Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions

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“Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions”
Bruce J. Avolio,1 Fred O. Walumbwa,2 and Todd J. Weber3
(Originally published in Annual Review of Psychology, Vol 60, 2009, pp. 421-429; online at
psych.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163 621)
Key Words
authentic leadership, cognitive leadership, complexity leadership, cross-cultural leadership, new-genre leadership,
shared leadership
Abstract
This review examines recent theoretical and empirical developments in the leadership literature, beginning with
topics that are currently receiving attention in terms of research, theory, and practice. We begin by examining
authentic leadership and its development, followed by work that takes a cognitive science approach. We then
examine new- genre leadership theories, complexity leadership, and leadership that is shared, collective, or
distributed. We examine the role of relationships through our review of leader member exchange and the
emerging work on followership. Finally, we examine work that has been done on substitutes for leadership,
servant leadership, spirituality and leadership, cross-cultural leadership, and e-leadership. This structure has the
benefit of creating a future focus as well as providing an interesting way to examine the development of the field.
Each section ends with an identification of issues to be addressed in the future, in addition to the overall
integration of the literature we provide at the end of the article.
Contents
INTRODUCTION 422
OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP 423
Authentic Leadership Defined 423
Future Focus Required 424
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT 424
Heritability and Leadership 425
Examining Evidence for Positive Leadership Interventions 425
Future Focus Required 425
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND LEADERSHIP 426
Emerging Cognitive Constructs 426
Prototypical Abstractions of Leadership 427
Future Focus Required 428
NEW-GENRE LEADERSHIP 428
New-Genre Versus Traditional Leadership 428
__________
1Department of Management, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0491; email: [email protected]
2Departmentof Management, The Arizona State University, Glendale, Arizona 85306-4908; email:
[email protected]
3Department of Management, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0491; email: [email protected]
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Boundary Conditions for New-Genre Leadership 429
Future Focus Required 429
COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP 430
Complexity and Traditional Leadership Theory 430
Future Focus Required 431
SHARED, COLLECTIVE, OR DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP 431
Shared Leadership Defined 431
Research Evidence 432
Future Focus Required 432
LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE 433
Extensions to LMX 433
Future Focus Required 434
FOLLOWERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP 434
Romance of Leadership 434
Updates on Follower-Centric Views 435
Future Focus Required 435
SUBSTITUTES FOR LEADERSHIP 436
Future Focus Required 436
SERVANT LEADERSHIP 436
Future Focus Required 437
SPIRITUALITY AND LEADERSHIP 437
Future Focus Required 437
CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP 438
Project GLOBE 438
Global Leadership 438
Comparative Leadership 439
Future Focus Required 439
E-LEADERSHIP 439
Common Questions with E-Leadership 440
Group and Virtual Teams Research 440
Future Focus Required 441
CLOSING COMMENTS AND INTEGRATION 441
INTRODUCTION
One of our goals for this integrative review is to examine the ways in which the field of leadership is evolving and
the consequences of its evolutionary path for the models, methods, and populations examined. For example, at
the outset of the field of leadership, the primary focus was on studying an individual leader, who was most likely a
male working in some large private-sector organization in the United States. Today, the field of leadership focuses
not only on the leader, but also on followers, peers, supervisors, work setting/context, and culture, including a
much broader array of individuals represent-ing the entire spectrum of diversity, public, private, and not-for-profit
organizations, and increasingly over the past 20 years, samples of populations from nations around the globe.
Leadership is no longer simply described as an individual characteristic or difference, but rather is depicted in
various models as dyadic, shared, relational, strategic, global, and a complex social dynamic (Avolio 2007, Yukl
2006).
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OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP
One of the emerging pillars of interest in the field of leadership has been called authentic leadership development.
As discussed in a special issue [edited by Avolio & Gardner (2005)] of the Leadership Quarterly on this topic and in
an earlier (2003), the advent of work on authentic leader- ship development came as a result of writings on
transformational leadership, in which authors such as Bass & Steidlmeier (1999) suggest that there are pseudo
versus authentic transformational leaders.
Luthans & Avolio (2003) also introduced the concept of authentic leadership development into the literature with
the goal of integrating work on (Luthans 2002) positive organizational behavior with the lifespan leadership
development work of Avolio (1999). Their main purpose was to examine what constituted genuine leadership
development including what worked and didn’t work to develop leaders and leadership, as well as to bring to the
foreground some of the recent work in positive psychology as a foundation for examining how one might
accelerate the development. Luthans and Avolio reasoned that using some of the theoretical work in positive
psychology such as Fredrickson’s (2001) broaden-and-build theory, they could offer a more positive way for
conceptualizing leader- ship development. Accord-ing to Fredrickson, those individuals who have more positive
psychological resources are expected to grow more effectively or to broaden themselves and build out additional
personal resources to perform. Luthans and Avolio report that to a large extent, the prior leadership development
work was based on a deficit-reduction model strategy, where one discovered what was wrong with a leader and
then worked to correct deficits in terms of focusing on the leader’s development (also see Avolio& Luthans 2006).
Authentic Leadership Defined
First and foremost, the concept of authenticity has been around for a long time, as reflected in many philosophical
discussions of what constitutes authenticity (Harter et al. 2002). George (2003) popularized authentic leadership in
the general practice community when he published his book on the topic, as did Luthans & Avolio (2003) for the
academic community. Luthans & Avolio (2003, p. 243) defined authentic leadership as “a process that draws from
both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater
self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and associates, fostering positive selfdevelopment.” This definition and subsequent work on authentic leadership was defined at the outset as
multilevel in that it included the leader, follower, and context very specifically in the way it was conceptualized and
measured. This addressed a typical criticism in the leadership literature summarized by Yammarino et al. (2005, p
10) who concluded, “relatively few studies in any of the areas of leadership have addressed levels-of-analysis
issues appropriately in theory, measurement, data analysis, and inference drawing.”
At the same time, several scholars (e.g., Cooper et al. 2005, Sparrowe 2005) expressed concerns with Luthans &
Avolio’s initial definition of authentic leadership. The initial conceptual differences notwithstanding, there appears
to be general agreement in the literature on four factors that cover the components of authentic leadership:
balanced processing, internalized moral perspective, relational transparency, and self-awareness. Balanced
processing refers to objectively analyzing relevant data before making a decision. Internalized moral perspective
refers to being guided by internal moral standards, which are used to self-regulate one’s behavior. Relational
transparency refers to presenting one’s authentic self through openly sharing information and feelings as
appropriate for situations (i.e., avoiding inappropriate dis- plays of emotions). Self-awareness refers to the
demonstrated understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses, and the way one makes sense of the world. These
four constructs were further operationally defined by Walumbwa and col- leagues (2008). Walumbwa et al. (2008)
pro- vided initial evidence using a multisample strategy involving U.S. and non-U.S. participants to determine the
construct validity of a new set of authentic leadership scales. Specifically, they showed the four components
described above represented unique scales that were reliable.
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These four scales loaded on a higher-order factor labeled authentic leadership that was discriminantly valid from
measures of transformational leadership (e.g., Avolio 1999) and ethical leadership (e.g., Brown et al. 2005) and
was a significant and positive predictor of organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, and
satisfaction with supervisor and performance.
Future Focus Required
Work on defining and measuring authentic leadership is in the very early stages of development. Future research
will need to offer additional evidence for the construct validity of this measure or other measures, and it will also
need to demonstrate how authentic leadership relates to other constructs within its nomological network. This
would include con- structs such as moral perspective, self-concept clarity, well-being, spirituality, and judgment.
Moreover, there is a need to examine how authentic leadership is viewed across situations and cultures and
whether it is a universally prescribed positive root construct—meaning it represents the base of good leadership
regardless of form, e.g., participative, directive, or inspiring. In the next section, we turn our attention to the
second major focus on authentic leadership, which incorporates the term development.
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Up until very recently, one would be hard pressed to find in the leadership literature a general model of leadership
development (Luthans & Avolio 2003). Even more difficult to find is evidence-based leadership development.
Specifically, what evidence is there to support whether leaders or leadership can be developed using one or more
specific theories of leader- ship? This question led to a concerted effort to explore what was known about whether
leaders are born or made, as well as the efficacy of leadership interventions.
__________
Authentic leadership: a pattern of transparent and ethical leader behavior that encourages openness in sharing
information needed to make decisions while accepting followers’ inputs.
Transformational leadership: leader behaviors that transform and inspire followers to perform beyond
expectations while transcending self-interest for the good of the organization.
Positive organizational behavior: literature that is focusing on positive constructs such as hope, resiliency,
efficacy, optimism, happiness, and well-being as they apply to organizations
Broaden-and-build theory: suggests positive emotions expand cognition and behavioral tendencies, and
encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions.
Ethical leadership: the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and
interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers.
Nomological network: a representation of a construct, its observable manifestation, and the relationship between
the two.

