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Leadership: Current TheorieResearch, and FutureDirections

Bruce J. Avolio,1 Fred O. Walumbwa,2

and Todd J. Weber3

1Department of Management, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0491email: [email protected]

2

Department of Management, The Arizona State University, Glendale,Arizona 85306-4908; email: [email protected]

3Department of Management, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0491email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2009. 60:42149

TheAnnual Review of Psychologyis online atpsych.annualreviews.org

This articles doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163621

Copyright c2009 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0066-4308/09/0110-0421$20.00

Key Words

authentic leadership, cognitive leadership, complexity leadership,

cross-cultural leadership, new-genre leadership, shared leadership

Abstract

This review examines recent theoretical and empirical developments

the leadership literature, beginning with topics that are currently rceiving attention in terms of research, theory, and practice. We beg

by examining authentic leadership and its development, followed work that takes a cognitive science approach. We then examine ne

genre leadership theories, complexity leadership, and leadership tha

shared, collective, or distributed. We examine the role of relationshthrough our review of leader member exchange and the emerging wo

on followership. Finally, we examine work that has been done on sustitutes for leadership, servant leadership, spirituality and leadersh

cross-cultural leadership, and e-leadership. This structure has the beefit of creating a future focus as well as providing an interesting way

examine the development of the field. Each section ends with an idenfication of issues to be addressed in the future, in addition to the over

integration of the literature we provide at the end of the article.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTICLEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Authentic Leadership Defined . . . . . . 423Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

Heritability and Leadership . . . . . . . . 425

Examining Evidence for PositiveLeadership Interventions . . . . . . . . 425

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

AND LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426Emerging Cognitive Constructs . . . . 426

Prototypical Abstractionsof Leader sh ip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 7

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428NEW-GENRE LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . 428

New-Genre Versus TraditionalLeadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Boundary Conditions

for New-Genre Leadership. . . . . . 429Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP . . . . . . 430Complexity and Traditional

Leadership Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

SHARED, COLLECTIVE,OR DISTRIBUTED

LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431Shared Leadership Defined. . . . . . . . . 431

Research Evidence.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE. . . 4Extensions to LMX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4FOLLOWERSHIP

AND LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Romance of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Updates on Follower-CentricViews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

SUBSTITUTES FORLEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4SERVANT LEADERSHIP .. . . . . . . . . . 4

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4SPIRITUALITY AND

LEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

CROSS-CULTURALLEADERSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Project GLOBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Global Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Comparative Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4E- LEAD ERS H IP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Common Questions withE- Leader sh ip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Group and Virtual TeamsResearch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Future Focus Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4CLOSING COMMENTS

AND INTEGRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

INTRODUCTION

One of our goals for this integrative reviewis to examine the ways in which the field of

leadership is evolving and the consequencesof its evolutionary path for the models, meth-

ods, and populations examined. For example,at the outset of the field of leadership, the pri-

mary focus wason studying an individual leader,who was most likely a male working in some

large private-sector organization in the United

States. Today, the field of leadership focuse

only on the leader, but also on followers, psupervisors, work setting/context, and cul

including a much broader array of indivals representing the entire spectrum of d

sity, public, private, and not-for-profit org

zations, and increasingly over the past 20 ysamplesof populations from nations aroun

globe. Leadership is no longer simply descras an individual characteristic or difference

422 Avolio Walumbwa Weber

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rather is depicted in various models as dyadic,

shared, relational, strategic, global, and a com-plex social dynamic (Avolio 2007, Yukl 2006).

We organize our examination of how leader-

ship is evolving by discussing significant areas ofinquiry that represent current pillars in leader-

ship research, some understandably taller thanothers. We highlight the current state of each

particular area of inquiry, and discuss what weknow, what we dont know, and what remains

interesting possibilities to pursue in future re-search. Given our space limitations, we focus

more on the current state of these respective ar-eas in terms of advances in theory, research, and

practice, including the criticisms and bound-aries of theories, models,and methods wherever

appropriate. From this analysis, we offer some

recommendations for future directions that thescience of leadership could pursue, and we dis-

cuss the potential implications for leadershippractice.

