Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management

M. Ronald Buckley, Anthony R. Wheeler, John E. Baur, Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781800430778
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management serves as the premier annual series dedicated to the exploration of cutting-edge topics in the field of human resources management.
This volume publishes theoretical and conceptual advancements in the field of human resources management related to leadership, the power of dyadic relationships in leadership development, ethical decision-making, prosocial advocacy for healthcare organizations, discrete incivility, mindfulness, and technological adaptations in employee selection.

CHAPTER 1

IS LEADERSHIP MORE THAN “I LIKE MY BOSS”?*

Francis J. Yammarino, Minyoung Cheong, Jayoung Kim and Chou-Yu Tsai

ABSTRACT

For many of the current leadership theories, models, and approaches, the answer to the question posed in the title, “Is leadership more than ‘I like my boss’?,” is “no,” as there appears to be a hierarchy of leadership concepts with Liking of the leader as the primary dimension or general factor foundation. There are then secondary dimensions or specific sub-factors of liking of Relationship Leadership and Task Leadership; and subsequently, tertiary dimensions or actual sub-sub-factors that comprise the numerous leadership views as well as their operationalizations (e.g., via surveys). There are, however, some leadership views that go beyond simply liking of the leader and liking of relationship leadership and task leadership. For these, which involve explicit levels of analysis formulations, often beyond the leader, or are multi-level in nature, the answer to the title question is “yes.” We clarify and discuss these various “no” and “yes” leadership views and implications of our work for future research and personnel and human resources management practice.

Keywords: leadership theories; liking/likability; relationship leadership; task leadership; multi-level leadership; leadership operationalizations

INTRODUCTION

Is leadership, both conceptually and empirically, something more than the simple notion of “I like my boss”? Or in the current vernacular regarding “like,” is leadership something more than the analog to the Facebook thumbs-up icon or the Twitter retweet symbol? Has about 100 years of leadership research provided the field with leadership theories, models, and approaches that offer sophisticated conceptual understanding and sound empirical work on leadership, or simply offered just nuanced versions of people liking, or not liking, their bosses? This is the issue explored here; and although we cannot provide a definitive answer, only comprehensive empirical work can do so, our conclusion is that for many current and past leadership theories, models, and approaches, the answer to the title question is “no,” with many of the concepts and measures being simply versions of liking the boss. The answer to the title question is “yes,” however, for several other current leadership views that generally involve explicit levels of analysis formulations, often beyond the leader, or are multi-level in nature.

To fully understand this somewhat controversial position, it is important to explore Liking and its key derivatives, liking of Relationship Leadership and Task Leadership, as well as some basic levels of analysis issues and the ways in which levels can contribute to the formulation and operationalization of leadership approaches that go beyond simply liking the boss. After developing these fundamental issues, we summarize several leadership approaches that fit the view of liking the leader as the primary conceptual dimension or general empirical factor foundation, and with secondary conceptual dimensions or specific empirical sub-factors of relationship leadership and task leadership. For these “no” answer to the title question leadership approaches, we highlight the tertiary conceptual dimensions or empirical sub-sub-factors that comprise these numerous leadership views as well as their operationalizations (e.g., via surveys).

Subsequently, we develop, primarily through a multi-level focus, what is required to move beyond liking of the leader and even liking of relationship leadership and task leadership. Determination for these leadership approaches that offer formulations beyond primarily liking the boss is whether they have a focus on the leader but with dimensions and factors that are not simply relationship leadership or task leadership, a focus beyond the leader with an explicit level of analysis higher than individual/leader level, or are multi-level in nature. For these “yes” answer to the title question leadership approaches, we then highlight and summarize the key elements that comprise these leadership views by focusing on their levels of analysis aspects.

By explicating the underlying dimensions and factors of both sets of leadership approaches, those that derive from liking the leader as well as those that rely on other notions, we hope to clarify the current state of leadership work from a conceptual perspective and to lay the ground work for future empirical work examining and fully testing these notions. In this regard, we also discuss the implications of our work for future research and personnel and human resources management (PHRM) practice.

LIKING: PRIMARY DIMENSION AND G FACTOR IN LEADERSHIP

The main theme and key point we develop in the next several sections is summarized in Fig. 1. As shown in the figure, there is a hierarchy of leadership dimensions and concepts that is also reflected in the operationalizations and measures, particularly survey-based ones, in the leadership field. The primary conceptual dimension and the general empirical or g factor in leadership is liking the boss. Deriving from this dimension and factor are two secondary conceptual dimensions and specific empirical s₁ and s₂ sub-factors of relationship leadership and task leadership, and more specifically, the liking of these leader styles. Deriving from these dimensions and factors are all the tertiary conceptual dimensions and actual empirical t₁ to t_n sub-sub factors that comprise many leadership views and their connections to relationship, task, or both types of leadership. Liking, at the top of the hierarchy, is viewed as the general or g factor that runs through the specific or s₁ and s₂ sub-factors of relationship leadership and task leadership that then run through the various actual or t₁ to t_n sub-sub-factors, at the bottom of the hierarchy, that comprise numerous leadership theories, models, and approaches as well as most operationalizations. This hierarchical view of leadership provides a way to integrate leadership conceptualizations and their operationalizations (see Bass, 2008) under a simplified framework and also offers an explanation of and solution to the issue of construct redundancy and construct proliferation in leadership and related work (see Banks, Gooty, Ross, Williams, & Harrington, 2018; Le, Schmidt, Harter, & Lauver, 2010).