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Heritability and Leadership
One avenue of research that has explored whether leaders are born versus made has in- volved studying identical
and fraternal twins. Preliminary evidence using a behavioral ge- netics approach has shown that approximately
30% of the variation in leadership style and emergence was accounted for by heritabil- ity; the remaining variation
was attributed to differences in environmental factors such as individuals having different role models and early
opportunities for leadership development (Arvey et al. 2007). Because identical twins have 100% of the same
genetic makeup and fraternal twins share about 50%, this behavioral genetics research was able to control for
heritability to examine how many leadership roles the twins emerged into over their respective careers. In this and
subsequent research for both men and women across cultures, similar results were obtained. The authors
conducting this research conclude that the “life context” one grows up in and later works in is much more
important than heritability in predicting leadership emergence across one’s career.
Examining Evidence for Positive Leadership Interventions
Lord & Hall (1992, p. 153) noted, “too much research in the past has attempted to probe the complex issues of
leadership using simple bi-variate correlations.” It seems fair to say that although most models of leadership have
causal predictions, a relatively small percentage of the accumulated literature has actually tested these predictions
using controlled leadership interventions, especially in field research settings (Yukl 2006).
To determine whether experimental interventions actually impacted leadership development and/or performance,
a qualitative and quantitative review of the leadership intervention (i.e., studies where a researcher overtly
manipulated leadership to examine its impact on some specific intermediate process variables or outcomes)
literature was undertaken (see Avolio & Luthans 2006, Avolio et al. 2009, Reichard & Avolio 2005). The focus of
this meta-analytic review was unique in that up to that point, more than 30 meta-analyses had been published on
leadership research, none of which had focused on leadership interventions and more than one model of
leadership. For each study, the leadership inter-vention examined was categorized into six types: training,
actor/role-play, scenario/vignette, assign-ments, expectations, others. Reichard & Avolio (2005) reported that
regardless of the theory being investigated, results showed that leadership interventions had a positive impact on
work outcomes (e.g., ratings of leader performance), even when the duration of those interventions was less than
one day. In terms of utility, participants in the broadly defined leadership treatment condition had on average a
66% chance of positive outcomes versus only a 34% chance of success for the comparison group.
Future Focus Required
Relatively little work has been done over the past 100 years to substantiate whether leader- ship can actually be
developed. Indeed, based on the meta-analysis findings reviewed above, only 201 studies were identified that fit
the intervention definition. Of those 201 studies, only about one third focused on developing leadership as
opposed to manipulating it for impact through role plays or scripts to test a particular proposition in one of the
various models. One of the emerging areas of interest in leadership research, which we have dedicated more
attention to in its own section, concerns the linkages between cognitive science and how leaders perceive, decide,
behave, and take action (Lord & Brown 2004). For example, to develop leadership, it is imperative that we examine
how a leader’s self-concept and/or identity is formed, changed, and influences behavior (Swann et al. 2007). This
raises a key question regarding what constitutes leaders’ working self-concept and/or identity with respect to how
they go about influencing others (Swann et al. 2007). For example, does an authentic leader have a different
working self- concept than someone who is described by followers as transformational or transactional, and how
do these differences develop in the leader over time?
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We know from previous literature that although a leader’s working self-concept is constructed in the current
moment, it is also based on more stable self-concepts and identities stored in the individual’s long-term memory.
Avolio & Chan (2008) indicate there are certain trigger events that activate the leader’s working self-concept.
These trigger events induce self-focused attention, self-assessment, and activate a leader’s working self-concept.
These trigger moments can occur naturally as the leader inter- acts with others during leadership episodes or they
can be induced through formal training exercises and self-reflection (Roberts et al. 2005).
Another very promising area of research that has not received sufficient attention in the leadership literature
focuses on understanding what constitutes an individual’s level of developmental readiness or one’s capacity or
motivational orientation to develop to one’s full potential. Prior authors have defined developmental readiness as
being made up of components such as one’s goal orientation (Dweck 1986) and motivation to develop leadership
(Maurer & Lippstreu 2005). In this literature, the authors argue that leaders who are more motivated to learn at
the outset and who have higher motivation to lead will more likely embrace trigger events that stimulate their
thinking about their own development as an opportunity to improve their leadership effectiveness.
In sum, a great deal of energy and interest is emerging in the leadership development literature that suggests
there will be a lot more activity in trying to discover what impacts genuine leadership development at multiple
levels of analysis, from cognitive through to organizational climates. This literature will no doubt link to the lifespan development and cognitive psychology literatures to fuel further work in this area.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND LEADERSHIP
The cognitive science leadership literature is an area of research and theory containing a wide range of approaches
that are united by their focus on explaining the way leaders and followers think and process information. This
literature includes a broad range of topics such as self-concept theory, meta-cognitions, and implicit leadership
theory (e.g., Lord & Emrich 2000), which are addressed in more detail below.
One of the more recent developments in the literature has been an attempt to develop models of leadership
cognition. Lord & Hall (2005) developed a model of leadership development that emphasized the leader’s cognitive
attributes or abilities. A second model was developed by Mumford et al. (2003) and examined the way shared
thinking contributed to leader creativity. These two approaches illustrate a fundamental way in which views of
leadership cognitions vary, with the former focusing on activities with the individual leader and the latter focusing
on interactions that occur between individuals (Mumford et al. 2007). We examine several of the key emerging
constructs within this literature, beginning with the self-concept.
Emerging Cognitive Constructs
Recent literature on what constitutes the self-concept has distinguish-ed between the structure of the self-concept
and its contents (Altrocchi 1999). The content refers to the evaluations one makes of oneself as well as selfbeliefs. The structure refers to ways in which the self-concept content is organized for processing. In a study on the
structure of the self- concept, Campbell et al. (2003) examined the competing arguments that one benefits from
having either unity in self-concept or plural- ism. Although the literature tends to treat the two as opposite ends of
a continuum, their study showed they are not necessarily related to each other. This study further showed that
two measures of pluralism (self-complexity and self-concept compartmentalization) were not related to each other
and that multiple measures of self-concept unity, such as self-concept differentiation, self-concept clarity, and selfdiscrepancies, were moderately related to each other and that each had implications for leader development.
Lord & Brown (2001) presented a model examining two specific ways that leaders can influence the way followers
choose to behave in terms of the motivations they use to regulate actions/behaviors. The first way relates to
values (e.g., achievement) and emphasizes making specific values (or patterns of values) salient for the follower to
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motivate him or her to action. The second relates to the followers’ self- concept, whereby the leader activates a
specific identity to which followers can relate, creating a collective identity that the follower ultimately embraces
as his or her own. Both values and self-concept are viewed as mediating the link- age between the leader’s actions
and the behavior of the follower.
Because there are a range of peripheral and core identities that could be salient to an individual at any one point in
time, the question of which identities are activated at any time is relevant to research on leadership and its impact
on followers. The idea of a working self-concept refers to the identity (or combi- nation of identities) that is salient
in the moment, and it consists of three types of components: self-views, current goals, and possible selves (Lord &
Brown 2004). The self-view relates to the current working model or view of oneself, whereas the possible selves
may represent the ideal model an individual may be striving for and something that could be leveraged by the
leader to motivate and develop followers into better followers or leaders themselves. Overall, the working selfconcept has the potential to provide insight into the challenging issue of how salient one’s identity is and how
leadership can enhance its salience, though its use within the leadership literature has been somewhat limited so
far.
One of the essential building blocks in the cognitive leadership literature is the idea of a schema, which is a broad
organizing framework that helps one understand and make sense of a given context or experience. One notable
example of the use of schemas with respect to leadership research is the work of Wofford et al. (1998), who
proposed a cognitive model to explain the way transformational and transactional leaders view work with
followers. In their field study, Wofford et al. examined schematic processes (e.g., vision, follower, self) and scripts
(behaviors associated with a schema), arguing that transformational and transactional leader- ship use different
schemas to interpret events, which then results in the choice of different leadership behaviors/actions in response
to those events. Support was found for transformational leader cognitions being related to the leaders’ choice of
acting transform-ationally. Mixed support was found for the relationships between transactional leader schemas
and behaviors and actions chosen.
Prototypical Abstractions of Leadership
The leadership research on social identity formation has also focused heavily on what constitutes prototypicality,
which has shown that followers may be more drawn to leaders who are exemplars of groups they belong to or
want to join. Early research conceptualized prototypes as being relatively static and applicable in many situations.
Recent work has contested that view, arguing that prototypes are dynamic and can be applied and adapted based
on the existing constraints or challenges being confronted by leaders (Lord et al. 2001).
Subsequent research has also focused on the relationship between implicit leadership theories and several
relevant performance outcomes (Epitropaki & Martin 2005). We note that for more than 25 years, a great deal of
the work on cognitive psychology and leadership focused on how implicit theories and prototypes affected the
perceptions of leaders and followers, generally examining how it disadvantaged or biased them in views of others.
More recent trends in this literature coincide nicely with emphasis now being placed on authentic leadership
development. Specifically, research is now at- tempting to link how leaders think about events, choose to behave,
and/or develop.
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Future Focus Required
Cognitive approaches to investigating leadership draw heavily on several literatures described above.
This broad stream of research has potential for enhancing existing theories of leadership in terms of
helping to explain how leaders and followers attend to, process, and make decisions and develop.
Additional work linking self-concept and meta-cognitive theories to research on leadership will no doubt
contribute to our understanding of how leaders and followers actually develop. For example, if a leader
has low self-concept clarity, to what extent can we expect that same leader to be self-aware? What are
the implications for enhancing a leader’s self-concept clarity or working self-concept about what
constitutes the roles of effective leadership in developing that leader’s self-awareness and
performance?
NEW-GENRE LEADERSHIP
Although prior authors have focused on what constitutes charismatic, inspirational, and visionary leadership as far
back as the early 1920s, much of the attention in the literature on these newer theories of leadership has come
about over the past 25 years. Burns (1978) and Bass (1985) signaled the need to shift the focus of leadership
research from predominantly examining transactional models that were based on how leaders and followers
exchanged with each other to models that might augment transactional leadership and were labeled charismatic,
inspirational, transformational, and visionary. The early work of Bass and Burns set the stage for distinguishing
what Bryman (1992) referred to as more traditional theories of leadership versus what they termed new-genre
leadership theories.
New-Genre Versus Traditional Leadership
Bryman (1992) commented, “There was considerable disillusionment with leadership theory and research in the
early 1980s. Part of the disillusionment was attributed to the fact that most models of leadership and measures accounted for a relatively small percentage of variance in performance outcomes such as productivity and
effectiveness. Out of this pessimism emerged a number of alternative approaches, which shared some common
features …, collectively referred to as the new leadership” (Bryman 1992, p. 21). Unlike the traditional leadership
models, which described leader behavior in terms of leader-follower exchange relationships, setting goals,
providing direction and support, and reinforcement behaviors, or what Bass (1985) referred to as being based on
“economic cost-benefit assumptions” (p. 5), the new leadership models emphasized symbolic leader behavior;
visionary, inspirational messages; emotional feelings; ideological and moral values; individualized attention; and
intellectual stimulation. Emerging from these early works, charismatic and transformational leadership theories
have turned out to be the most frequently researched theories over the past 20 years (Avolio 2005, Lowe &
Gardner 2000).
The theory of charismatic/transformational leadership suggests that such leaders raise followers’ aspirations and
activate their higher- order values (e.g., altruism) such that followers identify with the leader and his or her
mission/vision, feel better about their work, and then work to perform beyond simple transactions and base
expectations (e.g., Avolio 1999, Bass 1985, Conger & Kanungo 1998). Accumulated research (see Avolio et al.
2004a for a summary of this literature), including a series of meta-analytic studies (e.g., Judge & Piccolo 2004), has
found that charismatic/transformational leadership was positively associated with leadership effectiveness and a
number of important organizational outcomes across many different types of organizations, situations, levels of
analyses, and cultures such as productivity and turnover.
Over the past decade, a lot of research effort has been invested in understanding the processes through which
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charismatic/transformational leaders positively influence followers’ attitudes, behaviors, and performance. For
example, a number of studies have examined different processes through which trans-formational leadership
effects are ultimately realized in terms of performance outcomes. These processes include followers’ formation of
commitment; satisfaction; identification; perceived fairness(e.g.,Liao&Chuang2007, Walumbwa et al. 2008); job
characteristics such as variety, identity, significance, autonomy and feedback (e.g., Piccolo & Colquitt 2006); trust
in the leader (e.g., Wang et al. 2005); and how fol- lowers come to feel about themselves and their group in terms
of efficacy, potency, and cohesion (e.g., Bass et al. 2003, Bono & Judge 2003, Schaubroeck et al. 2007)
Boundary Conditions for New-Genre Leadership
After establishing the positive links between transformational leadership and the intervening variables and
performance outcomes, more recent research has examined the boundary conditions in which transformational
leader- ship is more (or less) effective in predicting follower attitudes and behaviors. For example, several studies
have focused on identifying and understanding contextual variables (e.g., idiocentrism) that mediate or moderate
the relationship of charismatic/transformational leadership with followers’ level of motivation and perform-ance
at the individual, team or group, and organizational levels (e.g., De Cremer & van Knippenberg 2004, Keller 2006,
Walumbwa et al. 2007). Additional research has focused on examining the moderat-ing effects of follower
dispositions such as efficacy (Dvir & Shamir 2003, Zhu et al. 2008), physical and structural distance (e.g., Avolio et
al. 2004b), perceived environmental uncertainty (e.g., Agle et al. 2006), social networks (e.g., Bono & Anderson
2005), technology to sup- port group decision-making (e.g., Sosik et al. 1997), and cultural orientations such as
collectivism (e.g., Walumbwa & Lawler 2003).
Future Focus Required
Although significant progress has been made in studying charismatic/transform-ational leadership, a number of
areas still deserve further attention. First, despite the important and positive contributions made by charismatic or
transformational leadership in practice, questions remain as to what determines or predicts charismatic or
transformational leadership, or why some leaders engage in charismatic or transformational leadership behavior
and others do not. Limited research has examined leaders’ biographies or the role of followers (Howell & Shamir
2005) as predictor variables.
Second, despite significant progress in understanding how and when charismatic and transformational leadership
behaviors are more effective, further research is needed that explores the process and boundary conditions for
charismatic and transformational leadership with beneficial work behaviors. For example, although scholars who
have investigated charismatic and transformational leadership have discussed motivational constructs as central
components in their frameworks, generally speaking, few have paid any attention to the underlying psychological
processes, mechanisms, and conditions through which charismatic and transformational leaders motivate
followers to higher levels of motivation and performance (Kark & Van Dijk 2007).
Yukl (1999) has called for a more concerted effort to understand both the moderating and mediating mechanisms
that link charismatic/transformational leadership to follower outcomes. To date, only a few preliminary studies
have simultaneously examined mediated moderation or moderated mediation (e.g., De Cremer & van Knippenberg
2004, Walumbwa et al. 2008).
Third, other areas that deserve research attention include examining how to link charismatic/ transformational
__________
Mediated moderation: a moderating relationship that is mediated by another variable.
Moderated mediation: a mediating relationship that is moderated by another variable.
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leadership to the emerging literature on emotions and leadership. Although all of these newer theories emphasize
the emotional attachment of followers to the leader, there has been a dearth of conceptual and empirical research
on examining the relationships between these new leadership theories and followers’ affective states (Bono & Ilies
2006).
Fourth, research on charismatic and transformational leadership at the organizational or strategic level has
generally lagged behind all other areas of leadership research except perhaps the focus on leader-ship
development (Waldman & Yammarino 1999), and the results thus far have been mixed (Agle et al. 2006). For
example, Waldman and colleagues (Tosi et al. 2004, Waldman et al. 2001) found that the charisma of the chief
executive officer (CEO) was not related to subsequent organizational performance as measured by net profit
margin and shareholder return or return on assets, respectively. On the other hand, Agleetal. (2006) and Waldman
et al. (2004) reported that CEO charisma was associated with sub-sequent organizational performance. Clearly,
more research is needed that focuses on potential mediating and moderating variables such as external
stakeholders while examining the relationship between CEO charismatic or transformational leadership and firm
performance.
Finally, although cross-cultural research pertaining to charismatic/transformational leadership generally supports
the relationships reported for the United States and other Western cultures, it is important to note that these
studies largely involve survey-based designs. We recommend that researchers incorporate a number of alternative
research designs, including but not limited to experimental designs, longitudinal designs, and qualitative designs,
as well as the use of multiple sources and mixed methods studies.
COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP
Many previous models of leadership have been designed to accommodate more traditional hierarchical structures
of organizations. To the degree that organizations are hierarchical, so too are leadership models (Uhl-Bien et al.
2007). Yet, there has been a growing sense of tension in the leadership literature that models of leadership that
were designed for the past century may not fully capture the leader- ship dynamic of organizations operating in
today’s knowledge-driven economy (Lichtenstein et al. 2007). Applying the concepts of complexity theory to the
study of leadership has resulted in what has been referred to as complexity leadership (Uhl-Bien & Marion 2008).
Based on this framework, leadership is viewed as an interactive system of dynamic, unpredictable agents that
interact with each other in com- plex feedback networks, which can then pro- duce adaptive outcomes such as
knowledge dissemination, learning, innovation, and further adaptation to change (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). According
to complex systems leadership theory, “leadership can be enacted through any interaction in an organization …
leadership is an emergent phenomenon within complex systems” (Hazy et al. 2007, p. 2).
In line with leadership fitting the needs of the situation or challenges in which it operates, complexity leadership
posits that to achieve optimal performance, organizations cannot be designed with simple, rationalized structures
that underestimate the complexity of the context in which the organization must function and adapt (Uhl-Bien et
al. 2007). Simply viewing the leader and follower in a simple exchange process won’t fly in terms of explaining the
full dynamics of leadership.
Complexity and Traditional Leadership Theory
In traditional leadership theory, the unit of analysis is oftentimes the leader, the leader and follower, the leader
__________
CAS: complex adaptive system.
CLT: complexity leadership theory.
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and group, and so forth. The fundamental unit of analysis in complexity leadership is referred to as a complex
