| The Leader's Role in Organizations: The Moderating Effects of Leader Behavior on Perceived Sexual Harassment |
| | Murry, William D. | State U. of New York, Binghamton | murry@binghamton.edu | 607-723-4636 |
| | Sivasubramaniam, Nagaraj | State U. of New York, Binghamton | sivasub@binghamton.edu | 607-777-4396 |
| | Jacques, Paul | State U. of New York, Binghamton | bg18132@binghamton.edu | 607-777-2549 |
| | Schein (1985) and others has long maintained that behavior in organizations results in part from the modeling of the leadership
within the organization. No where is this more true than when we study the effects of leader behavior on sexual harassment? We
examined the moderating effects of leader support and the social exchange relationship between a leader and a subordinate on
perceived sexual harassment experiences. We found direct effects for both harassment behavior and leader behavior on individual
level outcomes but failed to confirm our moderator hypotheses. However, we are able to argue that leader behavior acts as a
suppressor effect on perceived sexually harassing experiences. Additionally, we show partial support for a mediated model on group
effectiveness. Implications for further research are discussed. |
| | Keywords: Leadership; Social Exchange; Sexual Harassment |
| Leadership, Work Environment, and the Stress-Buffering Effects of Job Engagement |
| | Britt, Thomas Watson | Walter Reed Army Institute of Research | brittt@wrsmtp-ccmail.army.mil | (301) 295-7816 |
| | Bliese, Paul D. | Walter Reed Army Institute of Research | bliese@wrair-emh1.army.mil | (301) 295-7856 |
| | The present research examined the antecedents and consequences of job engagement through a study of U.S. soldiers deployed on a peacekeeping mission to Bosnia. Results indicated leader consideration and initiating structure were both related to soldier engagement. However, only initiating structure contributed unique variance to the prediction of job engagement during the peacekeeping mission. Each component of the Triangle Model of Responsibility (personal contribution, role clarity, task relevance, and mission importance) predicted unique variance in job engagement. Analyses also revealed that the relationship between leader initiating structure and job engagement was entirely mediated by the role clarity component of the Triangle Model. In terms of the consequences of job engagement, soldiers who were engaged in their job did not exhibit elevations in depression or physical symptoms under conditions of sleep deprivation and a stressful operational environment, whereas soldiers disengaged from their jobs showed strong relationships between these stressors and the outcome measures. Discussion focuses on the importance of leaders creating a work environment that promotes high job engagement among their subordinates. |
| | Keywords: Engagement; Leadership; Health |
| The Consequences of Leader Weighting of Team Member Input: Managing a Leadership Dilemma |
| | Phillips, Jean M. | Rutgers U. | jmp2268@rci.rutgers.edu | (732) 445-5825 |
| | This study investigated the effects of team performance and the relative weight given a team member's input by the leader
on team decision-making effectiveness. A laboratory study was conducted with 228 undergraduates performing a computer task
as subordinates in 76 4-person teams with a confederate leader. The results illustrate a dilemma for leaders attempting to manage
team effectiveness. Differentially weighting subordinate input could result in improved short-term team decision accuracy, but could
compromise the long-term viability of the team if lower-weighted staff members withdraw from the team. Implications for a leader's ability
to influence team effectiveness in hierarchial decision-making teams with distributed expertise are discussed. |
| | Keywords: Leadership; Teams; Team effectiveness |
| Team Leadership as Event Management: Theory Development and Empirical Tests |
| | Morgeson, Frederick P. | Texas A&M U. | fmorgeson@cgsb.tamu.edu | (409) 845-4045 |
| | Although team-based organizations have become increasingly prevalent, relatively little research has investigated the
nature of work team leadership. The present research suggests that work team leadership involves managing the events that impact
team functioning. As such, this research examines how effective event management relies on several generalized leadership
activities (monitoring, diagnosis, and intervention) and a more specific set of event management strategies. In addition, the influence
events have on leader and team functioning is investigated. In the first qualitative phase of the study, leaders (n = 32) from four different
organizations provided examples of events (n = 131) that had occurred in the past. In the second quantitative phase of the study,
leaders and team members (n = 290) rated these events on a number of different measures. Results showed modest relationships
between the generalized leadership activities and multiple indicants of leader effectiveness. Smaller relationships were found between
events and team functioning, and few relationships were found between events and leader functioning. These results provide tentative
evidence that at least one component of work team leadership involves event management. Implications, limitations, and opportunities for
future research are discussed. |
| | Keywords: Leadership; Teams; Events |
| Leadership, commitment and trust in workgroups: Group-based or individual differences? |
| | Den Hartog, Deanne N. | Free U., Amsterdam | dn.den.hartog@psy.vu.nl | 3120-4448700 |
| | This paper examines leadership from a levels-of-analysis perspective. First, leadership and expected relationships with commitment and trust as well as modeling across levels are described. In the study presented in this paper, 503 employees in 79 workgroups from 5 organizations rated their manager on inspirational, transactional, and passive leadership, as well as on perceived leader integrity. Subordinates' trust in management and colleagues and their affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization were also measured. As expected, inspirational leadership was more positively related to both types of trust and affective and normative commitment than transactional and passive leadership. WABA analyses were done to determine whether within-group variance, between-group variance or both would best explain the data. The analyses show that most relationships are best characterized as mixed or equivocal (i.e. both significant within- and between-group variance is found). Although some authors hold that such mixed effects imply an individual differences or information processing view of leader-follower interaction, the position taken here is that mixed effects can also indicate a meaningful multi-level process. The results and their implications are discussed, focussing on the interpretation of the WABA results and methodological as well as substantive issues regarding levels-of-analysis in leadership research. |
| | Keywords: Leadership; WABA; commitment |
| A Social Network Analysis of Social Representations of Leadership |
| | Pastor, Juan-Carlos | U. of Western Ontario | jpastor@ivey.uwo.ca | (519) 661-4189 |
| | This study uses a social constructionist perspective to the study of leadership. In this view, rather than the objective characteristics and practices of leaders, the focus is on the nature of followers' intersubjective sense making about leaders. A socio-cognitive model of leadership is advanced in which followers' perceptions of their leaders are conceptualized as cognitive networks composed of leadership and organizational concepts. The underlying assumption of this model is that leadership information does not exist in a vacuum, but rather it is integrated with other organizational concepts into a whole knowledge structure or mental map. The study presents direct evidence that followers actively construct their leaders in a social process as individuals interact with their close friends. Members of six production and professional networks (N=280) in a large manufacturing company provided information about their perceptions of leadership and their social networks. Social network parameters are significantly related to different characteristics of individuals cognitive structures. Particularly, proximity and centrality in the friendship network were related to similarity and the dispersion of social representations of leadership in the social group. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. |
| | Keywords: Social Cognition; Leadership; Social Networks |