اثرات هوش رهبر ، شخصیت و هوش هیجانی بر رهبری تحولی و عملکرد مدیریتی
کد مقاله | سال انتشار | تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی |
---|---|---|
1757 | 2012 | 13 صفحه PDF |
Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)
Journal : The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 23, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 443–455
چکیده انگلیسی
This study investigates the effects of intelligence, personality traits and emotional intelligence on transformational leadership and the effective performance of leaders in the organizational context. Data were collected from 134 midlevel managers from a large Brazilian company that operates in the energy sector. Our findings suggest that leadership effectiveness, as measured by the achievement of organizational outcomes, is a direct function of a leader's transformational behaviors, and is an indirect function of individual differences (experience, intelligence and conscientiousness) that work through transformational behaviors. A negative effect of neuroticism on leadership effectiveness was also observed. In addition, while emotional intelligence seemed to be statistically related to transformational leadership if considered in isolation, when ability and personality were controlled for, the effect became non-significant. We discuss implications for theory, research and practice.
مقدمه انگلیسی
Transformational leadership theory has been an important field of inquiry in the organizational sciences, one that has attracted the attention of a large number of researchers (Gardner et al., 2010 and Lowe and Gardner, 2001). Various studies have found a relationship between transformational leadership and the efficacy of organizations (Avolio, 1999, Avolio et al., 1995 and Dumdum et al., 2002), and meta-analytic reviews have corroborated positive connections between transformational leadership of superiors and the performance of their subordinates (Judge and Piccolo, 2004 and Lowe et al., 1996, Autumn). However, despite the apparent relevance of transformational leadership for organizational outcomes, a smaller number of studies have empirically investigated the antecedents of transformational leadership (Lim & Ployhart, 2004). While previous research has indicated that intelligence and certain personality traits of leaders seem to be related to transformational leadership and leadership efficacy (e.g., Bono and Judge, 2004 and Judge et al., 2002, Aug), many doubts persist specifically regarding emotional intelligence (e.g., Antonakis et al., 2009 and Schulte et al., 2004). Moreover, studies testing the effects of emotional intelligence on leadership are rarely done effectively and simultaneously controlling for ability and personality or correcting for measurement error (Antonakis, Bendahan, Jacquart, & Lalive, 2010). Such restrictions of research designs are quite problematic because the results observed for the effects of new predictors can be highly distorted if there is no control for traits that have been shown to affect leadership, particularly when old and new factors are correlated. When based on biased coefficients, reports on the connections between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership fail to comply with evidence-based principles (Rousseau, 2006 and Rynes et al., 2007), and therefore, their theoretical implications and practical recommendations are undermined. In this study, we investigate the effects of emotional intelligence on transformational leadership and on the effective performance of leaders in managing work units, while assessing the full breadth of individual differences supported as predictors of leadership by the literature, i.e., intelligence and the five-factor model. We also apply a widely used measure of emotional intelligence endorsed by publication in leading journals (Law et al., 2004 and Wong and Law, 2002). This is done in a sample of practicing managers in a large Brazilian company that operates in the energy sector. Besides this, we also examine the role of transformational leadership in the relationship between individual differences and work performance, thereby assessing its effect as a mediating factor in the unfolding of the leadership process (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001).