Looking back over the past 100 years, wecannot imagine a more opportune time for the

field of leadership studies. Never before has somuch attention been paid to leadership, and the

fundamental question we must ask is, what dowe know and what should we know about lead-

ers and leadership? We begin addressing thesequestions not by going back to the earliest work

in leadership, but rather by focusing on what

is most current in the field. We then examineother areas from which the current work has

emerged, rather than examining leadership ma-terial covered in recent reviews (Gelfand et al.

2007, Goethals 2005) or providing a compre-hensive historical review of the field that is bet-

ter left to the Handbook of Leadership (Bass &Bass 2008; see also Yukl & Van Fleet 1992).

OVERVIEW OF AUTHENTIC

LEADERSHIPOne of the emerging pillars of interest in the

field of leadership has been called authenticleadership development. As discussed in a spe-

cial issue [edited by Avolio & Gardner (2005)]of theLeadership Quarterlyon this topic and in

an earlier theoretical piece by Luthans & Avolio

Authenticleadership: a pattof transparent andethical leader behathat encouragesopenness in sharin

information needemake decisions whaccepting followerinputs

Transformationaleadership: leadebehaviors thattransform and inspfollowers to perforbeyond expectatiowhile transcendingself-interest for thgood of the

organization

Positiveorganizationalbehavior: literatuthat is focusing onpositive constructssuch as hope,resiliency, efficacy,optimism, happineand well-being as tapply to organizati

Broaden-and-bui

theory: suggestspositive emotionsexpand cognition abehavioral tendencand encourage novvaried, and explorathoughts and actio

(2003), the advent of work on authentic leader-

shipdevelopmentcameasaresultofwritingsontransformational leadership, in which authors

such as Bass & Steidlmeier (1999) suggest that

there are pseudo versus authentic transforma-tional leaders.

Luthans & Avolio (2003) also introducedthe concept of authentic leadership develop-

ment into the literature with the goal of in-tegrating work on (Luthans 2002) positive

organizational behavior with the life-span lead-ership development work of Avolio (1999).

Their main purpose was to examine what con-stituted genuine leadership development in-

cluding what worked and didnt work to de-velop leaders and leadership, as well as to bring

to the foreground some of the recent work

in positive psychology as a foundation for ex-amining how one might accelerate the de-

velopment. Luthans and Avolio reasoned thatusing some of the theoretical work in posi-

tive psychology such as Fredricksons (2001)broaden-and-build theory, they could offer a

more positive way for conceptualizing leader-ship development. According to Fredrickson,

those individuals who have more positive psy-chological resources are expected to grow more

effectively or to broaden themselves and buildout additional personal resources to perform.

Luthans and Avolio report that to a large ex-

tent, the prior leadership development workwas based on a deficit-reduction model strat-

egy, where one discovered what was wrong witha leader and then worked to correct deficits in

terms of focusing on the leaders development(also see Avolio & Luthans 2006).

Authentic Leadership Defined

First and foremost, the concept of authenticity

has been around for a long time, as reflected in

many philosophical discussions of what consti-tutes authenticity (Harter et al. 2002). George

(2003) popularized authentic leadership in thegeneral practice community when he published

his book on the topic, as did Luthans & Avolio(2003) for the academic community. Luthans

& Avolio (2003, p. 243) defined authentic

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Ethical leadership:the demonstration ofnormativelyappropriate conductthrough personalactions and

interpersonalrelationships, and thepromotion of suchconduct to followers

Nomologicalnetwork: arepresentation of aconstruct, itsobservablemanifestation, and therelationship betweenthe two

leadership as a process that draws from both

positive psychological capacities and a highlydeveloped organizational context, which re-

sults in both greater self-awareness and self-

regulated positive behaviors on the part ofleaders and associates, fostering positive self-

development. This definition and subsequentwork on authentic leadership was defined at

the outset as multilevel in that it included theleader, follower, and context very specifically in

the way it was conceptualized and measured.This addressed a typical criticism in the lead-

ership literature summarized by Yammarinoet al. (2005, p. 10) who concluded, relatively

