Organizational support theory (OST) explains how employees develop and respond to beliefs about their organization, with perceived organizational support (POS) representing a central construct within this framework. Integrating psychological empowerment theory, we examine an intrinsic motivational pathway through which POS relates to employee in-role performance and identify transformational leadership as a contextual catalyst that may strengthen this process. We test a multilevel moderated mediation model using multisource and multi-time data from 217 employees and 41 supervisors. Results indicate that POS is positively related to in-role performance through the psychological empowerment dimensions of competence and self-determination. Moreover, transformational leadership strengthens the relationship between POS and psychological empowerment, such that the indirect effects of POS on in-role performance through meaning, competence, and self-determination are significant when transformational leadership is high, but not when it is low. These findings show how exploring additional mediating mechanisms within OST can reveal theory-driven boundary conditions that help explain why POS often, but not always, translates into performance. Practically, they suggest that organizations may improve returns on support-enhancing practices by pairing those investments with leadership behaviors that help employees convert organizational support into intrinsic motivation.
Although leaders’ appropriate self-disclosure has long been viewed as an important aspect of leader communication, recent evidence suggests that when people disclose AI use in workplace communication, transparency backfires. As AI-supported leadership is likely here to stay, leaders face a dilemma: how can AI be disclosed while ensuring it is interpreted as appropriate and relationally attuned? Drawing on theorizing about leadership meta-talk, we shift focus from whether leaders should disclose AI use to reconceptualizing disclosure as a sensegiving act that can be framed in different ways to shape employees’ interpretations of leaders’ AI use. Specifically, we distinguish simple AI use disclosure from two meta-talk framings of disclosure: a task-focused explanation emphasizing productivity and a relation-focused explanation emphasizing fairness. We tested our theorizing in two studies. In an experiment ( N = 207), task-focused meta-talk reduced employee trust relative to simple disclosure, whereas relation-focused meta-talk did not differ significantly from simple disclosure. A critical incident study ( N = 335) offered complementary insights into how employees make sense of leaders’ AI use in practice, yielding a model showing how employees’ attributions shape relational interpretations and subsequent evaluations. Together, these findings indicate that meta-talk does not inherently lead to favorable interpretations, and some forms may even be detrimental.
Leader-member exchange (LMX) research has long recognized that managers and subordinates evaluate their shared relationship differently, and existing manager-rated measures have largely captured role-based exchange criteria while leaving the relational quality of the exchange unmeasured. Drawing on Uhl-Bien et al.’s Manager LMX (MLMX) scale and Brower et al.’s relational leadership framework, we develop and validate a Revised Manager LMX (R-MLMX) scale across five studies. R-MLMX integrates MLMX's role-based content as a foundation while adding an interpersonal connection dimension that corresponds to the benevolence component, which prior manager-rated measures did not operationalize. Studies 1 and 2 establish the scale's three-dimensional structure (interpersonal connection, initiative/dependability, and support/collaboration) using qualitative item generation, content validation, and exploratory factor analysis. Study 3 demonstrates construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. Studies 4 and 5 establish incremental and criterion-related validity, with R-MLMX predicting follower performance, leader motivation, and subordinate-rated outcomes beyond existing manager-rated LMX measures. Dimensional analyses further reveal that initiative/dependability drives most of R-MLMX's incremental predictive utility.
The phrase “leadership is socially constructed” is widely invoked but rarely clarified, creating conceptual ambiguity in leadership research. This paper disentangles the theoretical roots of constructionist thought in leadership studies by distinguishing four core traditions, constructivism, constructionism, co-construction, and critical constructionism, and extending the analysis to five additional perspectives: relational, discursive, narrative, performative, and Foucauldian. I argue that the general notion of social construction can be split into multiple distinct but related approaches, each with its own assumptions, strengths, and limitations. By distinguishing these traditions, I clarify how different strands of leadership scholarship conceptualize the processes through which leadership becomes meaningful in social life. The paper makes four contributions. First, it resolves conceptual slippage by offering a typology of nine constructionist traditions in leadership research, alongside five construction-adjacent perspectives that share constructionist assumptions. Second, it reframes leadership itself as a loosely bounded social concept sustained through shared linguistic conventions, helping explain why different constructionist traditions can coexist while examining different dimensions of leadership construction. Third, it develops a theoretical map of constructionist leadership research, showing how these traditions are complementary but epistemologically distinct. Fourth, it advances a non-essentialist research agenda that shifts attention from asking what leadership essentially is to examining how people, roles, actions, relationships, and outcomes become recognized, labeled, contested, or denied as leadership.