نتیجه گیری انگلیسی
Our findings give support to the assertion that leadership effectiveness, as measured by the achievement of organizational outcomes, is a direct function of a leader's transformational behavior, and is an indirect function of individual differences working through transformational behaviors. When all the control and substantive factors are considered, intelligence and conscientiousness are the individual differences that seem to matter for transformational leadership and that had indirect effects on leadership effectiveness. Managerial experience also had positive effects on both transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness in managerial roles, while neuroticism had only negative effects on leadership effectiveness. In addition, our analyses show that when considered alone, emotional intelligence seems to be statistically related to transformational leadership. However, when ability and personality were controlled for, the effect became non-significant. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to examine the impact of intelligence on transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness in a sample of managers from a single company, using subordinate-assessed measures of transformational leadership, as well as objective, practical and broad performance measures. We contribute to the literature on individual differences by indicating that intelligence does seem to be a relevant, although neglected, predictor of transformational leadership and organizational outcomes. More process research could shed light on the specific implications of intelligence-driven capacities, such as creative problem solving and strategic thinking, on specific dimensions of transformational leadership. Our findings also contribute to the literature on individual differences by observing their implications for the achievement of organizational outcomes through the mediating role of transformational leadership, and by analyzing such a process in a different cultural setting, thus extending knowledge in the field beyond its present cultural boundaries, as recommended by several scholars (e.g., House and Aditya, 1997 and Lowe and Gardner, 2001). Our results suggest that conscientiousness seems to carry more weight for transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness in managerial roles than previously thought, and also indicate that neuroticism appears to have a negative effect on leadership effectiveness. These observations somewhat diverge from preceding findings from meta-analyses (Bono and Judge, 2004 and Judge et al., 2004). In Judge at al., although conscientiousness was found to have a similar effect on leadership emergence, extraversion and openness were also strong correlates. The study of Bono and Judge further highlighted the effects of extraversion on transformational leadership, and toned down that of conscientiousness. It is worth noting that the initial results observed in our correlation matrix for the associations between the five factors and transformational leadership are quite consistent with the values reported by Judge et al. However, in our study we had the opportunity to further analyze these relationships while applying several controls (i.e., organizational context; leaders' experience, intelligence and gender; team size) and mitigating measurement error. Under such conditions, the only personality trait that seemed to matter for transformational leadership was conscientiousness. Our findings connecting conscientiousness to transformational leadership are in tune with evidence from robust studies on the relevance of conscientiousness for achieving higher career positions (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 1999) and leadership (McHenry, Hough, Toquam, Hanson, & Ashworth, 1990). Extraversion, on the other hand, has been also associated with conflictual relations with others (Bono, Boles, Judge, & Lauver, 2002) and lack of persistence when dealing with long-range projects (Beauducel, Brocke, & Leue, 2006), tendencies that may counteract its beneficial effects to achieve goals in the long run. Therefore, we speculate that while extraversion might help a leader to be perceived as appealing and charismatic by others in short-lived encounters, it may not be enough to inspire, stimulate, motivate and care for skilled followers, as work relations evolve across time and when more complex organizational goals are at stake. Nevertheless, given that our study was limited to a single company, we cannot rule out the possibility that contextual characteristics such as organizational culture could have also influenced such a trend. Only additional studies following similar designs can verify if these findings will replicate in different settings. Because we had enough power in this study to detect significant effects, the null finding for the hypothesis pertaining to emotional intelligence should be understood in its own right, and as a plausible result from investigative research in a field that is still maturing. Our contributions here are twofold. First, our analyses reinforce the need to use the appropriate controls when testing the implications of emotional intelligence for leadership, calling attention to the fact that empirical results might be inflated whenever relevant predictors (i.e., ability, personality and experience) are omitted, consequently casting doubts on the conclusions reached under such conditions (see also Harms & Credé, 2010b). Although we are focusing here on the additional predictive effect of emotional intelligence above and beyond that of other antecedents, the same issue should be considered when any other individual differences are tested as antecedents of transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness. Second, because our analyses show that a substantial portion of variance in emotional intelligence was explained by intelligence and personality, concerns are raised regarding the discriminant validity of the WLEIS scale. Although WLEIS is a highly cited scale that is easy to apply in field studies, our results suggest that 75% of the variance captured by that instrument overlap with known predictors of leadership. This reinforces the idea that validity tests of the scale could be a product of measuring well-known and established constructs (Harms & Credé, 2010b). Our study has shown that, when other individual differences associated with leadership are taken into account, the predictive power of the measure becomes frail. These observations raise concerns regarding the application of the scale in practical assessments as well as in research venues. Moreover, although ability-based measures of emotional intelligence are believed to yield less biased results than trait-based scales such as WLEIS, the issues raised here have also been observed in analyses of scales following that measurement approach (e.g., Antonakis and Dietz, 2011 and Schulte et al., 2004). Clearly, the development of more fine-tuned measures that can capture the unique features of emotional intelligence and explain outcomes above and beyond known predictors of leadership seems to be an extremely important condition to truly advance the field. As future efforts are made in that direction, it could be helpful to consider that self-rating models of emotional intelligence may not be the most reliable strategy to properly assess all aspects of the construct, given that observers may actually be better judges of effective expression and control of emotions as they come across in social settings. In addition, ratings provided by other sources may offer an alternative to avoid the problem of inflated multicollinearity between measures of emotional intelligence and self-rated individual differences due to method effects. Although in our study we could not assess the reliability of the performance measure used by the company, it should be noted that measurement errors in the endogenous regressors are absorbed in the disturbances and orthogonal to the exogenous regressors, thereby not biasing coefficient estimates (Antonakis et al., 2010 and Ree and Carretta, 2006). Also, even if only small to medium portions of variance were explained by significant predictors when taken in isolation, together they accounted for 56% of the variance in transformational leadership and 26% of leadership effectiveness in managerial roles. Considering that we applied controls such as team size and managerial experience, used a measure of effectiveness that was taken over time, and eliminated issues of common method variance by having measures of predictors and criteria from diverse sources, the association between individual differences, leadership and performance supported by our analyses merits attention. Nevertheless, we did not measure other forms of leadership that might affect performance in managerial roles, such as transactional leadership. Although the discriminant validity of transactional and transformational leadership scales is well established, we cannot discard the possibility that the magnitude of the effect observed for transformational leadership on performance is overstated. In addition, in our study emotional intelligence and the five factors were measured by the same source. Even though the latter are considered as the product of strong genetic trends, in which case they would be truly exogenous, common-method effects may still be present. It should be noted, however, that the correlations between emotional intelligence and personality traits such as neuroticism and agreeableness clearly stand out as being much higher than any intercorrelations among the five factors, which in some cases are non-significant or close to zero, thus suggesting that there is probably more behind the association between those traits and emotional intelligence than method effects. Finally, although common-method bias between transformational leadership and performance could be present due to subordinates' taking part in the performance ratings, such biased effects were eliminated by the use of the instrumental-variable procedure. Of all the individual differences studied here, emotional intelligence is by far the most controversial. Besides the lack of a sound theoretical reason to assume that emotional intelligence would be less relevant for leadership in Brazil than in other parts of the world, our results also echo those observed in the few instances in which similar controls have been applied to analyze the incremental validity of existing measures of emotional intelligence (e.g., Antonakis and Dietz, 2011 and Schulte et al., 2004). We can only infer that strong statements based on the existing literature on the role of emotional intelligence as an antecedent of transformational leadership are not yet warranted given the methodological shortcomings already discussed. Still, the debate over the importance of emotional intelligence for leadership effectiveness is far from over. Our findings regarding the negative influence of neuroticism for leadership performance in managerial roles suggest that a leader's emotional stability might be even more relevant for the achievement of goals in such a context than thought before. Only future research based on sound metrics and research designs will be able to verify when, how, and how far emotional intelligence and other emotion-related constructs contribute to effective leadership in organizational settings. Based on the previous discussion, the importance of correctly testing models in research circles before their findings can be applied in practice becomes evident. Researchers, both as producers of knowledge and as evaluators of the knowledge produced by their peers, should be aware that studies on individual differences as predictors of leadership and its outcomes require the use of the appropriate controls in order to reach consistent conclusions. Following the recommended methodological precautions, our study sheds light on some individual attributes and leadership behaviors that seem to yield effective outcomes in business administration. Given that these factors (intelligence, conscientiousness and neuroticism) are not correlated, when applied together, their predictive validities are enhanced. In addition, there seems to be ground to recommend that transformational capabilities be emphasized in leadership teaching and training not only in contexts where the theory has already been supported by research, but also in Brazil. In this way, we hope to have contributed to practice by providing impartial and consistent criteria that decision makers can draw on when planning managerial succession and development programs.