Do happy leaders lead better? Affective and attitudinal antecedents of transformational leadership

The Role of Transformational Leadership on Firm Performance: Mediating Effect of Corporate Sustainability and Moderating Effect of Knowledge-Sharing

The primary purpose of the research is to investigate the mediating role of corporate sustainability in the relationship between the impacts of transformational leadership on the performance of firms. This study also aimed to investigate the moderating role of knowledge-sharing on the relationship of transformational leadership with corporate sustainability. Respondents of the study were the top management of large Chinese automobile sectors, such as Shanghai Automotive Business Corporation (Group), China FAW Group Corporation, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd., and China North Industries Group Corporation. These are the companies with the biggest market share in the automobile manufacturing industry in China. The data was gathered by using a self-administrative survey questionnaire from 198 individuals operating in different automobile industries in different sectors of China. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) through the Smart PLS 3.3.2 software. The results of this study revealed that transformational leadership has a positive and significant effect on the performance of the firm. Corporate sustainability has a significant positive mediating role in the association of transformational leadership and firm performance. Findings indicated that knowledge-sharing also has a positive moderating role in the association between transformational leadership and firm performance. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge and show that leadership style has a significant effect on firm performance and that knowledge-sharing culture in firms is essential for better performance of the firm. Furthermore, firms may improve their performance by improving their sustainability and by creating knowledge-sharing culture. The findings are important, particularly in connection with a developed country like China. The findings have important insights for various stakeholders, i.e., government, regulatory bodies, practitioners, academia, industry, and researchers.

In Loving Hands: How Founders' Affective Commitment Strengthens the Effect of Organizational Flexibility on Firms' Opportunity Exploitation and Performance

Is flexibility or formality more useful for organizations that are pursuing improved performance? Organizational structure scholars offer opposing answers to this question, and empirical results have been mixed. Our study contributes to this research by describing a mediational model that links organizational flexibility to performance via opportunity exploitation. Specifically, we argue that flexible firms are able to exploit a greater number of opportunities, which, in turn, can improve performance. We also argue that the indirect effect of flexibility on performance via opportunity exploitation is stronger when top executives display higher affective commitment for their firms, meaning that they have a positive emotional attachment to their firms. Top executives with higher affective commitment can mitigate the downsides experienced by the staff of flexible firms, such as uncertainty and negative affect, which improves the outcomes of flexibility. Drawing on a sample of 211 firms and their founders, we find support for our hypotheses.

The antecedents and outcomes of transformational leadership: leader's self-transcendent value, follower's environmental commitment and behavior

Purpose

The primary purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedent (i.e. leader's self-transcendent value) and outcomes (i.e. follower's environmental commitment and behavior) of transformational leadership. The second purpose is to examine the mediating role of transformational leadership plays in the relationship between leader's self-transcendent value and follower's environmental commitment and behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Multi-source data were collected at multiple times in China. A total of 262 employees and their 64 supervisors completed the survey. The authors conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to verify the validity of the constructs and adopted the SPSS PROCESS macro with bootstrapping techniques to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The authors find that leader's self-transcendent value is an important antecedent of transformational leadership, and transformational leadership can enhance followers' environmental commitment and foster their environmental behavior. Besides, transformational leadership plays a significant mediating role between leader's self-transcendent value and follower's environmental commitment and behavior.

Originality/value

This study has developed an integrated model of the antecedents and outcomes of transformational leadership in the Chinese context. It also confirmed that transformational leadership mediates the process through which leader's self-transcendent value has a positive impact on follower's environmental commitment and behavior.

A Strategic Framework for Transformational Leadership Development in Megaprojects

Project managers’ leadership has a direct and an indirect effect on project success. Extant literature has established that transformational leadership style positively affects project success in a major way. The main aim of this research is to understand the variables that positively affects transformational leadership development and their interrelationships in megaprojects. The Total Interpretive Structural Model (TISM) methodology is adopted to propose a framework, and Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC) approach is used to examine the strategic nature of the enablers. The research shows that there exists a group of enablers having a high driving power and low dependence, requiring maximum attention and of strategic importance, while another group consists of those variables that have high dependence and are resultant actions. Furthermore, the model explains the relationships among each pair of variables. Organisations dealing in megaprojects would be the major beneficiaries of this study. Policy makers in these organisations would explicitly understand the variables and their interrelationships that needs attention for transformational leadership development. This would help them to prioritize their efforts and implement suitable strategies to focus on the most important variables for developing transformational leaders ultimately leading to project success.