adaptive system, or CAS (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). The CAS has its roots in the physical sciences and is composed of
interdependent agents that can operate simultaneously on the basis of certain rules and localized knowledge that
governs the CAS, while also being able to adapt and emerge based on feedback from the system (Plowman &
Duchon 2008). Complexity leadership theory (CLT; Uhl-Bien et al. 2007) has been developed as an overarching
explanation of how CAS operates within a bureaucratic organization, and it identifies three leadership roles to
explore: adaptive (e.g., engaging others in brainstorming to overcome a challenge), administrative (e.g., formal
planning according to doctrine), and enabling (e.g., minimizing the constraints of an organizational bureaucracy to
enhance follower potential).
Future Focus Required
One of the core propositions of complexity leadership theory is that “much of leadership thinking has failed to
recognize that leadership is not merely the influential act of an individual or individuals but rather is embedded in
a complex interplay of numerous interacting forces” (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007, p. 302). How should one then study this
form of leadership? Dooley & Lichtenstein (2008) describe several methods for studying complex leadership
interactions, including by focusing on (a) micro, daily interactions using real-time observation, (b)meso interactions
(days and weeks) using social network analysis, where one examines a set of agents and how they are linked over
time, and (c) macro interactions (weeks, months, and longer) through event history analysis. Finally, agent-based
modeling simulations (i.e., computer simulations based on a set of explicit assumptions about how agents are
supposed to operate) are also being used as a means to study complexity leadership.
In sum, the complexity leadership field clearly lacks substantive research. We suspect this is a result of the
difficulties in assessing this type of emergent construct within a dynamically changing context. However,
substantive research is needed if this area of leader- ship research is to advance beyond conceptual discussions.
SHARED, COLLECTIVE, OR DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP
Similar to our discussion above about complexity leadership, we see more evidence for shared or collective
leadership in organizations as hierarchical levels are deleted and team-based structures are inserted. In describing
shared and team leadership, it is important to point out that these forms of leadership are typically viewed as
different streams of research. For example, team leadership research has typically focused on the role of an
individual leading the team. In contrast, those authors examining shared leadership generally view it as a process
versus a per- son engaging multiple members of the team. In this section, we refer to the terms “shared
leadership,” “distributed leadership,” and “collective leadership” interchangeably, paralleling their usage in the
leadership literature.
Shared Leadership Defined
According to Day et al. (2004), team and shared leadership capacity is an emergent state— something dynamic
that develops throughout a team’s lifespan and that varies based on the inputs, processes, and outcomes of the
team. It produces patterns of reciprocal influence, which reinforce and develop further relationships between
team members (Carson et al. 2007). The most widely cited definition of shared leadership is that of Pearce &
Conger (2003): “a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is
__________
Shared Leadership: an emergent state where team members collectively lead each other.
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to lead one another to the achievement of group or organizational goals or both. This influence process often
involves peer, or lateral, influence and at other times involves upward or downward hierarchical influence” (p. 1).
The term shared leadership overlaps with relational and complexity leadership, and differs from more traditional,
hierarchical, or vertical models of leadership (Pearce & Sims 2002).
Highly shared leadership is broadly distributed within a group or a team of individuals rather than localized in any
one individual who serves in the role of supervisor (Pearce & Conger 2003). More specifically, shared leadership is
defined as a team-level outcome (Day et al. 2004) or as a “simultaneous, ongoing, mutual influence process within
a team that is characterized by ‘serial emergence’ of official as well as unofficial leaders” (Pearce 2004, p. 48).
Similar to what we’ve described with respect to complexity leadership, when shared leadership can be “viewed as
a property of the whole system, as opposed to solely the property of individuals, effectiveness in leadership
becomes more a product of those connections or relationships among the parts than the result of any one part of
that system (such as the leader)”(O’Connor & Quinn 2004, p. 423).
Research Evidence
Although a number of authors [beginning with Mary Parker Follett (1924)] have discussed the idea of shared
leadership, it has only gained attention in the academic leadership literature recently, and relatively few studies
have tried to measure shared leadership. One exception is the work by Avolio & Bass (1995). In their study, instead
of raters evaluating the individual leader, the target of ratings was the team it- self. Avolio & Bass (1995) report
that the team level measures of transformational and transactional leadership positively predicted performance
similar to the individual-level measures in previous research.
Future Focus Required
One of the criticisms of research on shared leadership involves the lack of agreement on its definition (Carson et al.
2007). For example, should there be a generic definition of shared leadership that is qualified by such terms as
transactional or transformational shared leadership?
Other potential areas that have yet to be explored involve certain boundary conditions, mediators, and
moderators that have been recommended as a focus for future research. For example, Pearce & Conger (2003)
noted that future research was needed to examine potential moderators such as the distribution of cultural values,
task interdependence, task competence, task complexity, and the team life cycle. Carson et al. (2007) proposed
that greater attention be paid to levels of task competence in the team, complexity of tasks, and task interdependence in terms of examining how teams function when using shared leadership. These authors have also
recommended that future re- search focus on the team’s life cycle.
Another area that has not received much re- search attention involves the environment in which teams function.
For example, Carson et al. (2007) proposed that future research examine the type of team environment that enables shared leadership, suggesting that the environment consists of three “highly interrelated and mutually
reinforcing” dimensions: shared purpose, social support, and voice. These authors described several organizational
climate factors that could potentially support more shared leadership in teams, including (a) shared purpose,
which “exists when team members have similar understandings of their team’s primary objectives and take steps
to ensure a focus on collective goals”; (b) social support, de- scribed as “team members’ efforts to provide
emotional and psychological strength to one another. This helps to create an environment where team members
feel their input is valued and appreciated”; and (c) voice, which is “the degree to which a team’s members have
input into how the team carries out its purpose”(p. 1222).
Future research also needs to examine how external team leaders affect the team’s ability and motivation to be
self-directed and share in leadership (Carson et al. 2007). Hackman & Wageman (2005) suggest that an external
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leader to the team can “help team members make coordinated and task-appropriate use of their collective
resources in accomplishing the team’s task” (p. 269).
In a nutshell, the time for examining shared leadership may be upon us to the extent that organizations are moving
into a knowledge driven era where firms are distributed across cultures. This suggests that individual-based
“heroic” models of leadership may not be sustainable in and of themselves (Pearce 2004).
LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE
Unlike shared leadership, which has focused on groups, leader-member exchange (LMX) theory has focused on the
relationship between the leader and follower (Cogliser & Schriesheim 2000). The central principle in LMX theory is
that leaders develop different exchange relationships with their followers, whereby the quality of the relationship
alters the impact on important leader and member outcomes (Gerstner & Day 1997). Thus, leadership occurs
when leaders and followers are able to develop effective relationships that result in mutual and incremental
influence (Uhl-Bien 2006).
This literature has evolved from focusing exclusively on the consequences of the LMX relationship to focusing on
both antecedents and consequences. For example, Tekleab & Taylor (2003) assessed leader and follower levels of
agreement on their mutual obligations and their psychological contract with each other. In a recent meta-analysis
reported by Ilies et al. (2007), the authors reported that a higher-quality LMX relationship not only predicted
higher levels of performance, but also organizational citizenship behaviors. Some additional areas of focus in terms
of high- versus low-quality LMX relationships have been the context in which those relationships have developed.
Kacmar et al. (2007) examined the conditions under which leaders and followers in low-quality exchanges exerted
more effort in examining how the situation interacted with the impact of supervisors. Using control theory, the
authors tried to explain how perceptions of supervisor competence, centralization, and organizational politics
influenced their willingness to exert effort on the job beyond what would be typically expected in a less-thaneffective exchange relationship.
Additional research on the nature of the relationship and how it is formed has focused on the use of impression
management tactics and its impact on the quality of the LMX relation- ship. Colella & Varma (2001) investigated
how a follower’s perceived disability and use of ingratiation related to LMX quality. By using ingratiation tactics,
the individuals with disabilities were able to increase the quality of the relationship between the leader and
follower.
Extensions to LMX
The original work produced by Graen & Uhl- Bien (1995) on the role-making and role-taking processes has been
extended by Uhl-Bien and colleagues (2000) to examine how leader- follower dyads transform from individual
interest to shared interest based on the development of trust, respect, and obligations to each other. Similar work
along these lines has examined the effects of goal congruence on the quality of the LMX relationship. This work
suggests that to the extent that goals are similar or mutually reinforcing, one would expect to produce a higherquality LMX relationship.
Additional LMX research on individual differences has examined the impact of gender on the quality of the LMX
relationship, although these findings have been mixed. For instance, Adebayo & Udegbe (2004) reported that
followers in opposite-sex dyads perceived a better LMX quality in comparison with those from same-sex dyads.
__________
LMX: leader member exchange.
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Recent research has moved beyond examining LMX in terms of antecedents and con- sequences and has examined the quality
of the leader and follower relationship as a moderator and/or mediator of performance. For example, Sparrowe et al. (2006)
reported that the quality of the relationship moderated the relationship between downward-influence tactics and helping
behaviors. Martin et al. (2005) reported that LMX either fully or partially mediated the relationship between locus of control
and several work-related outcomes such as job satisfaction, work-related well-being, and organizational commitment.
In an extension of the linkages between social network theory and LMX, Graen (2006) put forth a recent transformation of LMX
theory that he refers to as the new LMX–MMX theory of sharing network leadership. Accordingly, both Uhl-Bien (2006) and
Graen (2006), building on earlier LMX research, now view organizations as systems of interdependent dyadic relationships, or
dyadic subassemblies, and advocate the importance of both formal and informal influences on individual, team, and network
flows of behavior.
Future Focus Required
Over the years, LMX theory and research have been targets of criticism. One pervasive criticism of this literature revolves
around measurement. For example, many different measures of LMX have been developed and used since the theory was first
proposed (Yukl 2006). Schriesheim et al. (1999, p. 100) argued, “LMX scales seem to have been developed on ad hoc,
evolutionary basis, without the presentation of any clear logic or theory justifying the changes which were made.” LMX
research has also been criticized for failing to conceptualize the social context in which leaders and followers are embedded.
With a few exceptions, “the majority of research is, quite explicitly, located at the dyadic level, with very little theorizing or
empirical work examining LMX work at the group level” (Hogg et al. 2004, p. 22). In other words, theory and research on LMX
have focused on the leader-follower relationship without acknowledging that each dyadic relationship occurs within a system
of other relationships (Cogliser & Schriesheim 2000, Yukl 2006). LMX theory and research also tend to assume that people
simply evaluate their own LMX relationship in an absolute sense. According to Hogg et al. (2004), this is an over-simplification
of how people judge relationships. The authors argue that it is much more likely that followers evaluate the quality of their LMX
relationship not only in the absolute sense (i.e., low versus high), but also with reference to their perception of others’ LMX
relationships. Another criticism of the LMX literature is that most of it is based on correlation designs. This was a central
criticism made by Cogliser & Schriesheim (2000) regarding the lack of causal results reported in the extensive stream of
research associated with LMX research.
LMX research has also been criticized for not including more objective measures of performance (Erdogan & Liden 2002).
Frequently, research in this area has collected performance outcomes that were generated by the leader or supervisor. It is
now time to extend this research by collecting independent outcome measures that logically would be influenced by the quality
of LMX relationship.
Another promising area for future research is to extend work on LMX theory across cultures. Specifically, what are the
implications of national culture for the formation and development of an LMX quality relationship, and in turn how would that
link to key organizational outcomes? Preliminary research addressing this question across cultures has produced some
interesting results. For example, Chen et al. (2006) reported that regardless of whether the manager was American or Chinese,
the quality of the LMX relationship was related to cooperative goal setting or interdependence.
FOLLOWERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP
Perhaps one of the most interesting omissions in theory and research on leadership is the absence of discussions of
followership and its impact on leadership. Leadership researchers treat follower attributes as outcomes of the leadership
process as opposed to inputs, even though there have been a number of calls over the years to examine the role that followers
play in the leadership process (e.g., Shamir 2007).
Romance of Leadership
Our examination of follower-centric views begins with a focus on what the leadership literature describes as the romance of
leadership. Meindl et al. (1985) proposed a social constructionist theory to describe the relationship between leadership and
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followership. They argued that leadership is significantly affected by the way followers construct their
understanding of the leader in terms of their interpretation of his or her personality, behaviors, and effectiveness.
Accumulated research on the romance of leadership has produced mixed findings. Schyns et al. (2007) conducted a
meta-analysis to determine whether they could tease out the effects controlling for such things as measurement
error and sampling bias while focusing on whether followers had a tendency to romanticize their perceptions of
transformational/charismatic leadership. Their results revealed a modest relationship between the romance of
leadership and perceptions of trans- formational/charismatic leadership, accounting for approximately 5% of the
variance in leadership ratings. In another study, Kulich et al. (2007) examined the relevance of the romance of
leadership theory through an experiment that compared how the performance of a male and a female leader was
viewed by allowing participants to choose how much of a bonus to allocate to the leader. Their results showed that
the male CEO’s bonus differed substantially depending on the company’s performance, whereas no differences
were reported for the female CEO.
Bligh et al.(2007)found that followers’ negative views of their work environment were overly attributed to their
leaders’ in that they viewed the leader as more responsible for these negative outcomes and situations than was
war- ranted. Along the same lines, Weber et al. (2001) reported that group success and failure were overly
attributed to the leader. However, these authors also reported that attributions of failure to the leader may have
had more significant negative repercussions, with the failing team consistently voting to replace their leaders when
the situation was more of the cause for the team’s failure.
Updates on Follower-Centric Views
Howell & Shamir (2005) put forth some important theoretical propositions regarding how follower traits and
characteristics might influence leader and follower relationships (also see Dvir & Shamir 2003). Specifically, they
identified followers’ self-concept clarity and collective identity as important factors in determining how followers
form charismatic relationships with their leader. Howell & Shamir (2005) then suggested that followers, who have
a personalized relationship with a charismatic leader, may be more likely to show blind loyalty, obedience, and
deference.
Carsten et al. (2007) examined how individuals hold divergent social constructions of followership that seem to
coalesce around levels of passivity or proactivity, which followers believe could lead to effectiveness in their role.
Thus, like leaders, not all followers are created equal in the minds of followers. This pattern was reflected in the
work of Kelley (1992), who conceptualized followers as falling into quadrants, based on their being active or
passive followers as well as whether they were critical or noncritical thinkers.
Future Focus Required
Shamir (2007) suggested that leadership effectiveness is just as much a product of good followers as it is of good
leaders. Shamir (2007) made some specific recommendations for future work on follower- centered research,
including examining how followers’ needs, identities, and implicit theories affect leader selection and emergence
as well as leader endorsement and acceptance; how follower interactions/social networks influence the
emergence of leadership and effectiveness; how followers’ expectations, values, and attitudes determine leader
behavior; how followers’ expectations affect the leader’s motivation and performance; how followers’ acceptance
of the leader and their support for the leader affect the leader’s self-confidence, self- efficacy, and behavior; how
followers’ characteristics (e.g., self-concept clarity) determine the nature of the leadership relationship formed
with the leader; and how followers’ attitudes and characteristics (e.g., level of development) affect leader
behavior.
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In addition, more work needs to be done examining how followership is construed across different industries and
cultures. It is possible that in more advanced and newly forming industries, the concept of followership may be
construed and enacted differently than what we might find in more established industries with long histories of
treating leaders and followers in a particular way (Schyns et al. 2007).
SUBSTITUTES FOR LEADERSHIP
The substitutes-for-leadership theory focuses on situational factors that enhance, neutralize, and/or totally
substitute for leadership. For example, a group of people engaged in electronic brainstorming using technology,
such as a group decision support system, may operate as though there was a participative leader who was leading
the group, but in fact, leadership comes from the operating rules for using the system to engage. Kerr & Jermier
(1978) proposed the substitutes-for-leadership theory to address some of the romance effects described above.
This research stream focuses on a range of situational/organizational and follower characteristics that might
influence the leadership dynamic (Howell et al. 2007).
Since this theory was originally proposed, a considerable amount of research has been completed to determine
whether there are substitutes for leadership with respect to impacts on performance. A number of authors have
concluded that evidence is not sufficient to support the main propositions in the theory (Dionne et al. 2002, Keller
2006). For example, Dionne et al. (2002) tested the moderating effects of task variability, organization formulation,
organization inflexibility, and lack of control on the relationship between leadership behavior and group
effectiveness. However, the authors found little support for the moderating effects proposed by the substitutesfor-leadership theory. This lack of support may be attributable to problems in measuring these substitutes for
leadership. Yet, revisions to the scale and its use in subsequent research have not provided any further support
fort his theory.
Future Focus Required
Villa et al. (2003) recommended that future research consider including multiple moderators that may interact
with each other to impact performance that might be erroneously attributed to the leader. Dionne et al. (2005)
suggested that future research consider testing the five possible conditions linking leader behavior, leadership
effectiveness, and other situational variables (e.g., substitutes), which include (a) a leadership main effects model,
(b) a substitutes main effect model, (c) an interactive or joint effects model, (d ) a mediation model, wherein the
substitutes mediate leadership impact versus moderate, and (e) the originally proposed moderated model. Future
research should also focus more on the nature of the samples to be included in tests of substitutes for leadership.
For example, one might focus on the cultural background as well as quality of one’s followers by sampling
professional workers who function in highly independent roles, as a possible sample for studying the boundary
conditions for the effects of substitutes for leadership (Howell et al. 2007).
Finally, to evaluate fairly the substitutes for theory propositions will require more longitudinal research designs.
For example, leaders who are more transformational will develop followers over time to take on more leadership
roles and responsibilities. The way such leaders structure the context to develop followership and the followership
itself may ultimately substitute for the leader’s influence (Keller 2006).
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Building on the work of Greenleaf (1991), Spears (2004) listed ten characteristics representing a servant leader: (a)
listening, (b)empathy, (c) healing, (d ) awareness, (e) persuasion, ( f ) conceptualization, (g) foresight, (h)
stewardship, (i ) commitment, and ( j ) building community. Russell & Stone (2002) reviewed the literature on
servant leadership, distinguishing such leadership into two broad categories: functional and accompany attributes.