Fig. 1. Hierarchy of Leadership Concepts Based on “Liking.”

Foundations

Leadership is a very broad and wide-ranging field with a long history that includes literally 1000s of definitions and 100s of theories, models, views, and approaches (for reviews, see Bass, 2008; Dinh et al., 2014; Dionne et al., 2014; Lord, Day, Zaccaro, Avolio, & Eagly, 2017; Yammarino, Dionne, Chun, & Dansereau, 2005; Yammarino, Salas, Serban, Shirreffs, & Shuffler, 2012; Zhao & Li, 2019; Zhu, Song, Zhu, & Johnson, 2019). For some scholars, this has resulted in a construct proliferation and redundancy problem in leadership (Banks et al., 2018), and others have attempted to simplify and integrate these leadership formulations (e.g., Yammarino & Dansereau, 2009). As noted by Bass (2008), Dansereau and Yammarino (1998a, 1998b, 1998c), and Yammarino (2012, 2017), despite this breath and multitude of formulations, there are some key commonalities in leadership work. Essentially, various antecedents of leadership (precursors or predictors such as fundamental underlying human processes) drive the numerous leadership processes and approaches that in turn result in various leadership consequences (outcomes or criteria such as leadership effectiveness). Moreover, leadership is inherently multi-level because you cannot be a leader without at least one follower; and as a leader, you (individual level) have to link with other people either on a one-to-one basis (dyad level) or on a one-to-many basis (group/team and collective/organization levels) and in a context (multiple levels). In this regard, leadership is a multi-level leader–follower interaction process that occurs in a particular situation where a leader and followers share a purpose and jointly and willingly accomplish things (see Yammarino, 2012, 2017).

In terms of the assessments of leaders, whether done in practice on-the-job through interactions with them or in a research setting primarily via surveys for example, essentially, followers’/subordinates’/direct reports’ assessments of leaders, are typically a function of their affective evaluations of the leaders (see Martinko, Mackey, Moss, Harvey, McAllister, & Brees, 2018; Mumford & Higgs, 2020). Although these evaluations can, in turn, impact subsequent (and perhaps even concurrent) behaviors, many current leadership approaches are thus simply assessing whether followers/subordinates/direct reports like their boss. And liking is a key element of an implicit or ideal leader type that followers hold and endorse (see Brown & Keeping, 2005; Hall & Lord, 1995; Lord & Maher, 1993; Martinko et al., 2018; van Knippenberg, 2011; Wayne & Ferris, 1990).

These implicit and ideal leader-type notions seem to provide a foundation for the liking of a boss/leader. Lord and Maher (1993) and Hall and Lord (1995) noted that perception and information-processing literatures imply that perceptions and implicit views of leadership are based on both affective and cognitive processing strategies. Affect and emotions work in leadership (e.g., on affect and various emotions; and emotional intelligence, labor, and contagion) has received increased attention (e.g., Gooty, Connelly, Griffith, & Gupta, 2010; Rajah, Song, & Arvey, 2011; Sadri, Weber, & Gentry, 2011); and the cognitive aspects of leadership have been widely researched (e.g., Bass, 2008; Brown & Keeping, 2005; Hall & Lord, 1995; Lord & Maher, 1993; Mumford & Higgs, 2020). These processing mechanisms determine followers’ and subordinates’ perceptions of leaders and have a key role in the often rapid formation of liking or disliking of a leader. Also, information about the situation and past events is used by followers and subordinates to judge a leader’s intentions and draw conclusions about his/her (subsequent/concurrent) behavior and effectiveness.

What Is Liking?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

What specifically is “liking”? In neuroscience, a multidisciplinary field which utilizes knowledge from psychology and biology/life sciences to study the nervous system as a whole (i.e., brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves), and in neuropsychology which studies the role of the nervous system in human and animal behavior and learning (e.g., Kolb & Whishaw, 2009; Squire et al., 2012), emotion is a body state triggered by external stimuli that emerges from perception and processing of stimuli in brain circuits and in the context of an unfolding event between social partners. Feeling, in these disciplines, is the mental state or conscious experiences that accompany the body state changes (see King, 2019). Moreover, the neural structures associated with emotion and cognition are deeply intertwined (Kolb & Whishaw, 2009), which suggests that each emotion may have a cognitive aspect to it, and each cognition may have an emotional ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Chapter 1. Is Leadership more than “I Like my Boss”?
• Chapter 2. Mindfulness and Relationships: An Organizational Perspective
• Chapter 3. Dyads of Politics and the Politics of Dyads: Implications for Leader Development
• Chapter 4. The Future of Unions in the United States
• Chapter 5. Prosocial Advocacy Voice in Healthcare: Implications for Human Resource Management
• Chapter 6. Discrete Incivility Events and Team Performance: A Cognitive Perspective on a Pervasive Human Resource (HR) Issue
• Chapter 7. HR Research and Practice from a Deonance Perspective
• Chapter 8. Using Computer-assisted Text Analysis (CATA) to Inform Employment Decisions: Approaches, Software, and Findings
• About the Authors