few studies in any of the areas of leadershipresearch have addressed levels-of-analysis is-

sues appropriatelyin theory, measurement, data

analysis, and inference drawing.At the same time, several scholars (e.g.,

Cooper et al. 2005, Sparrowe 2005) expressedconcerns with Luthans & Avolios initial defi-

nition of authentic leadership. The initial con-ceptual differences notwithstanding, there ap-

pears to be general agreement in the literatureon four factors that cover the components of

authentic leadership: balanced processing, in-ternalized moral perspective, relational trans-

parency, and self-awareness. Balanced process-ing refers to objectively analyzing relevant data

before making a decision. Internalized moral

perspective refers to being guided by internalmoral standards, which are used to self-regulate

ones behavior. Relationaltransparency referstopresenting ones authentic self through openly

sharing information and feelings as appropriatefor situations (i.e., avoiding inappropriate dis-

plays of emotions). Self-awareness refers to thedemonstrated understanding of ones strengths,

weaknesses, and the way one makes sense ofthe world. These four constructs were further

operationally defined by Walumbwa and col-leagues (2008). Walumbwa et al. (2008) pro-

vided initial evidence using a multisample strat-

egy involving U.S. and non-U.S. participantsto determine the construct validity of a new set

of authentic leadership scales. Specifically, theyshowed the four components described above

represented unique scales that were reliable.

These four scales loaded on a higher-order

tor labeled authentic leadership that wascriminantly valid from measures of transfo

tional leadership (e.g., Avolio 1999) and etleadership (e.g., Brown et al. 2005) and w

significant and positive predictor of organ

tional citizenshipbehavior, organizational cmitment, and satisfaction with supervisor

performance.

Future Focus Required

Work on defining and measuring authleadership is in the very early stages of

velopment. Future research will need to

fer additional evidence for the construclidity of this measure or other measures

it will also need to demonstrate how authleadership relates to other constructs with

nomological network. This would include structs such as moral perspective, self-con

clarity, well-being, spirituality, and judgmMoreover, there is a need to examine how

thentic leadership is viewed across situaand cultures and whether it is a univer

prescribed positive root constructmeait represents the base of good leadership

gardless of form, e.g., participative, direcor inspiring. In the next section, we turn

attention to the second major focus on

thentic leadership, which incorporates thedevelopment.

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT

Up until very recently, one would be hpressed to find in the leadership liter

a general model of leadership developm(Luthans & Avolio 2003). Even more diffic

find is evidence-based leadership developm

Specifically, what evidence is there to supwhether leaders or leadership can be devel

using one or more specific theories of leaship? This question led to a concerted effo

explore what was known about whether lers are born or made, as well as the effica

leadership interventions.


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Heritability and Leadership

One avenue of research that has exploredwhether leaders are born versus made has in-

volved studying identical and fraternal twins.Preliminary evidence using a behavioral ge-

netics approach has shown that approximately30% of the variation in leadership style and

emergence was accounted for by heritabil-ity; the remaining variation was attributed to

differences in environmental factors such as

individuals having different role models andearly opportunities for leadership development

(Arvey et al. 2007). Because identical twins have100% of the same genetic makeup and fraternal

twins share about 50%, this behavioral geneticsresearch was able to control for heritability to

examine how many leadership roles the twinsemerged into over their respective careers. In

this and subsequent research for both men andwomen across cultures, similar results were ob-

tained. The authors conducting this researchconclude that the life context one grows up

in and later works in is much more important

than heritability in predicting leadership emer-gence across ones career.

Examining Evidence for PositiveLeadership Interventions

Lord & Hall (1992, p. 153) noted, too muchresearch in the past has attempted to probe the

complex issues of leadership using simple bi-variate correlations. It seems fair to say that

although most models of leadership have causalpredictions, a relatively small percentage of the

accumulated literature has actually tested thesepredictions using controlled leadership inter-

ventions, especially in field research settings(Yukl 2006).

