crisis have strained the already tenuous commitment of many employees, making followers’ perceptions of justice and trust more critical now than ever before in retaining a loyal workforce. A model of leadership, organizational justice, trust, and work outcomes such as commitment and satisfaction, similar to the one tested in the US, was extended to three countries in the so-called “Confucian Asian Cluster” in the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study. Data were collected from executives in: Mainland China (N=131), Singapore (N=246), and Taiwan (N=99). Results indicate that transformational leaders in the Mainland build trust through procedural justice and distributive justice; trust in the leader is, in turn, related to job satisfaction and commitment. Transformational leaders in Singapore work indirectly through both distributive and procedural justice mechanisms to build trust and work outcomes, and also directly through trust to influence satisfaction and commitment. Finally, leaders in Taiwan use transformational leadership to influence procedural justice, trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Implications are discussed for leaders attempting to foster committed and satisfied workers in light of challenging economic circumstances.

Leading and Learning to Change: The Role of Leadership Style and Mindset in Error Learning and Organizational Change

ABSTRACT Change and innovation are increasingly critical to organizational survival, as well as sustained success. While it is common to discuss mistakes as critical components of the learning process, how can organizations balance the detrimental costs of workplace mistakes with the beneficial outcomes of increased risk-taking and innovation? This cross-regional comparative research investigates the relationship between employee perceptions of leadership style, mindset (fixed versus growth), and orientation to error learning in a sample of 554 employees recruited in Europe, China, and the US. We examine the relationship between a leader’s perceived style – transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, and aversive leadership – follower mindset, and attitudes toward error learning. Our results suggest that transformational leadership fosters significantly more positive attitudes toward employee error learning, while laissez-faire and aversive leadership styles actively inhibit employee error learning. Somewhat surprisingly, in two of the three samples, laissez-faire leadership showed the strongest and most negative effect on error learning orientation, although followers with fixed mindsets reported being less likely to learn from errors regardless of leadership style. Our findings examine the relationship between leadership style and employee error learning and highlight that inattentive leaders may be particularly destructive in work settings that seek to develop creativity and innovation as part of the organizational change process.