From the Editor
Dail Fields
This issue of the International Journal of Leadership Studies continues our diverse international offerings. First, Greer and Jehn, scholars from The Netherlands, investigated the strategies used by team members who emerged as leaders in organizations communicating primarily via email. More organizations than ever seem to fit this description, so this study is both timely and relevant. [more]
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Practitioner's Corner
Leadership Emergence Theory in the Corporate Context
Anita Stadler
Numerous leadership theories describe the characteristics, values, attitudes, and behaviors that are indicative of leadership. However, Avolio and Gardner (2005) asserted that the actual process by which individuals develop leadership has not been adequately studied. Lord and Hall (2005) contended that this may be because the theories have neglected to address the deeper aspects of character that develop over a lifetime. Leadership emergence theory (Clinton, 1988a) is a theory of leadership development that is based on the experience of Christian ministry leaders over a lifetime. Recent research (Stadler, 2008) has shown that leadership emergence theory is applicable to the development of leaders who work in the corporate environment. The findings from this research provide insight that can be used by practitioners to broaden corporate leadership development approaches, enhance executive coaching programs, revitalize mentoring initiatives, and improve succession planning strategies. [more]
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Book Review
Editor Michael Moodian’s (2009) Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence: Exploring the Cross-cultural Dynamics Within Organizations
Douglas Crawford
In the book, Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence: Exploring the Cross-cultural Dynamics Within Organizations, edited by Michael Moodian (2009), many facets of leadership in a cross-cultural context are explored while it contributes to the growing interest in identifying cross-cultural leadership competencies. [more]
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Follow Me: Strategies Used by Emergent Leaders in Virtual Organizations
Lindred L. Greer & Karen A. Jehn
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. [more] |
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Leader Behavior Inventory: A Test of Measure Equivalence in Germany and the United States
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. [more] |
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Cultural Awareness in Intercultural Mentoring: A Model for Enhancing Mentoring Relationships
Bramwell Osula & Steve M. Irvin
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. The cultural awareness model promises to be significant for intercultural mentors by providing practitioners a paradigm through which to evaluate their mentoring relationships in order to enrich understanding between mentor and mentee with a view of improving mentoring outcomes. [more] |
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Aggression, Risk Taking, and Leadership Effectiveness: Leadership Lessons From the Explanatory Styles of Civil War Generals
Jeffery D. Houghton & Timothy D. Johnson
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. [more] |
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The Perfect Storm of Leaders’ Unethical Behavior: A Conceptual Framework
Diane J. Chandler
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. [more] |
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The Emergence of Shared Leadership from Organizational Dimensions of Local Government Sanghan Choi
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. [more] |
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