To determine whether experimental inter-

ventions actually impacted leadership devel-opment and/or performance, a qualitative and

quantitative review of the leadership interven-tion (i.e., studies where a researcher overtly

manipulated leadership to examine its impacton some specific intermediate process vari-

ables or outcomes) literature was undertaken

(see Avolio & Luthans 2006, Avolio et al. 2009,

Reichard & Avolio 2005). The focus of thismeta-analytic review was unique in that up to

that point, more than 30 meta-analyses had

been published on leadership research, noneof which had focused on leadership interven-

tions and more than one model of leadership.For each study, the leadership intervention ex-

amined was categorized into six types: train-ing, actor/role-play, scenario/vignette, assign-

ments, expectations, others. Reichard & Avolio(2005)reportedthatregardlessofthetheorybe-

ing investigated, results showed that leadershipinterventions had a positive impact on work

outcomes (e.g., ratings of leader performance),even when the duration of those interventions

was less than one day. In terms of utility, partic-ipants in the broadly defined leadership treat-

ment condition had on average a 66% chance

of positive outcomes versus only a 34% chanceof success for the comparison group.


Relatively little work has been done over the

past 100 years to substantiate whether leader-ship can actually be developed. Indeed, based

on the meta-analysis findings reviewed above,

only 201 studies were identified that fit theintervention definition. Of those 201 studies,

only about one third focused on developingleadership as opposed to manipulating it for

impact through role plays or scripts to testa particular proposition in one of the various

models.One of the emerging areas of interest in

leadership research, which we have dedicatedmore attention to in its own section, con-

cerns the linkages between cognitive scienceand how leaders perceive, decide, behave, and

take action (Lord & Brown 2004). For exam-

ple, to develop leadership, it is imperative thatwe examine how a leaders self-concept and/or

identity is formed, changed, and influences be-havior (Swann et al. 2007). This raises a key

question regarding what constitutes leadersworking self-concept and/or identity with re-

spect to how they go about influencing others


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(Swann et al. 2007). For example, does an au-

thentic leader have a different working self-concept than someone who is described by fol-

lowers as transformational or transactional, and

how do these differences develop in the leaderover time?

We know from previous literature that al-though a leaders working self-concept is con-

structed in the current moment, it is also basedon more stable self-concepts and identities

stored in the individuals long-term memory.Avolio & Chan (2008) indicate there are certain

trigger events that activate the leaders workingself-concept. These trigger events induce self-

focused attention, self-assessment, and activatea leaders working self-concept. These trigger

moments can occur naturally as the leader in-

teracts with others during leadership episodesor they can be induced through formal train-

ing exercises and self-reflection (Roberts et al.2005).

Another very promising area of researchthat has not received sufficient attention in the

leadership literature focuses on understandingwhat constitutes an individuals level of devel-

opmental readiness or ones capacity or moti-vational orientation to develop to ones full po-

tential. Priorauthors havedefineddevelopmen-tal readiness as being made up of components

such as ones goal orientation (Dweck 1986) and

motivation to develop leadership (Maurer &Lippstreu 2005). In this literature, the authors

argue that leaders who are more motivated tolearn at the outset and who have higher moti-

vation to lead will more likely embrace triggerevents that stimulate their thinking about their

own development as an opportunity to improvetheir leadership effectiveness.

In sum, a great deal of energy and interestis emerging in the leadership development lit-

erature that suggests there will be a lot moreactivity in trying to discover what impacts gen-

uine leadership development at multiple levels

of analysis, from cognitive through to organi-zational climates. This literature will no doubt

link to the life-span development and cognitivepsychology literatures to fuel further work in

this area.

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGYAND LEADERSHIP

The cognitive science leadership literature

area of research and theory containing a range of approaches that are united by thei

cus on explaining the way leaders and folers think and process information. This l

ature includes a broad range of topics sucself-concept theory, meta-cognitions, and

plicit leadership theory (e.g., Lord & Em

2000), which are addressed in more dbelow.

One of the more recent developmenthe literature has been an attempt to dev

models of leadership cognition. Lord & (2005) developed a model of leadership

velopment that emphasized the leaders nitive attributes or abilities. A second m

was developed by Mumford et al. (2003)examined the way shared thinking contrib

to leader creativity. These two approachlustrate a fundamental way in which view

leadership cognitions vary, with the forme

cusing on activities with the individual leand the latter focusing on interactions tha

cur between individuals (Mumford et al. 20We examine several of the key emerging

structs within this literature, beginning witself-concept.