We present the validation of the General Inventory for Lasting Leadership 2.0 (GILL 2.0), a second-generation assessment grounded in Gill's holistic leadership framework. The model's six core leadership conditions—vision, purpose, shared values, strategy, empowerment, and engagement—were operationalized as distinct yet interrelated dimensions associated with engaged followership and leadership effectiveness. Item development emphasized behavioral specificity and observability, addressing calls for more actionable leadership assessments. A multi-stage validation process included expert review, psychometric testing (N = 479), and an independent replication sample (N = 537). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a six-factor structure, with both short and long versions demonstrating strong model fit. The GILL 2.0 showed strong convergence with transformational and ethical leadership, positive relationships with complexity leadership and management effectiveness, and weak relationships with authoritarian leadership. Positive associations emerged with proactive behavior, meaningful work, vigor, job satisfaction, and leadership effectiveness, while negative associations were found with work alienation. Incremental validity analyses indicated that GILL 2.0 dimensions explained additional variance beyond comparator leadership measures. Collectively, these findings position the GILL 2.0 as a theoretically grounded and developmentally useful open-access leadership assessment with applications in coaching, education, and technology-enabled developmental contexts.
Scholars have proposed that visionary leadership can be a particularly effective tool to motivate follower innovation. However, while they have also long recognized that autonomy is essential for individuals engaged in innovative activities, the role of autonomy for those who aim to guide others toward innovation has thus far been overlooked. In this research, we draw on the respective literatures on visionary leadership and innovation to argue that the extent to which leaders can use visionary leadership to motivate innovation depends on the leader's decision-making autonomy—that is, the leader's latitude to make important decisions. In a three-wave, supervisor-employee field study and an experimental vignette study, we find support for our prediction that visionary leadership is positively related to follower extra effort and, in turn, innovation, but that these links are contingent on the leader's decision-making autonomy. Overall, our research identifies an important contingency factor for visionary leadership's ability to motivate follower innovation by showing that such leadership is more effective when leaders have higher, rather than lower, decision-making autonomy.
Academic side hustles—entrepreneurial ventures pursued alongside traditional scholarly roles—are emerging as strategic assets for both individuals and institutions. Far more than sources of supplemental income, these ventures translate specialized academic expertise into real-world applications, advancing both career development and knowledge dissemination. Drawing on narrative reflection and literature-informed insights, we argue that academic entrepreneurship enhances both leadership scholars and scholarship through applied learning, enriched teaching, and research translation. We explore push-and-pull motivations, outline the benefits and tensions of hybrid identities, and offer practical strategies for integration. With institutional support, strategic alignment, and effective boundary management, academic side hustles can strengthen—not compete with—scholarly excellence. This article reframes faculty entrepreneurship as a source of organizational resilience and innovation within a hybrid knowledge economy in a way that benefits leadership scholars and their professional practice.
Leadership development programs traditionally emphasize the acquisition of leadership knowledge and skills, yet often fail to cultivate individuals’ internal leadership self-schemas. This gap is consequential because without strong leadership self-expectations, individuals may lack the internalized beliefs that shape their approach to leadership roles and opportunities, limiting the effectiveness of traditional development efforts. The present study investigates a mobile-based attribute conditioning intervention that aims to enhance individuals’ leader self-schema and self-expectations via Positive Implicit Leadership Theories (PILTs). In a randomized experimental design, 153 participants were assigned to either a positive leader self-schema conditioning group or a neutral control group using the smartphone application TAPPIT. Results revealed that the intervention significantly increased leader self-expectations, leadership self-efficacy, and social-normative motivation to lead, with leadership self-efficacy mediating the effects of leader self-expectations on motivation to lead. This study contributes to leadership development theory and practice by providing initial evidence that ethical, scalable, self-directed interventions can shape leadership self-cognition. By integrating the literature on implicit theories, associative conditioning, and self-fulfilling prophecy, the study opens new avenues for future scholarship and scalable practices.
