In search of missing time: A review of the study of time in leadership research

Followership styles scrutinized: temporal consistency and relationships with job attitudes and self-efficacy

While followership has been repeatedly acknowledged as an important part of leadership, key questions are still awaiting empirical testing. In our two studies, we test Kelley's prominent concept of followership styles for the first time in a longitudinal design. Specifically, we use a latent-state trait approach to examine the degree to which followership behaviors (i.e., active engagement [AE] and independent, critical thinking [ICT]) reflect rather stable or rather dynamic behaviors. Furthermore, we examine the relationships of followership behaviors with job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and self-efficacy in latent states cross-lagged models. We first test our hypotheses in a sample of N = 184 employees from eleven German service organizations, which were surveyed twice with a time lag of nine to 12 months. To replicate and extend our findings from Study 1, we conducted Study 2 with a sample of N = 570 participants from a German open-access panel, which were surveyed twice with a time lag of four months. In Study 2, we additionally test leader humility and perceived organizational support (POS) as potential moderators of the relationships between followership and job attitudes. While our findings support Kelley's conceptualization of followership styles as rather consistent behavior patterns, mixed results were found for the relationships with the other variables. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings as well as the relevance of time in followership research.

Leader airtime management and team effectiveness in emergency management command and control (EMCC) teams

We investigated the relation between leader airtime management and team effectiveness in Emergency Management Command and Control (EMCC) teams. Leader airtime management concerns leaders' interventions to structure who shares information when using opening and closing statements to respectively stimulate or reduce information sharing. We coded leaders' airtime management statements across different meeting phases (structuring, information sharing, decision making) using video-recordings of 12 EMCC exercises involving two consecutive meetings each. Experts rated two components of team effectiveness: Team Situation Awareness (TSA) and Team Decision Making (TDM). We found that closing statements were more frequently used in the decision-making phase than in any other meeting phase. Also, leaders of teams with lower TSA used more opening statements in the decision-making phase of the first team meeting than leaders of teams with higher TSA. These results confirm the importance of the timing of leader airtime management for EMCC team effectiveness. Practitioner summary: We investigated leader airtime management and team effectiveness in EMCC teams. We video-coded 12 exercises; experts rated team effectiveness. In the decision-making phase, leaders use more closing statements, and leaders of less effective teams use more opening statements. Leaders are advised to adjust their airtime management to meeting phases.

The moderating influence of error timing on follower perceptions of leader error

Purpose

This study aims to examine how the characteristics of leader errors impact perceptions and reactions of followers, particularly their willingness to follow a leader in the future and perceptions of error severity. Expanding upon the leader error and transgressions literature, this study considers how the timing of an error may influence how the error is interpreted.

Design/methodology/approach

This study’s sample included 283 students engaged in a 2 × 2 factorial designed laboratory experiment. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine whether error timing moderated the relationship between error type and two outcomes, willingness to follow and perceived error severity.

Findings

Relationship errors resulted in the worst outcomes and perceptions regardless of when they occurred. Task errors were judged as less impactful when occurring early in a task than later in a task. These results suggest that followers are more accepting of task leader errors when they have opportunities to recover from them, but consistently judge relationship errors as damaging.

Practical implications

Organizations should carefully consider the impact of leader errors and their context and develop strategies for error management and recovery.

Originality/value

This research addresses calls from scholars for greater consideration of temporality as a contextual variable in leader-follower dynamics, as well as those to take a more follower-centric approach to leadership research. This study also replicates prior leader error research and extends leader error theories to provide new avenues for future research.

Every coin has two sides: the impact of time pressure on employees’ knowledge hiding

Purpose

Time pressure is the most common kind of work pressure that employees face in the workplace; the existing research results on the effect of time pressure are highly controversial (positive, negative, inverted U-shaped). Especially in the era of knowledge economy, there remains a research gap in the impact of time pressure on individual knowledge hiding. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of different time pressure (challenge and hindrance) on knowledge hiding and to explain why there is controversy about the effect of time pressure in the academics.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected two waves of data and surveyed 341 R&D employees in China. Moreover, they used regression analysis, bootstrapping and Johnson–Neyman statistical technique to verify research hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that challenge time pressure (CTP) has a significant negative effect on knowledge hiding, whereas hindrance time pressure (HTP) has a significant positive effect on knowledge hiding; job security mediates the relationship between time pressure and knowledge hiding; temporal leadership strengthen the positive impact of CTP on job security; temporal leadership can mitigate the negative impact of HTP on job security.