Emerging Cognitive Constructs

Recent literature on what constitutes theconcept has distinguished between the st

ture of the self-concept and its con(Altrocchi 1999).The content refersto the

uations one makes of oneself as well as beliefs. The structure refers to ways in w

the self-concept content is organized for cessing. In a study on the structure of the

concept, Campbell et al. (2003) examined

competing arguments that one benefits fhaving either unity in self-concept or plu

ism. Although the literature tends to treatwo as opposite ends of a continuum, t

study showed they are not necessarily relto each other. This study further showed

two measures of pluralism (self-complexity


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self-concept compartmentalization) were not

related to each other and that multiple mea-sures of self-concept unity, such as self-concept

differentiation, self-concept clarity, and self-

discrepancies, were moderately related to eachother and that each had implications for leader

development.Lord & Brown (2001) presented a model

examining two specific ways that leaders caninfluence the way followers choose to behave

in terms of the motivations they use to regu-late actions/behaviors. The first way relates to

values (e.g., achievement) and emphasizes mak-ing specific values (or patterns of values) salient

for the follower to motivate him or her to ac-tion. The second relates to the followers self-

concept, whereby the leader activates a specific

identityto which followers can relate,creating acollective identity that the follower ultimately

embraces as his or her own. Both values andself-concept are viewed as mediating the link-

age between the leaders actions and the behav-ior of the follower.

Because there are a range of peripheral andcore identities that could be salient to an in-

dividual at any one point in time, the ques-tion of which identities are activated at any

time is relevant to research on leadership andits impact on followers. The idea of a working

self-concept refers to the identity (or combi-

nation of identities) that is salient in the mo-ment, and it consists of three types of com-

ponents: self-views, current goals, and possibleselves (Lord & Brown 2004). The self-view re-

lates to the current working model or view ofoneself, whereas the possible selves may repre-

sent the ideal model an individual may be striv-ing for and something that could be leveraged

by the leader to motivate and develop follow-ers into better followers or leaders themselves.

Overall, the working self-concept has the po-tential to provide insight into the challenging

issue of how salient ones identity is and how

leadership can enhance its salience, though itsuse within the leadership literature has been

somewhat limited so far.One of the essential building blocks in the

cognitive leadership literature is the idea of a

Cognitive leadersa broad range ofapproaches toleadershipemphasizing howleaders and follow

think and processinformation

Transactionalleadership:leadership largelybased on the exchaof rewards contingon performance

schema, which is a broad organizing frame-

work that helps one understand and make senseof a given context or experience. One notable

example of the use of schemas with respect

to leadership research is the work of Woffordet al. (1998), who proposed a cognitivemodel to

explain the way transformational and transac-tional leaders view work with followers. In their

field study, Wofford et al. examined schematicprocesses (e.g., vision, follower, self) and scripts

(behaviors associated with a schema), arguingthat transformational and transactional leader-

ship use different schemas to interpret events,which then results in the choice of differ-

ent leadership behaviors/actions in responseto those events. Support was found for trans-

formational leader cognitions being related to

the leaders choice of acting transformationally.Mixed support was found for the relationships

between transactional leader schemas and be-haviors and actions chosen.

Prototypical Abstractionsof Leadership

The leadership research on social identity for-mation has also focused heavily on what con-

stitutes prototypicality, which has shown that

followers may be more drawn to leaders whoare exemplars of groups they belong to or want

to join. Early research conceptualized proto-types as being relatively static and applicable in

many situations. Recentwork hascontestedthatview, arguing that prototypes are dynamic and

can be applied and adapted based on the exist-ing constraints or challenges being confronted

by leaders (Lord et al. 2001).Subsequent research has also focused on the

relationship between implicit leadership theo-ries and several relevant performance outcomes

(Epitropaki & Martin 2005). We note that for

more than 25 years, a great deal of the work oncognitive psychology and leadership focused on

how implicit theories and prototypes affectedthe perceptions of leaders and followers, gener-

ally examining how it disadvantaged or biasedthem in views of others. More recent trends

in this literature coincide nicely with emphasis


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New-genreleadership: leadershipemphasizingcharismatic leaderbehavior, visionary,inspiring, ideological

and moral values, aswell astransformationalleadership such asindividualizedattention, andintellectual stimulation

now being placed on authentic leadership de-

velopment. Specifically, research is now at-tempting to link howleaders think about events,

choose to behave, and/or develop.