Employees’ community citizenship behaviour is a significant factor in shaping an organisation's socially responsible image. However, existing theoretical accounts could be further strengthened by identifying effective mechanisms and strategies to improve community citizenship behaviour among employees. Employing social learning theory, this research examines the relationship of servant leadership with employees’ community citizenship behaviour potentially induced through their public service motivation and the moderating role of leader-follower value congruence. Hypotheses were tested in a sample of 497 employees working in 103 teams across 36 hotels at popular tourist destinations in China, using multilevel structural equation modelling to analyse data collected across three waves. Findings show that public service motivation mediates the positive relationship between servant leadership and community citizenship behaviour within the sampled setting, and that leader-follower value congruence enhances the impact of servant leadership on employees’ public service motivation and the resulting community citizenship behaviour. Theoretical insights and practical implications are provided for managers in service-intensive settings similar to this study's context.
This study provides an initial investigation into the objective performance, subjective perceptions, and neural correlates of relational leadership behaviors demonstrated by large language model (LLM)-powered artificial intelligence (AI) leaders in the workplace. A 2 & times; 2 & times; 2 mixed-design experiment was conducted, with leadership style (relational versus non-relational) and supervisor type (human versus AI) as between-subjects variables, and stress level (high versus low) as a within-subjects variable. Eighty-two university students performed simulated automotive parts inspections under either human or AI supervision. The results showed that LLM-based AI leaders could effectively simulate relational leadership behaviors, enhancing workplace well-being, self-perceptions, and leadership evaluations. Most subjective perceptions were similar under human and AI supervision, with a few measures favoring human leaders. While high stress negatively affected subordinates' subjective perceptions, relational leadership helped buffer these effects. A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) scanner was used to assess prefrontal cortex activity, and results revealed that activation in brain areas associated with task switching and emotional regulation was linked to AI leadership, relational leadership behavior, and stress levels. These findings suggest that AI-driven relational leadership offers benefits in organizational settings, but careful design is needed to mitigate stress-related challenges. The study provides initial empirical evidence supporting the potential of LLMs as relational AI leaders while emphasizing the importance of deliberate design to promote workplace well-being.
The growth of hybrid and remote work has renewed interest in how leadership supports employee work engagement in digitally mediated environments. Although leadership is a well-established predictor of engagement, most evidence is drawn from co-located contexts. This meta-analysis advances contextual leadership research by estimating the overall association between leadership and engagement in hybrid and remote work and testing moderation by work arrangement, leadership category, cultural context, and engagement measure. A systematic search of five databases (2015-2025) identified 24 independent samples (N = 8,166) using the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Risk of bias was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) cross-sectional checklist, and random-effects models were applied. Leadership showed a moderate positive association with engagement (r = .39, 95% CI [.33, .45]). Heterogeneity was high (I-2 = 90%) and partly explained by leadership category, which accounted for 33% of between-study variance. Relations-oriented behaviours demonstrated the strongest associations (r = .50), followed by change-oriented behaviours (r = .48), then task-oriented behaviours (r = .32) and supervisor-support constructs (r = .31). Overall, leadership continues to predict engagement when work is dispersed, underscoring the importance of contextual and relationally focused leader behaviours for supporting employees' psychological need for relatedness when face-to-face interaction is limited.
Over forty years have passed since the introduction of transformational leadership theory with the proposition that such leaders inspire followers to perform beyond expectation. However, despite extensive research linking transformational leadership to follower performance, the literature has faced criticism for lacking definitional clarity and a coherent integrative theory, with over 30 motivational constructs claimed to serve as mediators. Responding to calls for parsimonious consolidation, we propose that personal engagement theory provides a robust framework to organize the psychological mechanisms underlying transformational leadership effects. We argue that the majority of the varied mediational explanations are best understood as manifestations of three core psychological conditions for followers—meaningfulness, safety, and availability. Using a mixed-methods approach, we first conduct a narrative review and content validation to demonstrate that most transformational leadership mechanisms studied to date align with these three employee experiences of self-in-role. We further test our consolidated model in a study of 194 U.S. Marines, supporting a two-stage process in which transformational leaders foster three psychological conditions that enhance engagement, in turn, driving higher job performance. Our research addresses critiques of theoretical fragmentation and overlapping mediators, offering a parsimonious, empirically supported model that could help reignite research aimed at advancing our theoretical and practical understanding of transformational leaders and their impacts.