How mindfulness impacts the positive forms of leadership and enhances performance at workplace

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness is a multi-millenary concept that is fundamental to meditative traditions. Nowadays it is a well-documented psychological construct and a proven therapeutic technique, particularly in stress reduction and depressive relapse prevention. However, mindfulness and its effects on management practices are still relatively unexplored in the literature. OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to address this shortage and demonstrate the claims that mindfulness is a psychological construct that is doubly beneficial to business executives by supporting a more balanced relationship to work while promoting the adoption of more positive and effective leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and authentic). METHOD: A model using positive forms of leadership as mediators of mindfulness / performance relationship is proposed for this assessment. A quantitate analysis is performed on a sample of 319 African managers, 95% of which are South Africans. RESULTS: The data supports the idea that mindfulness is a resource that can be mobilized for inducing transformational and authentic leadership development and positive organizational behaviors. CONCLUSION: Mindfulness seems to be a very interesting predictor of transformational and authentic leadership styles, which prove to be the most powerful generators of performance

Agreement of Safety Climate: Does it Affect Employees' and Managers' Health and Work Performance?

OBJECTIVE

To investigate whether agreement and disagreement between teams and their managers on safety climate relates to their health and work performance.

METHODS

Questionnaire ratings of 47 managers and 211 employees on safety climate and self-rated health, stress, work ability, and work performance were analyzed using polynomial regression with response surface analyses.

RESULTS

Teams' stress was lower when there was agreement between the team and the manager on safety climate, and their work performance was lower when the manager rated safety climate higher than the team did. Managers' health, but not their work performance, was higher for managers who were in agreement with their teams.

CONCLUSIONS

Agreement between managers and teams on safety climate was related to both employee and manager health outcomes. Disagreement (managers' ratings higher than teams') was negatively related to employee work performance.

When Mindfulness Interacts With Neuroticism to Enhance Transformational Leadership: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction

Transformational leadership is a popular and well-researched leadership style. Although much is understood about its positive consequences, less research has focused on antecedents of transformational leadership. In this research we draw upon self-determination theory and incorporate a self-regulatory approach to investigate if and how leader mindfulness influences transformational leadership. The analyses show that autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfaction mediate between mindfulness and transformational leadership, indicating that mindfulness is associated with psychological need satisfaction. Furthermore, the data show that neuroticism moderates the relationship between mindfulness and relatedness need satisfaction. Generally speaking, the association between mindfulness and relatedness need satisfaction is positive. When neuroticism is also high, mindfulness has the largest impact. Or conversely, when emotional stability is high, mindfulness has the smallest association with relatedness need satisfaction. This is in line with evidence suggesting that mindfulness may primarily exert its influence through emotional self-regulation. Furthermore, the moderated mediation model for relatedness need satisfaction is significant, indicating that neuroticism is a boundary condition for the indirect effect of mindfulness on transformational leadership through relatedness need satisfaction.

The link between perceptions of leader emotion regulation and followers’ organizational commitment

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between perceptions of leader emotion regulation strategies and followers’ organizational commitment. In particular, this study using social exchange theory as a framework examines the association between leader surface and deep acting and followers’ affective, normative and continuance organizational commitment.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from 323 employees of five service sector organizations in Anhui province, China. Further, PLS-SEM technique was used to perform quantitative analysis.

Findings

The findings suggest that leader surface acting has a negative influence on followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. In contrast, leader deep acting has a positive influence on followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that leaders should be careful in managing their affective display. They may like to improve their followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment by using deep acting. In contrast, leader surface acting may weaken their followers’ affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment.

Originality/value

This study extends the social exchange theory in the context of emotional labor by examining the link between perceptions of leader surface and deep emotional strategies and followers’ affective, normative and continuance organizational commitment.