Cognitive approaches to investigating leader-ship draw heavily on several literatures de-scribed above. This broad stream of research

has potential for enhancing existing theories of

leadership in terms of helping to explain howleaders and followers attend to, process, and

make decisions and develop. Additional worklinking self-concept and meta-cognitive theo-

ries to research on leadership will no doubtcontribute to our understanding of how lead-

ers and followers actually develop. For ex-ample, if a leader has low self-concept clar-

ity, to what extent can we expect that sameleader to be self-aware? What are the impli-

cations for enhancing a leaders self-conceptclarity or working self-concept about what

constitutes the roles of effective leadership

in developing that leaders self-awareness andperformance?

NEW-GENRE LEADERSHIP

Although prior authors have focused on whatconstitutes charismatic, inspirational, and vi-sionary leadership as far back as the early 1920s,

much of the attention in the literature on thesenewer theories of leadership has come about

over the past 25 years. Burns (1978) and Bass(1985) signaled the need to shift the focus of

leadership research from predominantly exam-ining transactional models that were based on

how leaders and followers exchanged with eachother to models that might augment transac-

tional leadership and were labeled charismatic,inspirational, transformational, and visionary.

The early work of Bass and Burns set the stage

for distinguishing what Bryman (1992) referredto as more traditional theories of leadership

versus what they termed new-genre leadershiptheories.

New-Genre Versus TraditionalLeadership

Bryman (1992) commented, There was

siderable disillusionment with leadershipory and research in the early 1980s. Part o

disillusionment was attributed to the factmost models of leadership and measure

countedforarelativelysmallpercentageofance in performance outcomes such as pro

tivity and effectiveness. Out of this pessim

emerged a number of alternative approacwhich shared some common features . . . ,

lectively referred to as the new leaders(Bryman 1992, p. 21). Unlike the traditi

leadership models, which described leadehavior in terms of leader-follower exchang

lationships, setting goals, providing direcand support, and reinforcement behavior

what Bass (1985) referred to as being bon economic cost-benefit assumptions (p

the new leadership models emphasized sbolic leader behavior; visionary, inspirati

messages; emotional feelings; ideological

moral values; individualized attention; antellectual stimulation. Emerging from t

early works, charismatic and transformatleadership theories have turned out to be

most frequently researched theories ovepast 20 years (Avolio 2005, Lowe & Gar

2000).The theory of charismatic/transformat

leadership suggests that such leaders raiselowers aspirations and activate their hig

order values (e.g., altruism) such thatlowers identify with the leader and h

her mission/vision, feel better about

work, and then work to perform beyond ple transactions and base expectations

Avolio 1999, Bass 1985, Conger & Kanu1998). Accumulated research (see Avolio

2004a for a summary of this literature)cluding a series of meta-analytic studies (

Judge & Piccolo 2004), has found that chmatic/transformational leadership was

tively associated with leadership effectiveand a number of important organizat

outcomes across many different type


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organizations, situations, levels of analyses, and

cultures such as productivity and turnover.Over the past decade, a lot of research ef-

fort has been invested in understanding the

processes through which charismatic/transfor-mational leaders positively influence follow-

ers attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Forexample, a number of studies have examined

different processes through which transforma-tional leadership effects are ultimately realized

in terms of performance outcomes. These pro-cesses include followers formation of com-

mitment; satisfaction; identification; perceivedfairness (e.g., Liao & Chuang 2007, Walumbwa

et al. 2008); job characteristics such as variety,identity, significance, autonomy and feedback

(e.g., Piccolo & Colquitt 2006); trust in the

leader (e.g., Wang et al. 2005); and how fol-lowers come to feel about themselves and their

group in terms of efficacy, potency, and cohe-sion (e.g., Bass et al. 2003, Bono & Judge 2003,

Schaubroeck et al. 2007).

