Kara A. Arnold

Transformational Leadership and Psychological Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Meaningful Work

Two studies investigated the relationship between transformational leadership, the meaning that individuals ascribe to their work, and their psychological well-being. In Study 1, the perceptions of meaningful work partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and positive affective well-being in a sample of Canadian health care workers (N=319). In Study 2, the meaning that a separate sample of service workers (N=146) ascribed to their work fully mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and psychological well-being, after controlling for humanistic work beliefs. Overall, these results support and add to the range of positive mental health effects associated with transformational leadership and are suggestive of interventions that organizations can make to improve well-being of workers.

Predicting workplace aggression: a meta-analysis.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 57 empirical studies (59 samples) concerning enacted workplace aggression to answer 3 research questions. First, what are the individual and situational predictors of interpersonal and organizational aggression? Second, within interpersonal aggression, are there different predictors of supervisor- and coworker-targeted aggression? Third, what are the relative contributions of individual (i.e., trait anger, negative affectivity, and biological sex) and situational (i.e., injustice, job dissatisfaction, interpersonal conflict, situational constraints, and poor leadership) factors in explaining interpersonal and organizational aggression? Results show that both individual and situational factors predict aggression and that the pattern of predictors is target specific. Implications for future research are discussed.

Transformational leadership or the iron cage: which predicts trust, commitment and team efficacy?

This paper investigates the differential effects of transformational leadership and the “iron cage” on trust, commitment and team efficacy at the team level. Transformational leadership has been shown to have positive effects on trust, commitment and team efficacy. However, it could be argued that these results are not due to the leadership but to the idea that the team has developed strong norms that constrain their behavior and “force” them to perform. The rival hypothesis that the iron cage results in trust, commitment and team efficacy is tested using hierarchical regression analysis. We find that transformational leadership in teams predicts trust, commitment and team efficacy over and beyond the perceptions of the iron cage. The iron cage adds to the prediction of commitment only. Results suggest that while encouraging strong values and norms within a team will lead to increased commitment, focusing on transformational leadership in teams is a more effective way to encourage the development of trust, commitment and team efficacy.

Integrating transformational and participative versus directive leadership theories

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which male and female leaders report engaging in participative versus directive intellectually stimulating transformational leadership behaviour across three different contexts (business, government and military).Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 64 senior leaders (29 female and 35 male) across Canada.Findings – Leaders were more likely to describe using a participative versus directive approach to intellectual stimulation. Gender similarities and differences also appeared across contexts: government leaders reported almost twice as many directive examples as business leaders, and men and women in both of these contexts were very similar in their reports about how they enacted intellectual stimulation. In contrast, men and women in the military diverged, with male leaders reporting more participative behaviour than female leaders.Research limitations/implications – This study extends the leadersh...

Perceived organizational support, employee health and emotions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine work‐related emotion as a mechanism explaining the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS) and employee physical health.Design/methodology/approach – Study participants were employees at a large Canadian health care organization (n=72). A survey methodology was utilized.Findings – POS was positively related to physical health. Negative emotion fully mediated this relationship between POS and health, and positive emotion was found to partially mediate this relationship.Research limitations/implications – Cross sectional survey data is one potential limitation. Findings suggest that further investigation of the links between POS, positive and negative job‐related emotion and physical health would be a fruitful avenue of research.Practical implications – Organizations can increase POS through actions that have been investigated in past research. Increasing POS would appear to be one avenue that an organization can utilize to positively inf...

Individually considerate transformational leadership behaviour and self sacrifice

Purpose – This study aims to investigate how leaders report enacting individually considerate transformational leadership behaviour. More specifically, the extent to which they report engaging in supportive, developmental or self‐sacrificial aspects of this behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 51 senior leaders (21 female and 30 male) in the public and private sectors across five provinces in Canada. A blended grounded theory approach was utilised and suggestions for future research are presented.Findings – Leaders reported being more likely to engage in supportive (59 percent) than developmental (41 percent) individually considerate transformational leadership behaviour. Further, male leaders were less likely than female leaders to report engaging in development in self‐sacrificing ways (21 percent versus 62 percent).Research limitations/implications – This study extends the leadership literature to better understand the behavioural aspects of individual ...

Customer incivility and employee well-being: testing the moderating effects of meaning, perspective taking and transformational leadership

ABSTRACT This study investigated factors that influence the relationship between experiencing customer incivility and the psychological well-being of employees in the service industry (N = 215). Using the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we identified and tested three factors that may buffer employees from the negative effects of customer incivility: finding meaning in work, perspective taking, and transformational leadership of supervisors. Transformational leadership was found to moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being. Meaning and perspective taking did not moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being, but did have a positive association with employee well-being. These findings contribute to the literature on customer incivility and suggest that organization-based resources that influence both primary and secondary appraisal, such as transformational leadership, are useful in buffering the harmful employee outcomes related to customer incivility.

Transformational Leadership and Employee Psychological Well-Being: A Review and Directions for Future Research.

This review paper focuses on answering 2 research questions: (a) Does transformational leadership predict employee well-being? (b) If so, how and when does this prediction occur? A systematic computerized search and review of empirical papers published between January 1980 and December 2015 was conducted. Forty papers were found that met the criteria of reporting empirical results, being published in English, and focused on answering the above research questions. Based on these papers it appears that, in general, transformational leadership positively predicts positive measures of well-being, and negatively predicts negative measures of well-being (i.e., ill-being). However, recent findings suggest that this is not always such a simple relationship. In addition, several mediating variables have been established, demonstrating that in many cases there is an indirect effect of transformational leadership on employee well-being. Although some boundary conditions have been examined, more research is needed on moderators. The review demonstrated the importance of moving forward in this area with stronger research designs to determine causality, specifying the outcome variable of interest, investigating the dimensions of transformational leadership separately, and testing more complicated relationships.

The Influence of Sexual Orientation on the Perceived Fit of Male Applicants for Both Male- and Female-Typed Jobs

Research demonstrates the bias faced by individuals engaged in occupations that are perceived as inconsistent with their gender. The lack of fit model and role congruity theory explain how gender stereotypes give rise to the perception that an individual lacks the attributes necessary to be successful in a gender-incongruent job. Men employed in jobs traditionally held by women are perceived as wimpy and undeserving of respect. The majority of studies in this area have, however, failed to account for the sexual orientation of the individual being rated. Therefore, we carried out an experiment where 128 adults with experience in recruitment and selection, recruited through Qualtrics, rated heterosexual and gay male applicants applying for a gender-typed job. The heterosexual male was rated less effectual, less respect-worthy, and less hirable in the female-typed job condition than in the male-typed job condition. The gay male applicant, however, was rated similarly on all criteria across job gender-types, suggesting the gay male applicant was viewed as androgynous rather than high in femininity and low in masculinity as inferred by implicit inversion theory. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Transformational leadership in an extreme context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how male and female leaders define effective leadership in an extreme context. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted in-depth interviews with leaders working in an extreme context (a matched sample of female and male Majors and Colonels in the Canadian Armed Forces) and analysed military training materials. Findings – In the military, male and female leadership looks much more similar than might be expected. Further, surprisingly this is not occurring because women are leading in more masculine ways, but rather the opposite; men are leading in more feminine ways. Practical implications – There is a need for organizations to recognize and acknowledge the role of feminine leadership behaviours. This may also give women a better opportunity to succeed in these types of leadership roles. Originality/value – This study contributes to the leadership literature by furthering our understanding of the boundary conditions for transformational leadership in relation to gender stereotypes, situational strength, and social identity.