Purpose This study systematically examines the invisible costs that women experience while occupying leadership positions, identifying the structural and cultural mechanisms that erode the sustainability of their careers. It consolidates dispersed cross-disciplinary evidence and proposes an integrative, theory-informed framework that captures the gendered dynamics embedded in organizational leadership. Design/methodology/approach A three-phase systematic conceptual review was conducted using the Scopus database, focusing on peer-reviewed English-language publications from 2010 to 2024. From an initial sample of 85 records, 36 met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed through thematic synthesis in Atlas.ti (v.25). The analysis followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines and employed a hybrid inductive-deductive coding strategy to identify conceptual regularities and theoretical relationships. Findings The review identified six interrelated categories of invisible costs: (a) motherhood and caregiving demands, (b) likability pressure, (c) networking exclusion, (d) continuous validation effort, (e) gender backlash, and (f) mental health strain. These burdens operate cumulatively across organizational, interpersonal, and individual domains, reflecting how gendered norms and institutional biases create persistent professional disadvantages for women leaders. The study proposes an Integrative Framework of Invisible Costs, conceptualizing how gendered structures, relational expectations, and psychological internalization interact to undermine the sustainability of women's leadership. Originality/Value This study advances leadership scholarship by shifting the analytical lens from representation to sustainability. It introduces a comprehensive framework theorizing the invisible, relational, and psychological costs of maintaining leadership legitimacy in gendered systems. The findings call for intersectional, longitudinal, and cross-cultural research, as well as structural reforms in organizational policy, leadership development, and workplace culture to foster inclusive, enduring pathways for women's leadership.
Despite the potential for leaders to enrich workplaces for their subordinates, multinational data show that employees experience little enrichment at work. Based on existing theory, the blame often falls on leaders. Many suggest that leaders are either na & iuml;ve about work design or worse: they purposely create work environments with low enrichment. This paper offers an alternative: followers may naturally avoid enriched tasks due to an underappreciated sampling effect. Specifically, individuals avoid sampling alternatives with greater risk, even if those alternatives provide benefits in the long run. As such, leaders are at risk of falling into a trap in which efforts to increase enrichment may have the negative consequence of turning employees away from such tasks. We develop and analyze a simulation to demonstrate that the simple assumptions specified by the model are sufficient to yield patterns that qualitatively resemble real-world observations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Developing others is a core component of effective leadership in many leadership theories. However, prior research has focused primarily on observable developmental behaviors, leaving a gap in understanding the self-concepts that may underlie and sustain such behaviors. We extend current theory by suggesting that developing others can be a part of leaders' core identity that impacts followers. We create and validate the developmental self-concept (DeSC) scale to assess the extent to which leaders construe developing others as central to their leader identity, feel efficacious in fostering follower growth, and feel motivated to do so. Across four studies, we establish the DeSC's psychometric properties and predictive utility. Study 1 supports a three-factor structure with an overarching DeSC factor. Study 2 provides convergent and discriminant validity evidence relative to relevant constructs. Study 3 demonstrates predictive validity in a dyadic field study, with leaders' DeSC scores predicting direct-report ratings of leadership behaviors and follower outcomes. Study 4 further demonstrates predictive validity in judgment and decision contexts, with higher DeSC scores predicting stronger preferences for developmentally oriented job candidates and greater perceived value alignment with a developmental organization. Overall, the DeSC offers a new tool for studying developmental leadership as an identity-based construct and for evaluating leader development efforts with implications for shaping organizational cultures.
Drawing on social exchange theory, this meta-analysis integrates 45 independent samples (N = 12,696) to examine the relationships between leader humor, employee creativity, and innovative behavior. We further explore how these relationships are moderated by national culture and employee sample gender composition. Results reveal that leader humor is positively related to both creativity and innovative behavior, though the relationship with creativity is significantly stronger. At the broad contextual level, specific dimensions of national culture moderate the relationship between leader humor and creativity: individualism positively moderates this relationship, whereas uncertainty avoidance and restraint act as negative moderators. However, national culture does not significantly moderate the relationship between leader humor and innovative behavior. At the local contextual level, employee gender composition plays a key moderating role: leader humor's relationship with creativity is stronger in female-dominated samples, while its relationship with innovative behavior is stronger in male-dominated samples. These findings contribute to reconciling previous inconsistencies and highlight the importance of considering both broad and local contextual factors in future leadership research.