Functional attributes include having vision, being honest, trustworthy, service oriented, a role model,
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demonstrating appreciation of others’ service, and empowerment. In terms of accompany attributes, servant
leaders are described as good communicators and listeners, credible, competent, encouraging of others, teachers,
and delegators. In general, the limited empirical research on servant leadership has shown that it is positively
related to follower satisfaction, their job satisfaction, intrinsic work satisfaction, caring for the safety of others, and
organizational commitment. Joseph & Winston (2005) examined the relationship between employee perceptions
of servant leadership and organizational trust, and reported a positive relationship with both trust in the leader as
well as trust in one’s organization. Washington et al. (2006) examined the relationship between servant leadership
and the leader’s values of empathy, integrity, competence, and agree- ableness, and reported that “followers’
ratings of leaders’ servant leadership were positively related to followers’ ratings of leaders’ values of empathy,
integrity, and competence” (p. 700).
Future Focus Required. One major tenet of servant leadership proposed by Greenleaf (1991) was that followers of
servant leaders would be expected to be- come “healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous and more likely to
become servants themselves” (Barbuto & Wheeler 2006, p. 321). This suggests that future research could take a
more follower-centric approach in looking at the well-being of followers of servant leaders and the ways in which
their well-being affects the ability of the leader and followers to perform. As with LMX, the measurement of
servant leadership is problematic. Already many different measures of servant leadership have been pro- posed
with scales and items varying based on problems with its definition. Future research needs to examine how the
personal values of servant leaders differ from those of other leadership styles, such as transformational (Russell &
Stone 2002).
SPIRITUALITY AND LEADERSHIP
One might ask leaders the question, Do you feel there is something missing in the work that you do and the way
you lead others? Many authors have referred to that void and have attempted to examine how a greater sense of
spirituality in the workplace may be fostered. The research on workplace spirituality also now includes a focus on
spiritual leadership—defined as “comprising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to intrinsically
motivate one’s self and others so that they have a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership” (Fry
2003, p. 711).
Dent et al. (2005) examined how spirituality and leadership was defined in the literature and concluded, “The field
of study is marked by all of the typical characteristics of paradigm development including a lack of consensus about
a definition of workplace spirituality” (p. 626). Fry (2003) contends that spiritual leadership adds to the existing
leadership literature components that have been explicitly missing, such as a sense of calling on the part of leaders
and followers as well as the creation of organizational cultures characterized by altruistic love whereby leaders and
followers express genuine care, concern, and appreciation for both self and others. Fry (2003) states, “The ultimate
effect of spiritual leadership is to bring together or create a sense of fusion among the four fundamental forces of
human existence (body, mind, heart, and spirit) so that people are motivated for high performance, have increased
organizational commitment, and personally experience joy, peace, and serenity”(p. 727).
Future Focus Required
Part of the challenge in this area of leadership research is simply defining what spirituality means without
necessarily tying it to one particular religion or philosophical base. Dent et al. (2005) summarized a number of
definitions of spirituality that highlight some of the challenges in building theory and research in this area. The
authors concluded that a wide array of concepts/ constructs is included in the definition of spirituality, but some of
the common elements are a search for meaning, reflection, an inner connection, creativity, transformation,
sacredness, and energy.
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Fry (2005) defines spiritual leadership as comprising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to
intrinsically motivate self and others to enhance a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership. Yet,
some authors criticize Fry’s model as well as other models of spirituality and leadership for not providing a
sufficient understanding of what constitutes spirituality and the ways in which it ties to leadership. For example,
Benefiel (2005) criticized the work on spirituality and leadership, stating that it “inadvertently draws upon
outdated, discredited, or shallow approaches to spirituality; they reinvent the wheel; they dip into credible
theories of spirituality but then don’t fully develop them or resolve the conflicts among them. While these theories
are comprehensive and creative in the context of leadership studies, a more robust, up- to date, and sophisticated
understanding of spirituality is needed if theories of spiritual leadership are to stand up under scrutiny
and be taken seriously in the wider academy” (p. 727). Finally, there still seem to be two schools of
thought in this area of leadership research: In one school, a set of scholars discuss spirituality in the
theological sense (Whittington et al. 2005), whereas in the other school, the focus is more on
understanding the inner motivation and drive a leader creates in followers to enhance workplace
spirituality (Fry 2005). Until a definition of what constitutes spirituality and leadership is agreed upon, it
will be difficult to conceptualize and measure these constructs.
CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP
Although most leadership research and theory has been developed and tested within a Western context, a
growing interest in research and theory focuses on the role of leadership across cultural contexts. This interest is
driven in part by the globalization of organizations that encourage and, at times, require leaders to work from and
across an increasingly diverse set of locations. The result is an increased focus on cross-cultural leadership research
(Gelfand et al. 2007, House et al. 2004). Extensive reviews also exist for cross-cultural research that is more
tangentially linked to leadership (Hofstede 2001, Kirkman et al. 2006, Leung et al. 2005).
Project GLOBE
Although there have been numerous critiques and discussions of work in this area (see Journal of International
Business Studies, Vol. 37, No. 6), the work of Project GLOBE (global leadership and organizational behavioral
effectiveness) constitutes one of the more ambitious and influential cross-cultural leadership studies. The study, as
detailed in an edited book (House et al. 2004), involved a group of more than 160 researchers working in 62
societies. Research included a mix of quantitative and qualitative investigations. The study was designed to address
a number of goals, the first of which was to develop cultural dimensions at both the organizational and societal
level of analysis, building upon the work of Hofstede (2001). A second major goal of the project was to examine the
beliefs that different cultures had about effective leaders. Although many of the leadership attributes and
behaviors examined varied by culture, the research did determine that certain implicit leadership theories (e.g.,
charisma/transformational, team-oriented) had universal endorsement. A third phase of the research involved
ethnographies of individual countries based largely on qualitative data.
Global Leadership
The goal of identifying leaders who are able to effectively lead across a variety of cultures has great appeal and has
been the focus of numerous articles in both the academic (Mobley et al. 1999) and popular press (Goldsmith 2003,
Green et al. 2003, Lane 2004). However, substantial differences and approaches remain in how global leadership is
__________
Cross-cultural leadership: the examination of leadership in multicultural contexts.
GLOBE: global leadership and organizational behavioral effectiveness.
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conceptualized and defined. One approach primarily focuses on international experience, implying that leaders
must spend time living in different cultures in order to be prepared to lead (Van Dyne & Ang 2006). A second
approach emphasizes the competencies a leader needs to have in order to lead effectively and success- fully across
cultures (Mendenhall 2001). This approach emphasizes having a broad set of experiences and competencies that
allow leaders to manage across cultures rather than focusing on a deep knowledge of one or two specific cultures.
This approach is reflected in the related work on global mindset (Boyacigiller et al. 2004, ClappSmith et al. 2007)
and cultural intelligence (Earley et al. 2007, Thomas 2006).
Comparative Leadership
Comparative research on the effectiveness of leadership in different cultures was the basis of early work in this
field and continues to be a major area of research (Dickson et al. 2003, Dorfman 2004, Gelfand et al. 2007, Kirkman
et al. 2006). Such research compares leadership in two or more cultures, examining the degree to which a practice
that was developed in one culture applies to others. A common approach examines the direct impact a cultural
dimension has on leadership. For example, one major cross-cultural study examined the impact of cultural values
on the selection of sources of guidance for dealing with work events that managers are likely to face in 47
countries (Smith et al. 2002). This study identified which sources of guidance were correlated with specific cultural
dimensions using several major cultural value dimension frameworks.
Another common strategy examines the in- direct influence of culture as it moderates the relationship between
leadership practice and relevant performance outcomes. Walumbwa et al. (2007) examined the effect of
allocentrism (collective orientation) and idiocentrism (individual orientation) on the relationships among
leadership (transformational and transactional) and both organizational commitment and satisfaction with
supervisor. Allocentrics were found to react more positively to transformational leaders, whereas idiocentrics had
a more positive reaction to transactional leaders
Future Focus Required
Although significant progress has been made in the cross-cultural leadership literature, several important issues
need to be addressed. For example, the term “culture” itself refers to a complex set of constructs around which
there is ongoing debate. Not surprisingly, the attempt to examine the effect that culture has on leadership brings
with it the associated conceptual and methodological challenges that are already associated with cross-cultural
research (Van de Vijver & Leung 2000). Despite improvements made over the years, a need remains for future
research to focus on levels of analysis when conducting cross-cultural leadership research. This applies to the
development of explicitly cross- level theoretical models as well as the use of appropriate statistical techniques.
Although the relevance of levels is widely recognized, the implications of cross-level analysis are often not
reflected in the research design in this literature, particularly when it comes to insuring a sufficient number of
cultures are included to conduct the analysis. Many researchers assume they can use the country as a convenient
substitute for measuring culture, which may be an erroneous level of analysis given the diversity of cultures
represented in most countries. Large-scale collaborations such as the GLOBE (House et al. 2004) study and the 47-
nation study of Smith et al. (2002) are likely to be re- quired to develop the types of samples needed for such
analytical approaches.
E-LEADERSHIP
Leading virtually involves leading people from different departments, organizations, countries, and sometimes
even competitor companies (Avolio et al. 2001). In virtual teams, “challenges are more likely to occur when
distributed work occurs in different time zones, when local communication and human infrastructures fail, when
team members’ hardware and software platforms are different, or when local work demands require the
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immediate attention of collocated managers and workers, thereby creating pressure to pursue local priorities over
the objectives of distant collaborators” (A. Weisband 2008b, p 6).
Zigurs (2003) suggested that traditional leadership models built on a foundation of face- to-face interactions may
not fully explain how virtual leadership and teams work. Specifically, how one provides feedback, encouragement,
re- wards, and motivation needs to be re-examined where leadership is mediated through technology. Zigurs
(2003) suggests that the continuing development in technology such as increased bandwidth, wireless networks,
integrated hand-held devices, voice input, built-in video, video walls, and automatic translation will no doubt have
a significant impact on how virtual teams communicate and how leadership is manifested in such teams. To date, a
great deal of the work on e-leadership focuses on either leadership in virtual work teams or groups interacting in
what are called “group decision support systems.” For example, Zaccaro & Bader (2003) provided an overview of
the similarities and differences between face-to-face teams and e-teams. They specifically focused on the impact
of leader- ship functions such as communication building, role clarification, team development, and effective task
execution and how they differed when mediated through technology. Other authors have focused on the effects of
structural factors such as distance and multiple locations on e-leadership and virtual team effectiveness (e.g.,
Cascio & Shurygailo 2003).
Common Questions with E-Leadership
Some of the common questions or hypotheses suggested to guide research on e-leadership and virtual teams have
been summarized by Avolio et al. (2001), Barelka (2007), as well as Ahuja& Galvin (2003) and include the following:
How does the nature and structure of technology impact how leadership style influences follower motivation and
performance? What effect will leadership mediated through technology have on trust formation? Will the nature
of the technology such as its richness or transparency be a factor in building trust in virtual teams? How will the
leadership and location of teams and technology connecting members affect the quality and quantity of their
communication? How will the nature of the task and its complexity influence how leadership affects virtual team
performance?
Group and Virtual Teams Research
A number of studies have examined e-leadership and virtual teams. For example, Kahai & Avolio (2008)
investigated the effects of leadership style and anonymity on the dis- cussion of an ethical issue in an electronic
system context. Kahai & Avolio examined how groups discussed an ethical issue by manipulating the leadership
style of the target e-leader and whether the group members were anonymous or identified. They reported that
frequency of group member participation in discussing how to address the ethical issue was greater when
leadership style was transactional versus transformational.
Xiao et al. (2008) conducted a field experiment focusing on surgical teams operating in a real-life trauma center. In
their study, the team leader either was placed in the room with the surgical team or interacted with them virtually.
The authors reported that when the team leader was in the next room, the leader had greater influence on
communications between the senior member in the room and other team members. However, when the senior
leader was collocated, the amount of communication be- tween the team leader, the senior member, and junior
__________
E-leadership: leadership where individuals or groups are geographically dispersed and interactions are
mediated by technology.
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members was more balanced. With high task urgency, the team leader was more involved with the senior team
member in terms of communication regardless of location, whereas the communication between the team leader
and junior members was reduced.
Balthazard et al. (2008) examined the mediational role of leadership and group member interaction styles in
comparing virtual and face- to-face teams. They reported that group members in face-to-face teams were
generally more cohesive, were more accepting of a group’s decisions, and exhibited a greater amount of synergy
than did virtual teams. Face-to-face teams exhibited a greater amount of constructive inter- action in comparison
with virtual teams, which scored significantly higher on defensive inter- action styles.
Malhotra et al. (2007) collected survey, interview, and observational data on virtual teams to identify the
leadership practices of effective leaders of virtual teams. These leadership practices included the ability to (a)
establish and maintain trust through the use of communication technology, (b) ensure that distributed diversity is
understood and appreciated, (c) manage effectively virtual work-life cycles, (d ) monitor team progress using
technology, (e) enhance visibility of virtual members within the team and outside the organization, and ( f ) let
individual team members benefit from the team.
Future Focus Required
Hambley et al. (2006) advocate that future research on e-leadership be conducted in field settings. They
recommend that virtual teams working on actual problem-solving tasks and projects be examined to help capture
the motivational element that may not exist with ad hoc groups working in the lab. A. Weisband (2008a) argued,
“Future research may want to consider how we lead in environments that lack any central coordination
mechanism, or how multiple leaders work together to innovate, create, and help others”(p. 255).
E-leadership areas recommended for future research by authors of papers on the virtual team topic include task
ownership, cohesion, media richness (i.e., technology’s capacity for providing immediate feedback, the number of
cues and channels utilized, personalization of messages, and language variety), communication quality,
asynchronous and synchronous communication, task complexity, and working on multiple virtual teams
simultaneously (Kozlowski & Bell 2003, Zaccaro & Bader 2003). For example, Watson et al. (1993) studied culturally
diverse and homogenous virtual groups and compared their interactions over a 17-week period. They found that
culturally di- verse groups initially suffered in their performance but over time surpassed homogenous groups,
especially in terms of the number of alternative ideas generated.
In summary, we expect that the work on virtual leadership and team interactions will continue to be a growth area
for leadership research. The fundamental issue for leader- ship scholars and practitioners to address is how
technology is transforming the traditional roles of leadership at both individual and collective levels by examining
“how existing leadership styles and cultures embedded in a group and/or organization affect the appropriation of
advanced information technology systems” (Avolio et al. 2001, p. 658).
CLOSING COMMENTS AND INTEGRATION
The evolution of this literature points to several important trends. The first trend involves the field of leadership
taking a more holistic view of leadership. Specifically, researchers are now examining all angles of leadership and
including in their models and studies the leader, the follower, the context, the levels, and their dynamic
interaction. The second trend involves examining how the process of leadership actually takes place by, for
example, integrating the work of cognitive psychology with strategic leadership. In this regard, we are witnessing
greater interest in how the leader processes information as well as how the follower does so, and how each affects
the other, the group, and organization. More work is expected on examining the various mediators and
moderators that help to explain how leadership influences intended out- comes. A third trend involves deriving
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alternative ways to examine leadership. We expect to see a greater use of mixed-methods designs in future
research. The quantitative strategies for studying leadership have dominated the literature over the past 100
years, but increasing attention is being paid to cases and qualitative re- search that should now be integrated with
quantitative approaches.
Part of the evolution of leadership theory and research will continue to involve further defining what actually
constitutes leadership from a content perspective, e.g., authentic, transformational, or visionary, and a process
perspective, e.g., shared, complex, or strategic. We also expect much more attention to be paid to the area of
strategic leadership, which we did not have space here to cover, and applying what we have learned about content
and process to this level of analysis. Finally, we go back to the point where we started in suggesting that the time
has never been better to examine the genuine development of leadership. The field of leadership has done
surprisingly little to focus its energies on what contributes to or detracts from genuine leadership development.
Given the forces in the global market, we expect that over the next 10 years, research and theory in this area will
explode as organizations increasingly ask for ways to accelerate positive leadership development as they enter the
front lines of the war for leadership talent.
In summary, the leadership field over the past decade has made tremendous progress in uncovering some of the
enduring mysteries associated with leadership. These include whether leaders are born or made, how followers
affect how successful leaders can be, how some charismatic leaders build up societies and others destroy them, as
well as what impact leading through technology has on individual and collective performance. The period that
leadership theory and research will enter over the next decade is indeed one of the most exciting in the history of
this planet.
SUMMARY POINTS
1. The field of leadership is evolving to a more holistic view of leadership.
2. More positive forms of leadership are being integrated into literature.
3. Increasing attention is being given to examining how leadership causally impacts interim and ultimate outcomes.
4. The follower is becoming an integral part of the leadership dynamic system.
5. There is growing interest in what genuinely develops leadership.
6. E-leadership is becoming a commonplace dynamic in work organizations.
7. More and more leadership is being distributed and shared in organizations.
8. Leadership is being viewed as a complex and emergent dynamic in organizations.
FUTURE ISSUES
1. More future research in leadership will be mixed methods.
2. Determining the causal mechanisms that link leadership to outcomes will be a priority.
3. Assessing and developing leadership using evidence-based strategies will be a target focus.
4. Examining strategic leadership as a process and person will be an evolving area of theory and research.
5. More theoretical work and research will focus on the follower as a prime element in the leadership dynamic.
6. How to develop global mindsets among leaders will be an area of interest.
7. A top priority area will be leadership in cultures that are underrepresented in the literature, such as Muslim
cultures.
8. How shared leadership evolves and develops will be a focus in face-to-face and virtual environments.
443
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DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS
The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We greatly appreciate the contributions made to this paper by Melissa Carsten, Rachel Clapp- Smith, Jakari Griffith,
Yongwoon Kim, Ketan Mhatre, David Sweetman, Mary UhlBien, and Kay-Ann Willis.
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Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions

Leadership: Current Theories,
Research, and Future
Directions
Bruce J. Avolio,1 Fred O. Walumbwa,2
and Todd J. Weber3
1Department of Management, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0491;
email: [email protected]
2Department of Management, The Arizona State University, Glendale,
Arizona 85306-4908; email: [email protected]
3Department of Management, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0491;
email: [email protected]
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2009. 60:421–49
The Annual Review of Psychology is online at
psych.annualreviews.org
This article’s doi:
10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163621
Copyright c 2009 by Annual Reviews.
All rights reserved
0066-4308/09/0110-0421$20.00
Key Words
authentic leadership, cognitive leadership, complexity leadership,
cross-cultural leadership, new-genre leadership, shared leadership
Abstract
This review examines recent theoretical and empirical developments in
the leadership literature, beginning with topics that are currently receiving attention in terms of research, theory, and practice. We begin
by examining authentic leadership and its development, followed by
work that takes a cognitive science approach. We then examine newgenre leadership theories, complexity leadership, and leadership that is
shared, collective, or distributed. We examine the role of relationships
through our review of leader member exchange and the emerging work
on followership. Finally, we examine work that has been done on substitutes for leadership, servant leadership, spirituality and leadership,
cross-cultural leadership, and e-leadership. This structure has the benefit of creating a future focus as well as providing an interesting way to
examine the development of the field. Each section ends with an identification of issues to be addressed in the future, in addition to the overall
integration of the literature we provide at the end of the article.
421
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2009.60:421-449. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Access provided by Pennsylvania State University on 05/22/21. For personal use only.
Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTIC
LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Authentic Leadership Defined . . . . . . 423
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Heritability and Leadership . . . . . . . . 425
Examining Evidence for Positive
Leadership Interventions. . . . . . . . 425
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
AND LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Emerging Cognitive Constructs . . . . 426
Prototypical Abstractions
of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
NEW-GENRE LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . 428
New-Genre Versus Traditional
Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Boundary Conditions
for New-Genre Leadership. . . . . . 429
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP . . . . . . 430
Complexity and Traditional
Leadership Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
SHARED, COLLECTIVE,
OR DISTRIBUTED
LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Shared Leadership Defined . . . . . . . . . 431
Research Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE. . . 433
Extensions to LMX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
FOLLOWERSHIP
AND LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Romance of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Updates on Follower-Centric
Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
SUBSTITUTES FOR
LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
SERVANT LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
SPIRITUALITY AND
LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
CROSS-CULTURAL
LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Project GLOBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Global Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Comparative Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
E-LEADERSHIP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Common Questions with
E-Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Group and Virtual Teams
Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
CLOSING COMMENTS
AND INTEGRATION. . . . . . . . . . . . 441
INTRODUCTION
One of our goals for this integrative review
is to examine the ways in which the field of
leadership is evolving and the consequences
of its evolutionary path for the models, methods, and populations examined. For example,
at the outset of the field of leadership, the primary focus was on studying an individual leader,
who was most likely a male working in some
large private-sector organization in the United
States. Today, the field of leadership focuses not
only on the leader, but also on followers, peers,
supervisors, work setting/context, and culture,
including a much broader array of individuals representing the entire spectrum of diversity, public, private, and not-for-profit organizations, and increasingly over the past 20 years,
samples of populations from nations around the
globe. Leadership is no longer simply described
as an individual characteristic or difference, but
422 Avolio · Walumbwa · Weber
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2009.60:421-449. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
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rather is depicted in various models as dyadic,
shared, relational, strategic, global, and a complex social dynamic (Avolio 2007, Yukl 2006).
We organize our examination of how leadership is evolving by discussing significant areas of
inquiry that represent current pillars in leadership research, some understandably taller than
others. We highlight the current state of each
particular area of inquiry, and discuss what we
know, what we don’t know, and what remains
interesting possibilities to pursue in future research. Given our space limitations, we focus
more on the current state of these respective areas in terms of advances in theory, research, and
practice, including the criticisms and boundaries of theories, models, and methods wherever
appropriate. From this analysis, we offer some
recommendations for future directions that the
science of leadership could pursue, and we discuss the potential implications for leadership
practice.
Looking back over the past 100 years, we
cannot imagine a more opportune time for the
field of leadership studies. Never before has so
much attention been paid to leadership, and the
fundamental question we must ask is, what do
we know and what should we know about leaders and leadership? We begin addressing these
questions not by going back to the earliest work
in leadership, but rather by focusing on what
is most current in the field. We then examine
other areas from which the current work has
emerged, rather than examining leadership material covered in recent reviews (Gelfand et al.
2007, Goethals 2005) or providing a comprehensive historical review of the field that is better left to the Handbook of Leadership (Bass &
Bass 2008; see also Yukl & Van Fleet 1992).
OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTIC
LEADERSHIP
One of the emerging pillars of interest in the
field of leadership has been called authentic
leadership development. As discussed in a special issue [edited by Avolio & Gardner (2005)]
of the Leadership Quarterly on this topic and in
an earlier theoretical piece by Luthans & Avolio
Authentic
leadership: a pattern
of transparent and
ethical leader behavior
that encourages
openness in sharing
information needed to
make decisions while
accepting followers’
inputs
Transformational
leadership: leader
behaviors that
transform and inspire
followers to perform
beyond expectations
while transcending
self-interest for the
good of the
organization
Positive
organizational
behavior: literature
that is focusing on
positive constructs
such as hope,
resiliency, efficacy,
optimism, happiness,
and well-being as they
apply to organizations
Broaden-and-build
theory: suggests
positive emotions
expand cognition and
behavioral tendencies,
and encourage novel,
varied, and exploratory
thoughts and actions
(2003), the advent of work on authentic leadership development came as a result of writings on
transformational leadership, in which authors
such as Bass & Steidlmeier (1999) suggest that
there are pseudo versus authentic transformational leaders.
Luthans & Avolio (2003) also introduced
the concept of authentic leadership development into the literature with the goal of integrating work on (Luthans 2002) positive
organizational behavior with the life-span leadership development work of Avolio (1999).
Their main purpose was to examine what constituted genuine leadership development including what worked and didn’t work to develop leaders and leadership, as well as to bring
to the foreground some of the recent work
in positive psychology as a foundation for examining how one might accelerate the development. Luthans and Avolio reasoned that
using some of the theoretical work in positive psychology such as Fredrickson’s (2001)
broaden-and-build theory, they could offer a
more positive way for conceptualizing leadership development. According to Fredrickson,
those individuals who have more positive psychological resources are expected to grow more
effectively or to broaden themselves and build
out additional personal resources to perform.
Luthans and Avolio report that to a large extent, the prior leadership development work
was based on a deficit-reduction model strategy, where one discovered what was wrong with
a leader and then worked to correct deficits in
terms of focusing on the leader’s development
(also see Avolio & Luthans 2006).
Authentic Leadership Defined
First and foremost, the concept of authenticity
has been around for a long time, as reflected in
many philosophical discussions of what constitutes authenticity (Harter et al. 2002). George
(2003) popularized authentic leadership in the
general practice community when he published
his book on the topic, as did Luthans & Avolio
(2003) for the academic community. Luthans
& Avolio (2003, p. 243) defined authentic
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Ethical leadership:
the demonstration of
normatively
appropriate conduct
through personal
actions and
interpersonal
relationships, and the
promotion of such
conduct to followers
Nomological
network: a
representation of a
construct, its
observable
manifestation, and the
relationship between
the two
leadership as “a process that draws from both
positive psychological capacities and a highly
developed organizational context, which results in both greater self-awareness and selfregulated positive behaviors on the part of
leaders and associates, fostering positive selfdevelopment.” This definition and subsequent
work on authentic leadership was defined at
the outset as multilevel in that it included the
leader, follower, and context very specifically in
the way it was conceptualized and measured.
This addressed a typical criticism in the leadership literature summarized by Yammarino
et al. (2005, p. 10) who concluded, “relatively
few studies in any of the areas of leadership
research have addressed levels-of-analysis issues appropriately in theory, measurement, data
analysis, and inference drawing.”
At the same time, several scholars (e.g.,
Cooper et al. 2005, Sparrowe 2005) expressed
concerns with Luthans & Avolio’s initial definition of authentic leadership. The initial conceptual differences notwithstanding, there appears to be general agreement in the literature
on four factors that cover the components of
authentic leadership: balanced processing, internalized moral perspective, relational transparency, and self-awareness. Balanced processing refers to objectively analyzing relevant data
before making a decision. Internalized moral
perspective refers to being guided by internal
moral standards, which are used to self-regulate
one’s behavior. Relational transparency refers to
presenting one’s authentic self through openly
sharing information and feelings as appropriate
for situations (i.e., avoiding inappropriate displays of emotions). Self-awareness refers to the
demonstrated understanding of one’s strengths,
weaknesses, and the way one makes sense of
the world. These four constructs were further
operationally defined by Walumbwa and colleagues (2008). Walumbwa et al. (2008) provided initial evidence using a multisample strategy involving U.S. and non-U.S. participants
to determine the construct validity of a new set
of authentic leadership scales. Specifically, they
showed the four components described above
represented unique scales that were reliable.
These four scales loaded on a higher-order factor labeled authentic leadership that was discriminantly valid from measures of transformational leadership (e.g., Avolio 1999) and ethical
leadership (e.g., Brown et al. 2005) and was a
significant and positive predictor of organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, and satisfaction with supervisor and
performance.
Future Focus Required
Work on defining and measuring authentic
leadership is in the very early stages of development. Future research will need to offer additional evidence for the construct validity of this measure or other measures, and
it will also need to demonstrate how authentic
leadership relates to other constructs within its
nomological network. This would include constructs such as moral perspective, self-concept
clarity, well-being, spirituality, and judgment.
Moreover, there is a need to examine how authentic leadership is viewed across situations
and cultures and whether it is a universally
prescribed positive root construct—meaning
it represents the base of good leadership regardless of form, e.g., participative, directive,
or inspiring. In the next section, we turn our
attention to the second major focus on authentic leadership, which incorporates the term
development.
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT
Up until very recently, one would be hardpressed to find in the leadership literature
a general model of leadership development
(Luthans & Avolio 2003). Even more difficult to
find is evidence-based leadership development.
Specifically, what evidence is there to support
whether leaders or leadership can be developed
using one or more specific theories of leadership? This question led to a concerted effort to
explore what was known about whether leaders are born or made, as well as the efficacy of
leadership interventions.
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Heritability and Leadership
One avenue of research that has explored
whether leaders are born versus made has involved studying identical and fraternal twins.
Preliminary evidence using a behavioral genetics approach has shown that approximately
30% of the variation in leadership style and
emergence was accounted for by heritability; the remaining variation was attributed to
differences in environmental factors such as
individuals having different role models and
early opportunities for leadership development
(Arvey et al. 2007). Because identical twins have
100% of the same genetic makeup and fraternal
twins share about 50%, this behavioral genetics
research was able to control for heritability to
examine how many leadership roles the twins
emerged into over their respective careers. In
this and subsequent research for both men and
women across cultures, similar results were obtained. The authors conducting this research
conclude that the “life context” one grows up
in and later works in is much more important
than heritability in predicting leadership emergence across one’s career.
Examining Evidence for Positive
Leadership Interventions
Lord & Hall (1992, p. 153) noted, “too much
research in the past has attempted to probe the
complex issues of leadership using simple bivariate correlations.” It seems fair to say that
although most models of leadership have causal
predictions, a relatively small percentage of the
accumulated literature has actually tested these
predictions using controlled leadership interventions, especially in field research settings
(Yukl 2006).
To determine whether experimental interventions actually impacted leadership development and/or performance, a qualitative and
quantitative review of the leadership intervention (i.e., studies where a researcher overtly
manipulated leadership to examine its impact
on some specific intermediate process variables or outcomes) literature was undertaken
(see Avolio & Luthans 2006, Avolio et al. 2009,
Reichard & Avolio 2005). The focus of this
meta-analytic review was unique in that up to
that point, more than 30 meta-analyses had
been published on leadership research, none
of which had focused on leadership interventions and more than one model of leadership.
For each study, the leadership intervention examined was categorized into six types: training, actor/role-play, scenario/vignette, assignments, expectations, others. Reichard & Avolio
(2005) reported that regardless of the theory being investigated, results showed that leadership
interventions had a positive impact on work
outcomes (e.g., ratings of leader performance),
even when the duration of those interventions
was less than one day. In terms of utility, participants in the broadly defined leadership treatment condition had on average a 66% chance
of positive outcomes versus only a 34% chance
of success for the comparison group.
Future Focus Required
Relatively little work has been done over the
past 100 years to substantiate whether leadership can actually be developed. Indeed, based
on the meta-analysis findings reviewed above,
only 201 studies were identified that fit the
intervention definition. Of those 201 studies,
only about one third focused on developing
leadership as opposed to manipulating it for
impact through role plays or scripts to test
a particular proposition in one of the various
models.
One of the emerging areas of interest in
leadership research, which we have dedicated
more attention to in its own section, concerns the linkages between cognitive science
and how leaders perceive, decide, behave, and
take action (Lord & Brown 2004). For example, to develop leadership, it is imperative that
we examine how a leader’s self-concept and/or
identity is formed, changed, and influences behavior (Swann et al. 2007). This raises a key
question regarding what constitutes leaders’
working self-concept and/or identity with respect to how they go about influencing others
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(Swann et al. 2007). For example, does an authentic leader have a different working selfconcept than someone who is described by followers as transformational or transactional, and
how do these differences develop in the leader
over time?
We know from previous literature that although a leader’s working self-concept is constructed in the current moment, it is also based
on more stable self-concepts and identities
stored in the individual’s long-term memory.
Avolio & Chan (2008) indicate there are certain
trigger events that activate the leader’s working
self-concept. These trigger events induce selffocused attention, self-assessment, and activate
a leader’s working self-concept. These trigger
moments can occur naturally as the leader interacts with others during leadership episodes
or they can be induced through formal training exercises and self-reflection (Roberts et al.
2005).
Another very promising area of research
that has not received sufficient attention in the
leadership literature focuses on understanding
what constitutes an individual’s level of developmental readiness or one’s capacity or motivational orientation to develop to one’s full potential. Prior authors have defined developmental readiness as being made up of components
such as one’s goal orientation (Dweck 1986) and
motivation to develop leadership (Maurer &
Lippstreu 2005). In this literature, the authors
argue that leaders who are more motivated to
learn at the outset and who have higher motivation to lead will more likely embrace trigger
events that stimulate their thinking about their
own development as an opportunity to improve
their leadership effectiveness.
In sum, a great deal of energy and interest
is emerging in the leadership development literature that suggests there will be a lot more
activity in trying to discover what impacts genuine leadership development at multiple levels
of analysis, from cognitive through to organizational climates. This literature will no doubt
link to the life-span development and cognitive
psychology literatures to fuel further work in
this area.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
AND LEADERSHIP
The cognitive science leadership literature is an
area of research and theory containing a wide
range of approaches that are united by their focus on explaining the way leaders and followers think and process information. This literature includes a broad range of topics such as
self-concept theory, meta-cognitions, and implicit leadership theory (e.g., Lord & Emrich
2000), which are addressed in more detail
below.
One of the more recent developments in
the literature has been an attempt to develop
models of leadership cognition. Lord & Hall
(2005) developed a model of leadership development that emphasized the leader’s cognitive attributes or abilities. A second model
was developed by Mumford et al. (2003) and
examined the way shared thinking contributed
to leader creativity. These two approaches illustrate a fundamental way in which views of
leadership cognitions vary, with the former focusing on activities with the individual leader
and the latter focusing on interactions that occur between individuals (Mumford et al. 2007).
We examine several of the key emerging constructs within this literature, beginning with the
self-concept.
Emerging Cognitive Constructs
Recent literature on what constitutes the selfconcept has distinguished between the structure of the self-concept and its contents
(Altrocchi 1999). The content refers to the evaluations one makes of oneself as well as selfbeliefs. The structure refers to ways in which
the self-concept content is organized for processing. In a study on the structure of the selfconcept, Campbell et al. (2003) examined the
competing arguments that one benefits from
having either unity in self-concept or pluralism. Although the literature tends to treat the
two as opposite ends of a continuum, their
study showed they are not necessarily related
to each other. This study further showed that
two measures of pluralism (self-complexity and
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self-concept compartmentalization) were not
related to each other and that multiple measures of self-concept unity, such as self-concept
differentiation, self-concept clarity, and selfdiscrepancies, were moderately related to each
other and that each had implications for leader
development.
Lord & Brown (2001) presented a model
examining two specific ways that leaders can
influence the way followers choose to behave
in terms of the motivations they use to regulate actions/behaviors. The first way relates to
values (e.g., achievement) and emphasizes making specific values (or patterns of values) salient
for the follower to motivate him or her to action. The second relates to the followers’ selfconcept, whereby the leader activates a specific
identity to which followers can relate, creating a
collective identity that the follower ultimately
embraces as his or her own. Both values and
self-concept are viewed as mediating the linkage between the leader’s actions and the behavior of the follower.
Because there are a range of peripheral and
core identities that could be salient to an individual at any one point in time, the question of which identities are activated at any
time is relevant to research on leadership and
its impact on followers. The idea of a working
self-concept refers to the identity (or combination of identities) that is salient in the moment, and it consists of three types of components: self-views, current goals, and possible
selves (Lord & Brown 2004). The self-view relates to the current working model or view of
oneself, whereas the possible selves may represent the ideal model an individual may be striving for and something that could be leveraged
by the leader to motivate and develop followers into better followers or leaders themselves.
Overall, the working self-concept has the potential to provide insight into the challenging
issue of how salient one’s identity is and how
leadership can enhance its salience, though its
use within the leadership literature has been
somewhat limited so far.
One of the essential building blocks in the
cognitive leadership literature is the idea of a
Cognitive leadership:
a broad range of
approaches to
leadership
emphasizing how
leaders and followers
think and process
information
Transactional
leadership:
leadership largely
based on the exchange
of rewards contingent
on performance
schema, which is a broad organizing framework that helps one understand and make sense
of a given context or experience. One notable
example of the use of schemas with respect
to leadership research is the work of Wofford
et al. (1998), who proposed a cognitive model to
explain the way transformational and transactional leaders view work with followers. In their
field study, Wofford et al. examined schematic
processes (e.g., vision, follower, self) and scripts
(behaviors associated with a schema), arguing
that transformational and transactional leadership use different schemas to interpret events,
which then results in the choice of different leadership behaviors/actions in response
to those events. Support was found for transformational leader cognitions being related to
the leaders’ choice of acting transformationally.
Mixed support was found for the relationships
between transactional leader schemas and behaviors and actions chosen.
Prototypical Abstractions
of Leadership
The leadership research on social identity formation has also focused heavily on what constitutes prototypicality, which has shown that
followers may be more drawn to leaders who
are exemplars of groups they belong to or want
to join. Early research conceptualized prototypes as being relatively static and applicable in
many situations. Recent work has contested that
view, arguing that prototypes are dynamic and
can be applied and adapted based on the existing constraints or challenges being confronted
by leaders (Lord et al. 2001).
Subsequent research has also focused on the
relationship between implicit leadership theories and several relevant performance outcomes
(Epitropaki & Martin 2005). We note that for
more than 25 years, a great deal of the work on
cognitive psychology and leadership focused on
how implicit theories and prototypes affected
the perceptions of leaders and followers, generally examining how it disadvantaged or biased
them in views of others. More recent trends
in this literature coincide nicely with emphasis
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New-genre
leadership: leadership
emphasizing
charismatic leader
behavior, visionary,
inspiring, ideological
and moral values, as
well as
transformational
leadership such as
individualized
attention, and
intellectual stimulation
now being placed on authentic leadership development. Specifically, research is now attempting to link how leaders think about events,
choose to behave, and/or develop.
Future Focus Required
Cognitive approaches to investigating leadership draw heavily on several literatures described above. This broad stream of research
has potential for enhancing existing theories of
leadership in terms of helping to explain how
leaders and followers attend to, process, and
make decisions and develop. Additional work
linking self-concept and meta-cognitive theories to research on leadership will no doubt
contribute to our understanding of how leaders and followers actually develop. For example, if a leader has low self-concept clarity, to what extent can we expect that same
leader to be self-aware? What are the implications for enhancing a leader’s self-concept
clarity or working self-concept about what
constitutes the roles of effective leadership
in developing that leader’s self-awareness and
performance?
NEW-GENRE LEADERSHIP
Although prior authors have focused on what
constitutes charismatic, inspirational, and visionary leadership as far back as the early 1920s,
much of the attention in the literature on these
newer theories of leadership has come about
over the past 25 years. Burns (1978) and Bass
(1985) signaled the need to shift the focus of
leadership research from predominantly examining transactional models that were based on
how leaders and followers exchanged with each
other to models that might augment transactional leadership and were labeled charismatic,
inspirational, transformational, and visionary.
The early work of Bass and Burns set the stage
for distinguishing what Bryman (1992) referred
to as more traditional theories of leadership
versus what they termed new-genre leadership
theories.
New-Genre Versus Traditional
Leadership
Bryman (1992) commented, “There was considerable disillusionment with leadership theory and research in the early 1980s. Part of the
disillusionment was attributed to the fact that
most models of leadership and measures accounted for a relatively small percentage of variance in performance outcomes such as productivity and effectiveness. Out of this pessimism
emerged a number of alternative approaches,
which shared some common features… , collectively referred to as the new leadership”
(Bryman 1992, p. 21). Unlike the traditional
leadership models, which described leader behavior in terms of leader-follower exchange relationships, setting goals, providing direction
and support, and reinforcement behaviors, or
what Bass (1985) referred to as being based
on “economic cost-benefit assumptions” (p. 5),
the new leadership models emphasized symbolic leader behavior; visionary, inspirational
messages; emotional feelings; ideological and
moral values; individualized attention; and intellectual stimulation. Emerging from these
early works, charismatic and transformational
leadership theories have turned out to be the
most frequently researched theories over the
past 20 years (Avolio 2005, Lowe & Gardner
2000).
The theory of charismatic/transformational
leadership suggests that such leaders raise followers’ aspirations and activate their higherorder values (e.g., altruism) such that followers identify with the leader and his or
her mission/vision, feel better about their
work, and then work to perform beyond simple transactions and base expectations (e.g.,
Avolio 1999, Bass 1985, Conger & Kanungo
1998). Accumulated research (see Avolio et al.
2004a for a summary of this literature), including a series of meta-analytic studies (e.g.,
Judge & Piccolo 2004), has found that charismatic/transformational leadership was positively associated with leadership effectiveness
and a number of important organizational
outcomes across many different types of
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organizations, situations, levels of analyses, and
cultures such as productivity and turnover.
Over the past decade, a lot of research effort has been invested in understanding the
