In this multi-method study, we investigated the strategies used by members who emerged as
leaders in organizations communicating primarily via e-mail communication. We hypothesized
and found that members who emerged as leaders tended to rely on soft influence tactics,
were consistent in their usage of a certain influence tactic, and participated in e-mail
exchanges more than other members. Additionally, we found that e-mail style moderated the
relationship between soft tactic usage and emergent leadership, such that members who used
weak e-mail style when using soft tactics were more likely to emerge as leaders. The use of
weak e-mail style, such as typos or unclear wording, may have increased the degree to which
soft tactics were perceived to be sincere, and therefore increased their effectiveness.
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Howard Rudd, Tom Kent, Carrie A. Blair, & Ulrich Schuele
Multiple research studies have highlighted the importance of understanding differences in
leader behaviors across cultures. The Leader Behavior Inventory (LBI) is one measure of
leadership behaviors that has been used to examine leadership in the U.S., Costa Rica,
Mexico, and Spain. The LBI is based on five behavioral factors: Visualizing Greatness,
Empowering the 'We,' Communicating for Meaning, Managing One’s Self, and Care and Recognition.
The primary purpose of this research was to assess the equivalence of the LBI across U.S.
and German cultures. A secondary purpose of this research was to use the LBI to identify
differences between leader behaviors across cultures. The results demonstrate measurement
equivalence of the LBI across the two cultures. The results also indicate the American
managers scored higher than German managers on each of the five behaviors.
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Increasing ethnic diversity in both the domestic workforce and in multinational
organizations creates opportunities for the formation of intercultural mentoring
relationships. This paper explores the influence of cultural dimensions on intercultural
mentoring, drawing on the findings of the GLOBE Project (House, Hanges, Javida, Dorfman &
Gupta, 2004) and presents a conceptual model of cultural awareness and how such awareness
can influence mentoring effectiveness. A review of the literature yields an integrative
definition of cultural awareness that incorporates general cultural awareness, cultural
self-awareness, and situation specific awareness in order to adopt a third-culture
perspective in intercultural interactions that result in culturally appropriate behavior
that enhances the relationship between mentor and mentee with a view of improving mentoring
outcomes.
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The present study applies explanatory style theory and the content analysis of verbatim
explanation (CAVE) technique toward examining the leadership behaviors and effectiveness
of key Civil War generals. The results of our study suggest that relatively optimistic
explanatory styles may lead to aggressiveness and risk taking while relatively pessimistic
explanatory styles may lead to passivity and risk aversion. Our findings also suggest that
a pessimistic explanatory style could be related to leadership effectiveness in some
situations as mediated by aggression and risk taking. In short, pessimism may result in
greater leadership effectiveness by reducing excessive aggression and risk taking.
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Unethical behavior of leaders has consequences for leaders themselves, followers,
and their respective organizations. After defining relevant terms including ethics,
morality, and ethical and unethical leadership, a conceptual framework for the
unethical behavior of leaders is proposed, which includes the three "perfect storm"
dimensions of leaders, followers, and situational context. Additionally, the mediating
variable termed "critical incident" suggests that unethical leadership behavior is
precipitated by a catalyzing thought, condition, intention, or event. With specific
examples illustrating the conceptual framework dimensions and salient characteristics
of each, the paper then concludes with a discussion of the implications of unethical
leadership behavior, with attention given to further research foci.
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Shared leadership is a mutually shared process by those who share vision, information,
feedback, leadership responsibility, and public policy problems with members in public
organizations. This article examines the effects of organizational structure, culture,
and context on shared leadership from a public sector perspective. Completed mail surveys
were received from 261 public employees of a local government in Florida. A multiple
regression analysis was conducted to test five theoretically formulated hypotheses.
The results showed that public employees' perceptions on shared leadership are partially
explainable by organizational structure, culture, and context factors. Organizational
crisis, information technology, innovative culture, and hierarchy of position are
significantly associated with shared leadership. This article concludes that every
public employee displays and shares leadership under specific organizational dimensions.
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