Boundary Conditionsfor New-Genre Leadership

After establishing the positive links between

transformational leadership and the interven-

ing variables and performance outcomes, morerecent research has examined the boundary

conditions in which transformational leader-ship is more (or less) effective in predicting

follower attitudes and behaviors. For example,several studies have focused on identifying and

understanding contextual variables (e.g., idio-centrism) that mediate or moderate the rela-

tionship of charismatic/transformational lead-ership with followers level of motivation

and performance at the individual, team orgroup, and organizational levels (e.g., De

Cremer & van Knippenberg 2004, Keller 2006,

Walumbwa et al. 2007). Additional researchhas focused on examining the moderating ef-

fects of follower dispositions such as efficacy(Dvir & Shamir 2003, Zhu et al. 2008), phys-

ical and structural distance (e.g., Avolio et al.2004b), perceived environmental uncertainty

(e.g., Agle et al. 2006), social networks (e.g.,

Mediatedmoderation: amoderatingrelationship that ismediated by anothvariable

Moderatedmediation: amediating relationthat is moderated another variable

Bono & Anderson 2005), technology to sup-

port group decision-making (e.g., Sosik et al.1997), and cultural orientations such as collec-

tivism (e.g., Walumbwa & Lawler 2003).


Although significant progress has been made

in studying charismatic/transformational lead-ership, a number of areas still deserve further

attention. First, despite the important andpositive contributions made by charismatic or

transformational leadership in practice, ques-tions remain as to what determines or predicts

charismatic or transformational leadership,or why some leaders engage in charismatic

or transformational leadership behavior and

others do not. Limited research has examinedleaders biographies or the role of followers

(Howell & Shamir 2005) as predictor variables.Second, despite significant progress in un-

derstanding how and when charismatic andtransformational leadership behaviors are more

effective, further research is needed that ex-plores the process and boundary conditions

for charismaticand transformational leadershipwith beneficial work behaviors. For example,

although scholars whohave investigated charis-matic and transformational leadership have

discussed motivational constructs as central

components in their frameworks, generallyspeaking, few have paid any attention to the un-

derlying psychological processes, mechanisms,and conditions through which charismatic and

transformational leaders motivate followers tohigher levels of motivation and performance

(Kark & Van Dijk 2007).Yukl (1999) has called for a more con-

certed effort to understand both the moderat-ing and mediating mechanisms that link charis-

matic/transformational leadership to followeroutcomes. To date, only a few preliminary

studies have simultaneously examined mediated

moderation or moderated mediation (e.g., DeCremer & van Knippenberg 2004, Walumbwa

et al. 2008).Third, other areas that deserve research

attention include examining how to link


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CAS: complexadaptive system

charismatic/transformational leadership to the

emerging literature on emotions and leader-ship. Although all of these newer theories em-

phasize the emotional attachment of followers

to the leader, there has been a dearth of con-ceptual and empirical research on examining

the relationships between these new leadershiptheories and followers affective states (Bono &

Ilies 2006).Fourth, research on charismatic and trans-

formational leadership at the organizationalor strategic level has generally lagged behind

all other areas of leadership research exceptperhaps the focus on leadership development

(Waldman & Yammarino 1999), and the resultsthus far have been mixed (Agle et al. 2006).

For example, Waldman and colleagues (Tosi

et al. 2004, Waldman et al. 2001) found that thecharisma of the chief executive officer (CEO)

was not related to subsequent organizationalperformance as measured by net profit mar-

gin and shareholder return or return on as-sets, respectively. On the other hand, Agle et al.