processes through which charismatic/transformational leaders positively influence followers’ attitudes, behaviors, and performance. For
example, a number of studies have examined
different processes through which transformational leadership effects are ultimately realized
in terms of performance outcomes. These processes include followers’ formation of commitment; satisfaction; identification; perceived
fairness (e.g., Liao & Chuang 2007, Walumbwa
et al. 2008); job characteristics such as variety,
identity, significance, autonomy and feedback
(e.g., Piccolo & Colquitt 2006); trust in the
leader (e.g., Wang et al. 2005); and how followers come to feel about themselves and their
group in terms of efficacy, potency, and cohesion (e.g., Bass et al. 2003, Bono & Judge 2003,
Schaubroeck et al. 2007).
Boundary Conditions
for New-Genre Leadership
After establishing the positive links between
transformational leadership and the intervening variables and performance outcomes, more
recent research has examined the boundary
conditions in which transformational leadership is more (or less) effective in predicting
follower attitudes and behaviors. For example,
several studies have focused on identifying and
understanding contextual variables (e.g., idiocentrism) that mediate or moderate the relationship of charismatic/transformational leadership with followers’ level of motivation
and performance at the individual, team or
group, and organizational levels (e.g., De
Cremer & van Knippenberg 2004, Keller 2006,
Walumbwa et al. 2007). Additional research
has focused on examining the moderating effects of follower dispositions such as efficacy
(Dvir & Shamir 2003, Zhu et al. 2008), physical and structural distance (e.g., Avolio et al.
2004b), perceived environmental uncertainty
(e.g., Agle et al. 2006), social networks (e.g.,
Mediated
moderation: a
moderating
relationship that is
mediated by another
variable
Moderated
mediation: a
mediating relationship
that is moderated by
another variable
Bono & Anderson 2005), technology to support group decision-making (e.g., Sosik et al.
1997), and cultural orientations such as collectivism (e.g., Walumbwa & Lawler 2003).
Future Focus Required
Although significant progress has been made
in studying charismatic/transformational leadership, a number of areas still deserve further
attention. First, despite the important and
positive contributions made by charismatic or
transformational leadership in practice, questions remain as to what determines or predicts
charismatic or transformational leadership,
or why some leaders engage in charismatic
or transformational leadership behavior and
others do not. Limited research has examined
leaders’ biographies or the role of followers
(Howell & Shamir 2005) as predictor variables.
Second, despite significant progress in understanding how and when charismatic and
transformational leadership behaviors are more
effective, further research is needed that explores the process and boundary conditions
for charismatic and transformational leadership
with beneficial work behaviors. For example,
although scholars who have investigated charismatic and transformational leadership have
discussed motivational constructs as central
components in their frameworks, generally
speaking, few have paid any attention to the underlying psychological processes, mechanisms,
and conditions through which charismatic and
transformational leaders motivate followers to
higher levels of motivation and performance
(Kark & Van Dijk 2007).
Yukl (1999) has called for a more concerted effort to understand both the moderating and mediating mechanisms that link charismatic/transformational leadership to follower
outcomes. To date, only a few preliminary
studies have simultaneously examined mediated
moderation or moderated mediation (e.g., De
Cremer & van Knippenberg 2004, Walumbwa
et al. 2008).
Third, other areas that deserve research
attention include examining how to link
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CAS: complex
adaptive system
charismatic/transformational leadership to the
emerging literature on emotions and leadership. Although all of these newer theories emphasize the emotional attachment of followers
to the leader, there has been a dearth of conceptual and empirical research on examining
the relationships between these new leadership
theories and followers’ affective states (Bono &
Ilies 2006).
Fourth, research on charismatic and transformational leadership at the organizational
or strategic level has generally lagged behind
all other areas of leadership research except
perhaps the focus on leadership development
(Waldman & Yammarino 1999), and the results
thus far have been mixed (Agle et al. 2006).
For example, Waldman and colleagues (Tosi
et al. 2004, Waldman et al. 2001) found that the
charisma of the chief executive officer (CEO)
was not related to subsequent organizational
performance as measured by net profit margin and shareholder return or return on assets, respectively. On the other hand, Agle et al.
(2006) and Waldman et al. (2004) reported that
CEO charisma was associated with subsequent
organizational performance. Clearly, more research is needed that focuses on potential mediating and moderating variables such as external
stakeholders while examining the relationship
between CEO charismatic or transformational
leadership and firm performance.
Finally, although cross-cultural research
pertaining to charismatic/transformational
leadership generally supports the relationships
reported for the United States and other Western cultures, it is important to note that these
studies largely involve survey-based designs.
We recommend that researchers incorporate
a number of alternative research designs,
including but not limited to experimental
designs, longitudinal designs, and qualitative
designs, as well as the use of multiple sources
and mixed methods studies.
COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP
Many previous models of leadership have been
designed to accommodate more traditional hierarchical structures of organizations. To the
degree that organizations are hierarchical, so
too are leadership models (Uhl-Bien et al.
2007). Yet, there has been a growing sense of
tension in the leadership literature that models of leadership that were designed for the
past century may not fully capture the leadership dynamic of organizations operating in today’s knowledge-driven economy (Lichtenstein
et al. 2007). Applying the concepts of complexity theory to the study of leadership has
resulted in what has been referred to as complexity leadership (Uhl-Bien & Marion 2008).
Based on this framework, leadership is viewed as
an interactive system of dynamic, unpredictable
agents that interact with each other in complex feedback networks, which can then produce adaptive outcomes such as knowledge dissemination, learning, innovation, and further
adaptation to change (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007).
According to complex systems leadership theory, “leadership can be enacted through any
interaction in an organization … leadership is
an emergent phenomenon within complex systems” (Hazy et al. 2007, p. 2).
In line with leadership fitting the needs of
the situation or challenges in which it operates,
complexity leadership posits that to achieve optimal performance, organizations cannot be designed with simple, rationalized structures that
underestimate the complexity of the context
in which the organization must function and
adapt (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). Simply viewing
the leader and follower in a simple exchange
process won’t fly in terms of explaining the full
dynamics of leadership.
Complexity and Traditional
Leadership Theory
In traditional leadership theory, the unit of analysis is oftentimes the leader, the leader and
follower, the leader and group, and so forth.
The fundamental unit of analysis in complexity leadership is referred to as a complex adaptive system, or CAS (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007).
The CAS has its roots in the physical sciences and is composed of interdependent agents
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that can operate simultaneously on the basis of
certain rules and localized knowledge that governs the CAS, while also being able to adapt
and emerge based on feedback from the system (Plowman & Duchon 2008). Complexity
leadership theory (CLT; Uhl-Bien et al. 2007)
has been developed as an overarching explanation of how CAS operates within a bureaucratic
organization, and it identifies three leadership
roles to explore: adaptive (e.g., engaging others in brainstorming to overcome a challenge),
administrative (e.g., formal planning according
to doctrine), and enabling (e.g., minimizing the
constraints of an organizational bureaucracy to
enhance follower potential).
Future Focus Required
One of the core propositions of complexity
leadership theory is that “much of leadership
thinking has failed to recognize that leadership is not merely the influential act of an individual or individuals but rather is embedded
in a complex interplay of numerous interacting forces” (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007, p. 302). How
should one then study this form of leadership?
Dooley & Lichtenstein (2008) describe several
methods for studying complex leadership interactions, including by focusing on (a) micro,
daily interactions using real-time observation,
(b) meso interactions (days and weeks) using social network analysis, where one examines a set
of agents and how they are linked over time,
and (c) macro interactions (weeks, months, and
longer) through event history analysis. Finally,
agent-based modeling simulations (i.e., computer simulations based on a set of explicit assumptions about how agents are supposed to
operate) are also being used as a means to study
complexity leadership.
In sum, the complexity leadership field
clearly lacks substantive research. We suspect
this is a result of the difficulties in assessing
this type of emergent construct within a dynamically changing context. However, substantive research is needed if this area of leadership research is to advance beyond conceptual
discussions.
CLT: complexity
leadership theory
Shared leadership:
an emergent state
where team members
collectively lead each
other
SHARED, COLLECTIVE,
OR DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP
Similar to our discussion above about complexity leadership, we see more evidence for shared
or collective leadership in organizations as hierarchical levels are deleted and team-based
structures are inserted. In describing shared and
team leadership, it is important to point out that
these forms of leadership are typically viewed
as different streams of research. For example,
team leadership research has typically focused
on the role of an individual leading the team. In
contrast, those authors examining shared leadership generally view it as a process versus a person engaging multiple members of the team.
In this section, we refer to the terms “shared
leadership,” “distributed leadership,” and “collective leadership” interchangeably, paralleling
their usage in the leadership literature.
Shared Leadership Defined
According to Day et al. (2004), team and shared
leadership capacity is an emergent state—
something dynamic that develops throughout
a team’s lifespan and that varies based on the
inputs, processes, and outcomes of the team.
It produces patterns of reciprocal influence,
which reinforce and develop further relationships between team members (Carson et al.
2007). The most widely cited definition of
shared leadership is that of Pearce & Conger
(2003): “a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the
objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organizational goals or both.
This influence process often involves peer, or
lateral, influence and at other times involves
upward or downward hierarchical influence”
(p. 1). The term shared leadership overlaps with
relational and complexity leadership, and differs from more traditional, hierarchical, or vertical models of leadership (Pearce & Sims 2002).
Highly shared leadership is broadly distributed within a group or a team of individuals rather than localized in any one individual who serves in the role of supervisor (Pearce
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& Conger 2003). More specifically, shared leadership is defined as a team-level outcome (Day
et al. 2004) or as a “simultaneous, ongoing, mutual influence process within a team that is characterized by ‘serial emergence’ of official as well
as unofficial leaders” (Pearce 2004, p. 48). Similar to what we’ve described with respect to complexity leadership, when shared leadership can
be “viewed as a property of the whole system,
as opposed to solely the property of individuals, effectiveness in leadership becomes more a
product of those connections or relationships
among the parts than the result of any one part
of that system (such as the leader)” (O’Connor
& Quinn 2004, p. 423).
Research Evidence
Although a number of authors [beginning with
Mary Parker Follett (1924)] have discussed the
idea of shared leadership, it has only gained
attention in the academic leadership literature
recently, and relatively few studies have tried
to measure shared leadership. One exception
is the work by Avolio & Bass (1995). In their
study, instead of raters evaluating the individual leader, the target of ratings was the team itself. Avolio & Bass (1995) report that the teamlevel measures of transformational and transactional leadership positively predicted performance similar to the individual-level measures
in previous research.
Future Focus Required
One of the criticisms of research on shared leadership involves the lack of agreement on its definition (Carson et al. 2007). For example, should
there be a generic definition of shared leadership that is qualified by such terms as transactional or transformational shared leadership?
Other potential areas that have yet to be
explored involve certain boundary conditions,
mediators, and moderators that have been recommended as a focus for future research. For
example, Pearce & Conger (2003) noted that
future research was needed to examine potential moderators such as the distribution of cultural values, task interdependence, task competence, task complexity, and the team life cycle.
Carson et al. (2007) proposed that greater attention be paid to levels of task competence in
the team, complexity of tasks, and task interdependence in terms of examining how teams
function when using shared leadership. These
authors have also recommended that future research focus on the team’s life cycle.
Another area that has not received much research attention involves the environment in
which teams function. For example, Carson
et al. (2007) proposed that future research examine the type of team environment that enables shared leadership, suggesting that the environment consists of three “highly interrelated
and mutually reinforcing” dimensions: shared
purpose, social support, and voice. These authors described several organizational climate
factors that could potentially support more
shared leadership in teams, including (a) shared
purpose, which “exists when team members
have similar understandings of their team’s primary objectives and take steps to ensure a focus on collective goals”; (b) social support, described as “team members’ efforts to provide
emotional and psychological strength to one
another. This helps to create an environment
where team members feel their input is valued
and appreciated”; and (c) voice, which is “the degree to which a team’s members have input into
how the team carries out its purpose” (p. 1222).
Future research also needs to examine how
external team leaders affect the team’s ability
and motivation to be self-directed and share
in leadership (Carson et al. 2007). Hackman &
Wageman (2005) suggest that an external leader
to the team can “help team members make coordinated and task-appropriate use of their collective resources in accomplishing the team’s task”
(p. 269).
In a nutshell, the time for examining shared
leadership may be upon us to the extent that organizations are moving into a knowledge driven
era where firms are distributed across cultures.
This suggests that individual-based “heroic”
models of leadership may not be sustainable in
and of themselves (Pearce 2004).
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LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE
Unlike shared leadership, which has focused on
groups, leader-member exchange (LMX) theory has focused on the relationship between the
leader and follower (Cogliser & Schriesheim
2000). The central principle in LMX theory
is that leaders develop different exchange relationships with their followers, whereby the
quality of the relationship alters the impact
on important leader and member outcomes
(Gerstner & Day 1997). Thus, leadership occurs when leaders and followers are able to
develop effective relationships that result in
mutual and incremental influence (Uhl-Bien
2006).
This literature has evolved from focusing
exclusively on the consequences of the LMX
relationship to focusing on both antecedents
and consequences. For example, Tekleab &
Taylor (2003) assessed leader and follower
levels of agreement on their mutual obligations
and their psychological contract with each
other. In a recent meta-analysis reported by
Ilies et al. (2007), the authors reported that
a higher-quality LMX relationship not only
predicted higher levels of performance, but
also organizational citizenship behaviors. Some
additional areas of focus in terms of high- versus low-quality LMX relationships have been
the context in which those relationships have
developed. Kacmar et al. (2007) examined the
conditions under which leaders and followers
in low-quality exchanges exerted more effort
in examining how the situation interacted
with the impact of supervisors. Using control
theory, the authors tried to explain how
perceptions of supervisor competence, centralization, and organizational politics influenced
their willingness to exert effort on the job
beyond what would be typically expected in a
less-than-effective exchange relationship.
Additional research on the nature of the relationship and how it is formed has focused on
the use of impression management tactics and
its impact on the quality of the LMX relationship. Colella & Varma (2001) investigated how
a follower’s perceived disability and use of inLMX: leader member
exchange
gratiation related to LMX quality. By using ingratiation tactics, the individuals with disabilities were able to increase the quality of the
relationship between the leader and follower.
Similar results were reported by Sparrowe et al.
(2006), who showed that downward-influence
tactics used by the leader affected the quality of
the LMX relationship.
Extensions to LMX
The original work produced by Graen & UhlBien (1995) on the role-making and roletaking processes has been extended by Uhl-Bien
and colleagues (2000) to examine how leaderfollower dyads transform from individual interest to shared interest based on the development
of trust, respect, and obligations to each other.
Similar work along these lines has examined
the effects of goal congruence on the quality
of the LMX relationship. This work suggests
that to the extent that goals are similar or mutually reinforcing, one would expect to produce
a higher-quality LMX relationship.
Additional LMX research on individual differences has examined the impact of gender on
the quality of the LMX relationship, although
these findings have been mixed. For instance,
Adebayo & Udegbe (2004) reported that followers in opposite-sex dyads perceived a better
LMX quality in comparison with those from
same-sex dyads.
Recent research has moved beyond examining LMX in terms of antecedents and consequences and has examined the quality of the
leader and follower relationship as a moderator and/or mediator of performance. For example, Sparrowe et al. (2006) reported that the
quality of the relationship moderated the relationship between downward-influence tactics
and helping behaviors. Martin et al. (2005) reported that LMX either fully or partially mediated the relationship between locus of control
and several work-related outcomes such as job
satisfaction, work-related well-being, and organizational commitment.
In an extension of the linkages between social network theory and LMX, Graen (2006)
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put forth a recent transformation of LMX theory that he refers to as the new LMX–MMX
theory of sharing network leadership. Accordingly, both Uhl-Bien (2006) and Graen (2006),
building on earlier LMX research, now view organizations as systems of interdependent dyadic
relationships, or dyadic subassemblies, and advocate the importance of both formal and informal influences on individual, team, and network
flows of behavior.
Future Focus Required
Over the years, LMX theory and research have
been targets of criticism. One pervasive criticism of this literature revolves around measurement. For example, many different measures of LMX have been developed and used
since the theory was first proposed (Yukl 2006).
Schriesheim et al. (1999, p. 100) argued, “LMX
scales seem to have been developed on ad hoc,
evolutionary basis, without the presentation of
any clear logic or theory justifying the changes
which were made.” LMX research has also been
criticized for failing to conceptualize the social
context in which leaders and followers are embedded. With a few exceptions, “the majority of
research is, quite explicitly, located at the dyadic
level, with very little theorizing or empirical
work examining LMX work at the group level”
(Hogg et al. 2004, p. 22). In other words, theory and research on LMX have focused on the
leader-follower relationship without acknowledging that each dyadic relationship occurs
within a system of other relationships (Cogliser
& Schriesheim 2000, Yukl 2006). LMX theory
and research also tend to assume that people
simply evaluate their own LMX relationship
in an absolute sense. According to Hogg et al.
(2004), this is an oversimplification of how people judge relationships. The authors argue that
it is much more likely that followers evaluate
the quality of their LMX relationship not only
in the absolute sense (i.e., low versus high), but
also with reference to their perception of others’ LMX relationships. Another criticism of
the LMX literature is that most of it is based
on correlation designs. This was a central criticism made by Cogliser & Schriesheim (2000)
regarding the lack of causal results reported in
the extensive stream of research associated with
LMX research.
LMX research has also been criticized for
not including more objective measures of performance (Erdogan & Liden 2002). Frequently,
research in this area has collected performance
outcomes that were generated by the leader or
supervisor. It is now time to extend this research
by collecting independent outcome measures
that logically would be influenced by the quality of LMX relationship.
Another promising area for future research
is to extend work on LMX theory across cultures. Specifically, what are the implications of
national culture for the formation and development of an LMX quality relationship, and in
turn how would that link to key organizational
outcomes? Preliminary research addressing this
question across cultures has produced some
interesting results. For example, Chen et al.
(2006) reported that regardless of whether the
manager was American or Chinese, the quality
of the LMX relationship was related to cooperative goal setting or interdependence.
FOLLOWERSHIP
AND LEADERSHIP
Perhaps one of the most interesting omissions
in theory and research on leadership is the absence of discussions of followership and its impact on leadership. Leadership researchers treat
follower attributes as outcomes of the leadership process as opposed to inputs, even though
there have been a number of calls over the years
to examine the role that followers play in the
leadership process (e.g., Shamir 2007).
Romance of Leadership
Our examination of follower-centric views begins with a focus on what the leadership literature describes as the romance of leadership. Meindl et al. (1985) proposed a social
constructionist theory to describe the relationship between leadership and followership. They
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argued that leadership is significantly affected
by the way followers construct their understanding of the leader in terms of their interpretation of his or her personality, behaviors, and
effectiveness.
Accumulated research on the romance of
leadership has produced mixed findings. Schyns
et al. (2007) conducted a meta-analysis to
determine whether they could tease out the
effects controlling for such things as measurement error and sampling bias while focusing on whether followers had a tendency
to romanticize their perceptions of transformational/charismatic leadership. Their results
revealed a modest relationship between the romance of leadership and perceptions of transformational/charismatic leadership, accounting
for approximately 5% of the variance in leadership ratings. In another study, Kulich et al.
(2007) examined the relevance of the romance
of leadership theory through an experiment that
compared how the performance of a male and
a female leader was viewed by allowing participants to choose how much of a bonus to allocate
to the leader. Their results showed that the male
CEO’s bonus differed substantially depending
on the company’s performance, whereas no differences were reported for the female CEO.
Bligh et al. (2007) found that followers’ negative views of their work environment were
overly attributed to their leaders’ in that they
viewed the leader as more responsible for these
negative outcomes and situations than was warranted. Along the same lines, Weber et al.
(2001) reported that group success and failure
were overly attributed to the leader. However,
these authors also reported that attributions of
failure to the leader may have had more significant negative repercussions, with the failing
team consistently voting to replace their leaders when the situation was more of the cause for
the team’s failure.
Updates on Follower-Centric Views
Howell & Shamir (2005) put forth some important theoretical propositions regarding how
follower traits and characteristics might influence leader and follower relationships (also see
Dvir & Shamir 2003). Specifically, they identified followers’ self-concept clarity and collective identity as important factors in determining
how followers form charismatic relationships
with their leader. Howell & Shamir (2005) then
suggested that followers, who have a personalized relationship with a charismatic leader, may
be more likely to show blind loyalty, obedience,
and deference.
Carsten et al. (2007) examined how individuals hold divergent social constructions of followership that seem to coalesce around levels of
passivity or proactivity, which followers believe
could lead to effectiveness in their role. Thus,
like leaders, not all followers are created equal
in the minds of followers. This pattern was reflected in the work of Kelley (1992), who conceptualized followers as falling into quadrants,
based on their being active or passive followers
as well as whether they were critical or noncritical thinkers.
Future Focus Required
Shamir (2007) suggested that leadership effectiveness is just as much a product of good
followers as it is of good leaders. Shamir
(2007) made some specific recommendations
for future work on follower-centered research,
including examining how followers’ needs,
identities, and implicit theories affect leader
selection and emergence as well as leader endorsement and acceptance; how follower interactions/social networks influence the emergence of leadership and effectiveness; how
followers’ expectations, values, and attitudes
determine leader behavior; how followers’ expectations affect the leader’s motivation and
performance; how followers’ acceptance of the
leader and their support for the leader affect
the leader’s self-confidence, self-efficacy, and
behavior; how followers’ characteristics (e.g.,
self-concept clarity) determine the nature of the
leadership relationship formed with the leader;
and how followers’ attitudes and characteristics (e.g., level of development) affect leader
behavior.
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In addition, more work needs to be done examining how followership is construed across
different industries and cultures. It is possible
that in more advanced and newly forming industries, the concept of followership may be
construed and enacted differently than what we
might find in more established industries with
long histories of treating leaders and followers
in a particular way (Schyns et al. 2007).
SUBSTITUTES FOR LEADERSHIP
The substitutes-for-leadership theory focuses
on situational factors that enhance, neutralize, and/or totally substitute for leadership. For
example, a group of people engaged in electronic brainstorming using technology, such as
a group decision support system, may operate
as though there was a participative leader who
was leading the group, but in fact, leadership
comes from the operating rules for using the
system to engage. Kerr & Jermier (1978) proposed the substitutes-for-leadership theory to
address some of the romance effects described
above. This research stream focuses on a range
of situational/organizational and follower characteristics that might influence the leadership
dynamic (Howell et al. 2007).
Since this theory was originally proposed, a
considerable amount of research has been completed to determine whether there are substitutes for leadership with respect to impacts on
performance. A number of authors have concluded that evidence is not sufficient to support
the main propositions in the theory (Dionne
et al. 2002, Keller 2006). For example, Dionne
et al. (2002) tested the moderating effects of
task variability, organization formulation, organization inflexibility, and lack of control on
the relationship between leadership behavior
and group effectiveness. However, the authors
found little support for the moderating effects
proposed by the substitutes-for-leadership theory. This lack of support may be attributable
to problems in measuring these substitutes for
leadership. Yet, revisions to the scale and its use
in subsequent research have not provided any
further support for this theory.
Future Focus Required
Villa et al. (2003) recommended that future research consider including multiple moderators
that may interact with each other to impact performance that might be erroneously attributed
to the leader. Dionne et al. (2005) suggested
that future research consider testing the five
possible conditions linking leader behavior,
leadership effectiveness, and other situational
variables (e.g., substitutes), which include (a) a
leadership main effects model, (b) a substitutes
main effect model, (c) an interactive or joint
effects model, (d ) a mediation model, wherein
the substitutes mediate leadership impact versus moderate, and (e) the originally proposed
moderated model. Future research should also
focus more on the nature of the samples to be
included in tests of substitutes for leadership.
For example, one might focus on the cultural