Originality/value

The findings not only respond to the academic debate about the effect of time pressure and point out the reasons for the controversy but also enhance the scholars’ attention and understanding of the internal mechanism between time pressure and knowledge hiding.

The Role of Change in the Relationships Between Leader-Member Exchange/Coworker Exchange and Newcomer Performance: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach

This study examines whether and how the qualities of newcomers’ interpersonal relationships [i.e., leader-member exchange (LMX) and coworker exchange (CWX)] relate to their initial performance and how changes in the qualities of these relationships relate to the changes in performance. To test a latent growth model, we collected data from 230 newcomers at six time points over a 6-week period. The results showed that LMX quality is positively related to initial newcomer performance; however, changes in LMX quality are not statistically significantly related to changes in newcomer performance. In contrast, an increase in CWX quality is positively related to newcomer performance improvement, but the initial quality of CWX does not predict newcomer performance. Furthermore, newcomers’ psychological entitlement moderates the relationship between LMX quality and newcomer performance; newcomers’ conscientiousness moderates the relationship between increases in CWX quality and improvements in newcomer performance. The findings increase our understanding of the newcomer exchange relationship-performance link over time and suggest that future newcomer socialization research explore the initial level of and the changes in these relationships simultaneously.

The Bottleneck Metaphor of Leadership Culture: How Shared Understandings About Leadership Develop in Groups and Impede Diversity and Effectiveness of Leaders

There are two big problems related to leadership today: unequal representation and high failure rates among leaders. This conceptual paper argues that commonly shared values, assumptions, and beliefs about leadership, i.e., universal leadership culture, are the common cause of both problems. After the concepts and levels related to leadership culture were explained, we introduce a multilevel, multi-actor process model named the bottleneck metaphor of leadership culture. This metaphor describes how leadership cultures are co-constructed by multiple actors based on their involvement in leader selection and reproduce themselves in groups over time based on emergent leaders' characteristics. Next, a diagnostic tool called “the leadership mirror” is proposed for organizations that want to assess their leadership culture's current state as a starting point for further interventions. Specific suggestions are made for various actors, ranging from individuals to organizations, for their possible roles in preventing undesired leadership cultures.

Reconciling temporal conflicts in innovation ambidexterity: the role of TMT temporal leadership

Purpose

This study aims to extend the temporal perspective on ambidexterity by investigating how and under what conditions top management team (TMT) temporal leadership improves innovation ambidexterity.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 165 small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. Ordinary least squares regression models were applied to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The findings show that TMT temporal leadership has a positive effect on innovation ambidexterity and temporal conflict mediates this relationship. Market dynamism and institutional support moderate the indirect effect of TMT temporal leadership on innovation ambidexterity.

Practical implications

Managers wishing to promote exploration and exploitation simultaneously should pay attention to the temporal aspects of their innovation strategy and improve their temporal leadership activities.

Originality/value

This study highlights the temporal conflicts in ambidexterity and clarifies the enabling role of TMT temporal leadership. It contributes new insights to the research on organizational ambidexterity and strategic leadership.

Leadership Development: Leadership Emergence to Leadership Effectiveness

This study aimed to understand how leadership effectiveness of the trainer in a leadership development program can influence emerging leaders’ development and effectiveness. We hypothesized that the trainer’s leadership effectiveness would be a boundary condition. In this two year longitudinal field study, military cadets’ leadership effectiveness from their emergence as informal peer leaders during basic training through the officer training course (OTC) to their formal leadership roles as active duty officers was followed. The sample included 854 cadets and their 72 trainers. We found that cadets’ effectiveness during OTC mediated the relationship between informal leadership emergence during basic training and their subsequent effectiveness as formal leaders. Furthermore, trainers’ effectiveness moderated the relationship between cadets’ informal leadership emergence and effectiveness in OTC. Results indicate that informal emerging leaders are more likely to develop into highly effective formal leaders when supervised by effective trainers. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.