Leaders need to consider employees both as distinct individuals and as integral members of a collective to effectively address their needs. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines how individual- and collective-focused leader behaviors address employees' autonomy, relatedness, and competence need satisfaction, influencing their intentions and behaviors. We propose that individual-focused behaviors (empowering leadership) address employees' need for autonomy, while collective-focused behaviors (identity leadership) address their need for relatedness. Moreover, we argue that combining empowering and identity leadership addresses employees' competence need satisfaction. We pre-registered a scenario-based experiment (N = 226) and a time-lagged field study (N = 308) to test the following hypotheses: (1) empowering leadership predicts autonomy need satisfaction, reducing turnover intentions; (2) identity leadership predicts relatedness need satisfaction, increasing organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); and (3) empowering and identity leadership interact to predict competence need satisfaction, resulting in higher work effort. Results from both studies support the hypothesized effects, except for the interaction effects in the field study. Together, these findings underscore that it is important for leaders to integrate individual- and collective-focused behaviors to holistically address employees' psychological needs and foster positive work-related outcomes.
The core role of leadership is to mobilize and motivate members for pursuits that serve the organization's purpose, such as organizational strategy. The concept of meaning-based leadership, leader advocacy of the meaning organizational purpose gives to the work, was proposed in recognition of this role. We study the indirect influence of team leader meaning-based leadership on team strategy implementation (efforts to put organizational strategy into practice) as it is mediated by team value alignment - team similarity with top management in perceptions of organizational values. We propose that higher-level meaning-based leadership - the meaning-based leadership from the team leader's direct superior - moderates the influence of team leader meaning-based leadership: team leader meaning-based leadership is a stronger influence on team value alignment and, mediated by team value alignment, team strategy implementation with more higher-level meaning-based leadership. We found support for this research model in a survey of N = 421 teams from an energy company.
It has been well-established that exposure to traumatic events is associated with greater incidences of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current study examined the role of one's leader in this relationship, specifically focusing on laissez-faire leadership in the context of military peacekeeping deployments. Laissez-faire leaders are passive, pushing decisions to subordinates and abdicating their authority. We tested hypotheses that exposure to traumatic events is more strongly related to PTSD when individuals perceive their leaders have shirked their duties and failed to lead. Further, we explored substitutes for leadership, hypothesizing that 1) adequate training and preparation and 2) strong peer support can mitigate the deleterious impact of the laissez-faire leader's failure to take charge. Finally, we examine two types of traumatic experiences - combat-related (e.g., war zone danger exposure) and interpersonal (e.g., bullying, sexual harassment) since expectations of leadership could differ depending on trauma type. Results from data from Norwegian veterans who deployed to Lebanon (n = 10,152) revealed that both combat-related and interpersonal trauma exposure and laissez-faire leadership style were positively associated with PTSD. The harmful effects of exposure to trauma were buffered when soldiers reported higher levels of peer support. Further, soldiers who reported receiving better training also reported lower levels of PTSD symptoms following their deployment. However, the protective effects of higher training were diminished in the presence of leadership that adopted a laissez-faire style, demonstrating the destructive nature of a laissez-faire leader.
Employee change-supportive behavior is widely recognized as a key asset in driving successful organizational change, yet sustaining such behavior over time remains a significant challenge. While extensive research has explored how to initiate CSB, less attention has been paid to why such support often fades. One largely overlooked factor is leader narcissism-a construct that has evolved along a parallel yet independently developed trajectory to CSB in the change literature. Although narcissistic leaders are often admired for their bold vision and strategic drive, particularly in uncertain environments, they have also been paradoxically linked to poorer employee outcomes during transitions. By integrating these parallel research streams and drawing on social cognitive theory, we argue that leader narcissism offers a compelling explanation for the erosion of employee CSB during organizational change. A three-wave leader-follower dyadic field study supports our model, showing that leader narcissism diminishes followers' change-related self-efficacy, even when initial support is present. As a result, employees with lower self-efficacy are more likely to disengage and remain silent throughout the change process. This study clarifies why employee change-supportive behavior often fails to yield lasting organizational outcomes and sheds light on the interplay between leader narcissism and follower responses during change.