background as well as quality of one’s followers
by sampling professional workers who function
in highly independent roles, as a possible
sample for studying the boundary conditions
for the effects of substitutes for leadership
(Howell et al. 2007).
Finally, to evaluate fairly the substitutes for
theory propositions will require more longitudinal research designs. For example, leaders
who are more transformational will develop followers over time to take on more leadership
roles and responsibilities. The way such leaders
structure the context to develop followership
and the followership itself may ultimately substitute for the leader’s influence (Keller 2006).
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Building on the work of Greenleaf (1991),
Spears (2004) listed ten characteristics representing a servant leader: (a) listening,
(b) empathy, (c) healing, (d ) awareness, (e) persuasion, ( f ) conceptualization, ( g) foresight,
(h) stewardship, (i ) commitment, and
( j ) building community. Russell & Stone
(2002) reviewed the literature on servant leadership, distinguishing such leadership into two
broad categories: functional and accompany
attributes. Functional attributes include having
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vision, being honest, trustworthy, service
oriented, a role model, demonstrating appreciation of others’ service, and empowerment.
In terms of accompany attributes, servant
leaders are described as good communicators
and listeners, credible, competent, encouraging of others, teachers, and delegators.
In general, the limited empirical research
on servant leadership has shown that it is
positively related to follower satisfaction, their
job satisfaction, intrinsic work satisfaction,
caring for the safety of others, and organizational commitment. Joseph & Winston
(2005) examined the relationship between employee perceptions of servant leadership and
organizational trust, and reported a positive
relationship with both trust in the leader as
well as trust in one’s organization. Washington
et al. (2006) examined the relationship between
servant leadership and the leader’s values of
empathy, integrity, competence, and agreeableness, and reported that “followers’ ratings
of leaders’ servant leadership were positively
related to followers’ ratings of leaders’ values of
empathy, integrity, and competence” (p. 700).
Future Focus Required
One major tenet of servant leadership proposed by Greenleaf (1991) was that followers
of servant leaders would be expected to become “healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous
and more likely to become servants themselves”
(Barbuto & Wheeler 2006, p. 321). This suggests that future research could take a more
follower-centric approach in looking at the
well-being of followers of servant leaders and
the ways in which their well-being affects the
ability of the leader and followers to perform.
As with LMX, the measurement of servant leadership is problematic. Already many different
measures of servant leadership have been proposed with scales and items varying based on
problems with its definition. Future research
needs to examine how the personal values of
servant leaders differ from those of other leadership styles, such as transformational (Russell
& Stone 2002).
SPIRITUALITY AND LEADERSHIP
One might ask leaders the question, Do you feel
there is something missing in the work that you
do and the way you lead others? Many authors
have referred to that void and have attempted
to examine how a greater sense of spirituality
in the workplace may be fostered. The research
on workplace spirituality also now includes a
focus on spiritual leadership—defined as “comprising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that
are necessary to intrinsically motivate one’s self
and others so that they have a sense of spiritual
survival through calling and membership” (Fry
2003, p. 711).
Dent et al. (2005) examined how spirituality and leadership was defined in the literature
and concluded, “The field of study is marked by
all of the typical characteristics of paradigm development including a lack of consensus about
a definition of workplace spirituality” (p. 626).
Fry (2003) contends that spiritual leadership
adds to the existing leadership literature components that have been explicitly missing, such
as a sense of calling on the part of leaders and
followers as well as the creation of organizational cultures characterized by altruistic love
whereby leaders and followers express genuine
care, concern, and appreciation for both self and
others. Fry (2003) states, “The ultimate effect
of spiritual leadership is to bring together or
create a sense of fusion among the four fundamental forces of human existence (body, mind,
heart, and spirit) so that people are motivated
for high performance, have increased organizational commitment, and personally experience
joy, peace, and serenity” (p. 727).
Future Focus Required
Part of the challenge in this area of leadership research is simply defining what spirituality
means without necessarily tying it to one particular religion or philosophical base. Dent et al.
(2005) summarized a number of definitions of
spirituality that highlight some of the challenges in building theory and research in this
area. The authors concluded that a wide array
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Cross-cultural
leadership: the
examination of
leadership in
multicultural contexts
GLOBE: global
leadership and
organizational
behavioral
effectiveness
of concepts/constructs is included in the definition of spirituality, but some of the common
elements are a search for meaning, reflection,
an inner connection, creativity, transformation,
sacredness, and energy.
Fry (2005) defines spiritual leadership as
comprising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to intrinsically motivate self and others to enhance a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership.
Yet, some authors criticize Fry’s model as well
as other models of spirituality and leadership
for not providing a sufficient understanding
of what constitutes spirituality and the ways
in which it ties to leadership. For example,
Benefiel (2005) criticized the work on spirituality and leadership, stating that it “inadvertently draws upon outdated, discredited, or
shallow approaches to spirituality; they reinvent
the wheel; they dip into credible theories of
spirituality but then don’t fully develop them
or resolve the conflicts among them. While
these theories are comprehensive and creative
in the context of leadership studies, a more robust, up-to-date, and sophisticated understanding of spirituality is needed if theories of spiritual leadership are to stand up under scrutiny
and be taken seriously in the wider academy” (p.
727). Finally, there still seem to be two schools
of thought in this area of leadership research:
In one school, a set of scholars discuss spirituality in the theological sense (Whittington
et al. 2005), whereas in the other school, the
focus is more on understanding the inner motivation and drive a leader creates in followers
to enhance workplace spirituality (Fry 2005).
Until a definition of what constitutes spirituality and leadership is agreed upon, it will be
difficult to conceptualize and measure these
constructs.
CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP
Although most leadership research and theory has been developed and tested within a
Western context, a growing interest in research
and theory focuses on the role of leadership
across cultural contexts. This interest is driven
in part by the globalization of organizations
that encourage and, at times, require leaders
to work from and across an increasingly diverse
set of locations. The result is an increased focus
on cross-cultural leadership research (Gelfand
et al. 2007, House et al. 2004). Extensive
reviews also exist for cross-cultural research
that is more tangentially linked to leadership
(Hofstede 2001, Kirkman et al. 2006, Leung
et al. 2005).
Project GLOBE
Although there have been numerous critiques
and discussions of work in this area (see Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 37,
No. 6), the work of Project GLOBE (global
leadership and organizational behavioral effectiveness) constitutes one of the more ambitious
and influential cross-cultural leadership studies. The study, as detailed in an edited book
(House et al. 2004), involved a group of more
than 160 researchers working in 62 societies.
Research included a mix of quantitative and
qualitative investigations. The study was designed to address a number of goals, the first
of which was to develop cultural dimensions
at both the organizational and societal level of
analysis, building upon the work of Hofstede
(2001). A second major goal of the project was
to examine the beliefs that different cultures had
about effective leaders. Although many of the
leadership attributes and behaviors examined
varied by culture, the research did determine
that certain implicit leadership theories (e.g.,
charisma/transformational, team-oriented) had
universal endorsement. A third phase of the
research involved ethnographies of individual
countries based largely on qualitative data.
Global Leadership
The goal of identifying leaders who are able
to effectively lead across a variety of cultures
has great appeal and has been the focus
of numerous articles in both the academic
(Mobley et al. 1999) and popular press
(Goldsmith 2003, Green et al. 2003, Lane
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2004). However, substantial differences and
approaches remain in how global leadership
is conceptualized and defined. One approach
primarily focuses on international experience,
implying that leaders must spend time living in
different cultures in order to be prepared to lead
(Van Dyne & Ang 2006). A second approach
emphasizes the competencies a leader needs to
have in order to lead effectively and successfully across cultures (Mendenhall 2001). This
approach emphasizes having a broad set of experiences and competencies that allow leaders
to manage across cultures rather than focusing
on a deep knowledge of one or two specific cultures. This approach is reflected in the related
work on global mindset (Boyacigiller et al.
2004, Clapp-Smith et al. 2007) and cultural
intelligence (Earley et al. 2007, Thomas 2006).
Comparative Leadership
Comparative research on the effectiveness of
leadership in different cultures was the basis of
early work in this field and continues to be a
major area of research (Dickson et al. 2003,
Dorfman 2004, Gelfand et al. 2007, Kirkman
et al. 2006). Such research compares leadership
in two or more cultures, examining the degree
to which a practice that was developed in one
culture applies to others. A common approach
examines the direct impact a cultural dimension has on leadership. For example, one major
cross-cultural study examined the impact of cultural values on the selection of sources of guidance for dealing with work events that managers
are likely to face in 47 countries (Smith et al.
2002). This study identified which sources of
guidance were correlated with specific cultural
dimensions using several major cultural value
dimension frameworks.
Another common strategy examines the indirect influence of culture as it moderates the
relationship between leadership practice and
relevant performance outcomes. Walumbwa
et al. (2007) examined the effect of allocentrism
(collective orientation) and idiocentrism (individual orientation) on the relationships among
leadership (transformational and transactional)
and both organizational commitment and satisfaction with supervisor. Allocentrics were found
to react more positively to transformational
leaders, whereas idiocentrics had a more positive reaction to transactional leaders.
Future Focus Required
Although significant progress has been made
in the cross-cultural leadership literature, several important issues need to be addressed. For
example, the term “culture” itself refers to a
complex set of constructs around which there is
ongoing debate. Not surprisingly, the attempt
to examine the effect that culture has on leadership brings with it the associated conceptual
and methodological challenges that are already
associated with cross-cultural research (Van de
Vijver & Leung 2000). Despite improvements
made over the years, a need remains for future
research to focus on levels of analysis when conducting cross-cultural leadership research. This
applies to the development of explicitly crosslevel theoretical models as well as the use of
appropriate statistical techniques. Although the
relevance of levels is widely recognized, the implications of cross-level analysis are often not
reflected in the research design in this literature, particularly when it comes to insuring a
sufficient number of cultures are included to
conduct the analysis. Many researchers assume
they can use the country as a convenient substitute for measuring culture, which may be
an erroneous level of analysis given the diversity of cultures represented in most countries.
Large-scale collaborations such as the GLOBE
(House et al. 2004) study and the 47-nation
study of Smith et al. (2002) are likely to be required to develop the types of samples needed
for such analytical approaches.
E-LEADERSHIP
Leading virtually involves leading people from
different departments, organizations, countries, and sometimes even competitor companies (Avolio et al. 2001). In virtual teams, “challenges are more likely to occur when distributed
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E-leadership:
leadership where
individuals or groups
are geographically
dispersed and
interactions are
mediated by
technology
work occurs in different time zones, when local
communication and human infrastructures fail,
when team members’ hardware and software
platforms are different, or when local work demands require the immediate attention of collocated managers and workers, thereby creating
pressure to pursue local priorities over the objectives of distant collaborators” (A. Weisband
2008b, p. 6).
Zigurs (2003) suggested that traditional
leadership models built on a foundation of faceto-face interactions may not fully explain how
virtual leadership and teams work. Specifically,
how one provides feedback, encouragement, rewards, and motivation needs to be re-examined
where leadership is mediated through technology. Zigurs (2003) suggests that the continuing
development in technology such as increased
bandwidth, wireless networks, integrated handheld devices, voice input, built-in video, video
walls, and automatic translation will no doubt
have a significant impact on how virtual teams
communicate and how leadership is manifested
in such teams. To date, a great deal of the work
on e-leadership focuses on either leadership in
virtual work teams or groups interacting in what
are called “group decision support systems.”
For example, Zaccaro & Bader (2003) provided
an overview of the similarities and differences
between face-to-face teams and e-teams. They
specifically focused on the impact of leadership functions such as communication building, role clarification, team development, and
effective task execution and how they differed
when mediated through technology. Other authors have focused on the effects of structural
factors such as distance and multiple locations
on e-leadership and virtual team effectiveness
(e.g., Cascio & Shurygailo 2003).
Common Questions with
E-Leadership
Some of the common questions or hypotheses suggested to guide research on e-leadership
and virtual teams have been summarized by
Avolio et al. (2001), Barelka (2007), as well as
Ahuja & Galvin (2003) and include the following: How does the nature and structure of technology impact how leadership style influences
follower motivation and performance? What
effect will leadership mediated through technology have on trust formation? Will the nature
of the technology such as its richness or transparency be a factor in building trust in virtual
teams? How will the leadership and location
of teams and technology connecting members
affect the quality and quantity of their communication? How will the nature of the task and
its complexity influence how leadership affects
virtual team performance?
Group and Virtual Teams Research
A number of studies have examined eleadership and virtual teams. For example,
Kahai & Avolio (2008) investigated the effects
of leadership style and anonymity on the discussion of an ethical issue in an electronic system context. Kahai & Avolio examined how
groups discussed an ethical issue by manipulating the leadership style of the target e-leader
and whether the group members were anonymous or identified. They reported that frequency of group member participation in discussing how to address the ethical issue was
greater when leadership style was transactional
versus transformational.
Xiao et al. (2008) conducted a field experiment focusing on surgical teams operating in a
real-life trauma center. In their study, the team
leader either was placed in the room with the
surgical team or interacted with them virtually. The authors reported that when the team
leader was in the next room, the leader had
greater influence on communications between
the senior member in the room and other team
members. However, when the senior leader was
collocated, the amount of communication between the team leader, the senior member, and
junior members was more balanced. With high
task urgency, the team leader was more involved
with the senior team member in terms of communication regardless of location, whereas the
communication between the team leader and
junior members was reduced.
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Balthazard et al. (2008) examined the mediational role of leadership and group member
interaction styles in comparing virtual and faceto-face teams. They reported that group members in face-to-face teams were generally more
cohesive, were more accepting of a group’s decisions, and exhibited a greater amount of synergy
than did virtual teams. Face-to-face teams exhibited a greater amount of constructive interaction in comparison with virtual teams, which
scored significantly higher on defensive interaction styles.
Malhotra et al. (2007) collected survey, interview, and observational data on virtual teams
to identify the leadership practices of effective
leaders of virtual teams. These leadership
practices included the ability to (a) establish
and maintain trust through the use of communication technology, (b) ensure that distributed
diversity is understood and appreciated,
(c) manage effectively virtual work-life cycles,
(d ) monitor team progress using technology,
(e) enhance visibility of virtual members within
the team and outside the organization, and
( f ) let individual team members benefit from
the team.
Future Focus Required
Hambley et al. (2006) advocate that future research on e-leadership be conducted in field
settings. They recommend that virtual teams
working on actual problem-solving tasks and
projects be examined to help capture the motivational element that may not exist with ad hoc
groups working in the lab. A. Weisband (2008a)
argued, “Future research may want to consider
how we lead in environments that lack any central coordination mechanism, or how multiple
leaders work together to innovate, create, and
help others” (p. 255).
E-leadership areas recommended for future
research by authors of papers on the virtual
team topic include task ownership, cohesion,
media richness (i.e., technology’s capacity for
providing immediate feedback, the number of
cues and channels utilized, personalization of
messages, and language variety), communication quality, asynchronous and synchronous
communication, task complexity, and working on multiple virtual teams simultaneously
(Kozlowski & Bell 2003, Zaccaro & Bader
2003). For example, Watson et al. (1993) studied culturally diverse and homogenous virtual
groups and compared their interactions over a
17-week period. They found that culturally diverse groups initially suffered in their performance but over time surpassed homogenous
groups, especially in terms of the number of
alternative ideas generated.
In summary, we expect that the work on
virtual leadership and team interactions will
continue to be a growth area for leadership
research. The fundamental issue for leadership scholars and practitioners to address is
how technology is transforming the traditional roles of leadership at both individual
and collective levels by examining “how existing leadership styles and cultures embedded in
a group and/or organization affect the appropriation of advanced information technology
systems” (Avolio et al. 2001, p. 658).
CLOSING COMMENTS
AND INTEGRATION
The evolution of this literature points to several
important trends. The first trend involves the
field of leadership taking a more holistic view of
leadership. Specifically, researchers are now examining all angles of leadership and including
in their models and studies the leader, the follower, the context, the levels, and their dynamic
interaction. The second trend involves examining how the process of leadership actually takes
place by, for example, integrating the work of
cognitive psychology with strategic leadership.
In this regard, we are witnessing greater interest in how the leader processes information
as well as how the follower does so, and how
each affects the other, the group, and organization. More work is expected on examining the
various mediators and moderators that help to
explain how leadership influences intended outcomes. A third trend involves deriving alternative ways to examine leadership. We expect to
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see a greater use of mixed-methods designs in
future research. The quantitative strategies for
studying leadership have dominated the literature over the past 100 years, but increasing attention is being paid to cases and qualitative research that should now be integrated with quantitative approaches.
Part of the evolution of leadership theory and research will continue to involve further defining what actually constitutes leadership from a content perspective, e.g., authentic, transformational, or visionary, and a process
perspective, e.g., shared, complex, or strategic.
We also expect much more attention to be paid
to the area of strategic leadership, which we
did not have space here to cover, and applying what we have learned about content and
process to this level of analysis. Finally, we go
back to the point where we started in suggesting that the time has never been better to examine the genuine development of leadership.
The field of leadership has done surprisingly
little to focus its energies on what contributes
to or detracts from genuine leadership development. Given the forces in the global market, we expect that over the next 10 years,
research and theory in this area will explode as
organizations increasingly ask for ways to accelerate positive leadership development as they
enter the front lines of the war for leadership
talent.
In summary, the leadership field over the
past decade has made tremendous progress
in uncovering some of the enduring mysteries associated with leadership. These include
whether leaders are born or made, how followers affect how successful leaders can be, how
some charismatic leaders build up societies and
others destroy them, as well as what impact
leading through technology has on individual
and collective performance. The period that
leadership theory and research will enter over
the next decade is indeed one of the most exciting in the history of this planet.
SUMMARY POINTS
1. The field of leadership is evolving to a more holistic view of leadership.
2. More positive forms of leadership are being integrated into literature.
3. Increasing attention is being given to examining how leadership causally impacts interim
and ultimate outcomes.
4. The follower is becoming an integral part of the leadership dynamic system.
5. There is growing interest in what genuinely develops leadership.
6. E-leadership is becoming a commonplace dynamic in work organizations.
7. More and more leadership is being distributed and shared in organizations.
8. Leadership is being viewed as a complex and emergent dynamic in organizations.
FUTURE ISSUES
1. More future research in leadership will be mixed methods.
2. Determining the causal mechanisms that link leadership to outcomes will be a priority.
3. Assessing and developing leadership using evidence-based strategies will be a target focus.
4. Examining strategic leadership as a process and person will be an evolving area of theory
and research.
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5. More theoretical work and research will focus on the follower as a prime element in the
leadership dynamic.
6. How to develop global mindsets among leaders will be an area of interest.
7. A top priority area will be leadership in cultures that are underrepresented in the literature, such as Muslim cultures.
8. How shared leadership evolves and develops will be a focus in face-to-face and virtual
environments.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this
review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We greatly appreciate the contributions made to this paper by Melissa Carsten, Rachel ClappSmith, Jakari Griffith, Yongwoon Kim, Ketan Mhatre, David Sweetman, Mary Uhl-Bien, and
Kay-Ann Willis.
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Annual Review of
Psychology
Contents Volume 60, 2009
Prefatory
Emotion Theory and Research: Highlights, Unanswered Questions,
and Emerging Issues
Carroll E. Izard ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 1
Concepts and Categories
Concepts and Categories: A Cognitive Neuropsychological Perspective
Bradford Z. Mahon and Alfonso Caramazza ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣27
Judgment and Decision Making
Mindful Judgment and Decision Making
Elke U. Weber and Eric J. Johnson ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣53
Comparative Psychology
Comparative Social Cognition
Nathan J. Emery and Nicola S. Clayton ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣87
Development: Learning, Cognition, and Perception
Learning from Others: Children’s Construction of Concepts
Susan A. Gelman ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 115
Early and Middle Childhood
Social Withdrawal in Childhood
Kenneth H. Rubin, Robert J. Coplan, and Julie C. Bowker ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 141
Adulthood and Aging
The Adaptive Brain: Aging and Neurocognitive Scaffolding
Denise C. Park and Patricia Reuter-Lorenz ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 173
Substance Abuse Disorders
A Tale of Two Systems: Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance
Abuse Disorders Treatment for Adolescents
Elizabeth H. Hawkins ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 197
vii
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Therapy for Specific Problems
Therapy for Specific Problems: Youth Tobacco Cessation
Susan J. Curry, Robin J. Mermelstein, and Amy K. Sporer ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 229
Adult Clinical Neuropsychology
Neuropsychological Assessment of Dementia
David P. Salmon and Mark W. Bondi ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 257
Child Clinical Neuropsychology
Relations Among Speech, Language, and Reading Disorders
Bruce F. Pennington and Dorothy V.M. Bishop ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 283
Attitude Structure
Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions, and Elective Affinities
John T. Jost, Christopher M. Federico, and Jaime L. Napier ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 307
Intergroup relations, stigma, stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination
Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Review and Assessment
of Research and Practice
Elizabeth Levy Paluck and Donald P. Green ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 339
Cultural Influences
Personality: The Universal and the Culturally Specific
Steven J. Heine and Emma E. Buchtel ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 369
Community Psychology
Community Psychology: Individuals and Interventions in Community
Context
Edison J. Trickett ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 395
Leadership
Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions
Bruce J. Avolio, Fred O. Walumbwa, and Todd J. Weber ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 421
Training and Development
Benefits of Training and Development for Individuals and Teams,
Organizations, and Society
Herman Aguinis and Kurt Kraiger ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 451
Marketing and Consumer Behavior
Conceptual Consumption
Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 475
viii Contents
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Psychobiological Mechanisms
Health Psychology: Developing Biologically Plausible Models Linking
the Social World and Physical Health
Gregory E. Miller, Edith Chen, and Steve Cole ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 501
Health and Social Systems
The Case for Cultural Competency in Psychotherapeutic Interventions
Stanley Sue, Nolan Zane, Gordon C. Nagayama Hall, and Lauren K. Berger ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 525
Research Methodology
Missing Data Analysis: Making It Work in the Real World
John W. Graham ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 549
Psychometrics: Analysis of Latent Variables and Hypothetical Constructs
Latent Variable Modeling of Differences and Changes with
Longitudinal Data
John J. McArdle ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 577
Evaluation
The Renaissance of Field Experimentation in Evaluating Interventions
William R. Shadish and Thomas D. Cook ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 607
Timely Topics
Adolescent Romantic Relationships
W. Andrew Collins, Deborah P. Welsh, and Wyndol Furman ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 631
Imitation, Empathy, and Mirror Neurons
Marco Iacoboni ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 653
Predicting Workplace Aggression and Violence
Julian Barling, Kathryne E. Dupr´e, and E. Kevin Kelloway ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 671
The Social Brain: Neural Basis of Social Knowledge
Ralph Adolphs ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 693
Workplace Victimization: Aggression from the Target’s Perspective
Karl Aquino and Stefan Thau ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 717
Indexes
Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 50–60 ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 743
Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 50–60 ♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣ 748
Errata
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Psychology articles may be found at
http://psych.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml
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We boast of having some of the most experienced statistics experts in the industry. Our statistics experts have diverse skills, expertise, and knowledge to handle any kind of assignment. They have access to all kinds of software to get your assignment done.

