The implications of perceived leader favouritism in the context of leader-member exchange relationships

Leaders as Coaches: Towards a Code of Ethics

Building on the relational leadership model, this study investigates ethical leadership in the context of “leaders as coaches.” We used a critical incident technique to identify ethical issues that occur when leaders act as coaches in the leader-follower relationship. Findings show seven ethical issues, namely, definition ambiguity, conflict of interest, confidentiality, power imbalance, freedom to participate, boundaries and favoritism. These ethical issues take a two-edged form for leaders as coaches, given the complexity of the leader-follower relationship. The increasing prevalence of managerial coaching makes it important to pre-empt ethical issues where possible and address any that arise, in order for an organization to become or continue to be an ethical organization. A proposed code of ethics, specifically for leaders as coaches, could accompany organizational change initiatives.

My LMX standing with my leader as compared to my coworkers: conditional indirect effect of LMX social comparison

Purpose

The paper examines the effect of relative leader-member exchange (LMX) on follower's in-role performance, citizenship behaviour and cynicism via relational identification. Moreover, LMXSC (LMXSC) moderates the direct and mediating relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on multi-level (individual and group level) model, dyadic data were collected from 298 employees working under 47 group managers in the banking sector in Pakistan.

Findings

The multi-level moderated mediation model tested in Mplus and HLM software showed the full support for direct, mediating and moderating hypothesized relationships; however, the moderated mediation hypothesis was partially supported. It reveals that relative LMX standing of followers predicted in-role performance, organizational citizenship behaviour at an individual level (OCB-individual) and cynicism. Relational identification with the leader mediated the relationship. Moreover, at high LMXSC, the relationship between relative LMX and relational identification and consequently the outcomes were stronger.

Originality/value

LMX has widely been studied at dyadic level, despite the suggested high and low LMX quality relationships that exist in a workgroup. This study not only investigates the role of relative LMX on employee performance through relational identification but also reports that subjective evaluation of LMXSC plays a major role in promoting employee performance.

Influence of leaders’ authentic competences on nepotism-favouritism and cronyism

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore how an authentic leader’s internal (self-regulation, self-awareness and internalised moral perspective) and external competencies (relational transparency and balance processing) influence nepotism, favouritism and cronyism (NFC).

Design/methodology/approach

The study used a quantitative research approach and respondents were sampled from private and public banks across the ten regions of Ghana using survey questionnaires. Overall, 127 branch managers and 997 subordinates were sampled. The collected data were analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple regression was used to explore the influence the of authentic leadership (AL) competences on NFC.

Findings

On leader’s internal competences, the results revealed that self-awareness had a significant decreasing influence on nepotism in terms of operations, while internalised moral perspective had a significant increasing influence on favouritism in the context of position. Self-regulation did not have any significant influence on NFC. Regarding the leader’s external competences, relational transparency had a significant positive influence on favouritism and nepotism, while balance processing had a significant negative influence on favouritism and nepotism in the context of position and operations, respectively.

Research limitations/implications

The results suggest that AL competences have a mixed influence on NFC in the context of this study. However, the findings are limited to Ghana and cannot be generalised to countries that do not share a similar culture with Ghana such as countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and even certain countries in Africa.

Practical implications

The authors advise family businesses to use free and fair measures to appoint or promote employees who have the required skills to manage the office rather than appointing family members to positions without merit. Training on AL and NFC should be conducted for managers to enable them to understand the potential negative effects of NFC on the employees and the organisation at large.

Social implications

Laws must be passed to guard against appointments or recruitments of employees in the public sector organisations based on NFC to minimise these unethical behaviours.

Originality/value

This is the first study which empirically explores AL competences influence on the leaders’ behaviour in the context of NFC.