Law

Writing a law essay may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle, especially when you need to know the peculiarities of the legislative framework. Take advantage of our top-notch law specialists and get superb grades and 100% satisfaction.

What discipline/subjects do you deal in?

We have highlighted some of the most popular subjects we handle above. Those are just a tip of the iceberg. We deal in all academic disciplines since our writers are as diverse. They have been drawn from across all disciplines, and orders are assigned to those writers believed to be the best in the field. In a nutshell, there is no task we cannot handle; all you need to do is place your order with us. As long as your instructions are clear, just trust we shall deliver irrespective of the discipline.

Are your writers competent enough to handle my paper?

Our essay writers are graduates with bachelor's, masters, Ph.D., and doctorate degrees in various subjects. The minimum requirement to be an essay writer with our essay writing service is to have a college degree. All our academic writers have a minimum of two years of academic writing. We have a stringent recruitment process to ensure that we get only the most competent essay writers in the industry. We also ensure that the writers are handsomely compensated for their value. The majority of our writers are native English speakers. As such, the fluency of language and grammar is impeccable.

What if I don’t like the paper?

There is a very low likelihood that you won’t like the paper.

Reasons being:

• When assigning your order, we match the paper’s discipline with the writer’s field/specialization. Since all our writers are graduates, we match the paper’s subject with the field the writer studied. For instance, if it’s a nursing paper, only a nursing graduate and writer will handle it. Furthermore, all our writers have academic writing experience and top-notch research skills.
• We have a quality assurance that reviews the paper before it gets to you. As such, we ensure that you get a paper that meets the required standard and will most definitely make the grade.

In the event that you don’t like your paper:

• The writer will revise the paper up to your pleasing. You have unlimited revisions. You simply need to highlight what specifically you don’t like about the paper, and the writer will make the amendments. The paper will be revised until you are satisfied. Revisions are free of charge
• We will have a different writer write the paper from scratch.
• Last resort, if the above does not work, we will refund your money.

Will the professor find out I didn’t write the paper myself?

Not at all. All papers are written from scratch. There is no way your tutor or instructor will realize that you did not write the paper yourself. In fact, we recommend using our assignment help services for consistent results.

What if the paper is plagiarized?

We check all papers for plagiarism before we submit them. We use powerful plagiarism checking software such as SafeAssign, LopesWrite, and Turnitin. We also upload the plagiarism report so that you can review it. We understand that plagiarism is academic suicide. We would not take the risk of submitting plagiarized work and jeopardize your academic journey. Furthermore, we do not sell or use prewritten papers, and each paper is written from scratch.

When will I get my paper?

You determine when you get the paper by setting the deadline when placing the order. All papers are delivered within the deadline. We are well aware that we operate in a time-sensitive industry. As such, we have laid out strategies to ensure that the client receives the paper on time and they never miss the deadline. We understand that papers that are submitted late have some points deducted. We do not want you to miss any points due to late submission. We work on beating deadlines by huge margins in order to ensure that you have ample time to review the paper before you submit it.

Will anyone find out that I used your services?

We have a privacy and confidentiality policy that guides our work. We NEVER share any customer information with third parties. Noone will ever know that you used our assignment help services. It’s only between you and us. We are bound by our policies to protect the customer’s identity and information. All your information, such as your names, phone number, email, order information, and so on, are protected. We have robust security systems that ensure that your data is protected. Hacking our systems is close to impossible, and it has never happened.

How our Assignment Help Service Works

1. Place an order

You fill all the paper instructions in the order form. Make sure you include all the helpful materials so that our academic writers can deliver the perfect paper. It will also help to eliminate unnecessary revisions.

2. Pay for the order

Proceed to pay for the paper so that it can be assigned to one of our expert academic writers. The paper subject is matched with the writer’s area of specialization.

3. Track the progress

You communicate with the writer and know about the progress of the paper. The client can ask the writer for drafts of the paper. The client can upload extra material and include additional instructions from the lecturer. Receive a paper.

4. Download the paper

The paper is sent to your email and uploaded to your personal account. You also get a plagiarism report attached to your paper.

GET A PERFECT SCORE!!!

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