(2006) and Waldman et al. (2004) reported thatCEO charisma was associated with subsequent

organizational performance. Clearly, more re-search is needed that focuses on potential medi-

ating and moderating variables such as externalstakeholders while examining the relationship

between CEO charismatic or transformational

leadership and firm performance.Finally, although cross-cultural research

pertaining to charismatic/transformationalleadership generally supports the relationships

reported for the United States and other West-ern cultures, it is important to note that these

studies largely involve survey-based designs.We recommend that researchers incorporate

a number of alternative research designs,including but not limited to experimental

designs, longitudinal designs, and qualitativedesigns, as well as the use of multiple sources

and mixed methods studies.

COMPLEXITY LEADERSHIP

Many previous models of leadership have been

designed to accommodate more traditional hi-

erarchical structures of organizations. To

degree that organizations are hierarchicatoo are leadership models (Uhl-Bien e

2007). Yet, there has been a growing sen

tension in the leadership literature that mels of leadership that were designed for

past century may not fully capture the leaship dynamic of organizations operating i

days knowledge-driven economy (Lichtenet al. 2007). Applying the concepts of c

plexity theory to the study of leadershipresulted in what has been referred to as c

plexity leadership (Uhl-Bien & Marion 20Basedonthisframework,leadershipisview

an interactive system of dynamic, unpredicagents that interact with each other in c

plex feedback networks, which can then

duce adaptive outcomes such as knowledgesemination, learning, innovation, and fur

adaptation to change (Uhl-Bien et al. 20According to complex systems leadership

ory, leadership can be enacted through

interaction in an organization . . .leadersh

anemergentphenomenon within complextems (Hazy et al. 2007, p. 2).

In line with leadership fitting the neethe situation or challenges in which it oper

complexity leadership posits that to achievtimal performance, organizations cannot b

signed with simple, rationalized structures

underestimate the complexity of the conin which the organization must function

adapt (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). Simply viewthe leader and follower in a simple exch

process wont fly in terms of explaining thedynamics of leadership.

Complexity and TraditionalLeadership Theory

In traditional leadership theory, theunit of

ysis is oftentimes the leader, the leaderfollower, the leader and group, and so fo

The fundamental unit of analysis in comity leadership is referred to as a complex a

tive system, or CAS (Uhl-Bien et al. 20The CAS has its roots in the physical

encesandiscomposedofinterdependentag


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that can operate simultaneously on the basis of

certain rules and localized knowledge that gov-erns the CAS, while also being able to adapt

and emerge based on feedback from the sys-

tem (Plowman & Duchon 2008). Complexityleadership theory (CLT; Uhl-Bien et al. 2007)

has been developed as an overarching explana-tion of how CAS operates within a bureaucratic

organization, and it identifies three leadershiproles to explore: adaptive (e.g., engaging oth-

ers in brainstorming to overcome a challenge),administrative (e.g., formal planning according

to doctrine), and enabling (e.g., minimizing theconstraints of an organizational bureaucracy to

enhance follower potential).


One of the core propositions of complexity

leadership theory is that much of leadershipthinking has failed to recognize that leader-

ship is not merely the influential act of an in-dividual or individuals but rather is embedded

in a complex interplay of numerous interact-ing forces (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007, p. 302). How

should one then study this form of leadership?Dooley & Lichtenstein (2008) describe several

methods for studying complex leadership in-

teractions, including by focusing on (a) micro,daily interactions using real-time observation,

(b) meso interactions (days and weeks) using so-cial network analysis, where one examines a set

of agents and how they are linked over time,and (c) macro interactions (weeks, months, and

longer) through event history analysis. Finally,agent-based modeling simulations (i.e., com-

puter simulations based on a set of explicit as-sumptions about how agents are supposed to

operate) are also being used as a means to studycomplexity leadership.

In sum, the complexity leadership field

clearly lacks substantive research. We suspectthis is a result of the difficulties in assessing

this type of emergent construct within a dy-namically changing context. However, substan-

tive research is needed if this area of leader-ship research is to advance beyond conceptual

discussions.

CLT: complexityleadership theory

Shared leadershipan emergent statewhere team membcollectively lead eaother

SHARED, COLLECTIVE,OR DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP

Similar to our discussion above about complex-

ity leadership, we see more evidence for sharedor collective leadership in organizations as hi-

erarchical levels are deleted and team-basedstructures areinserted. In describing sharedand

team leadership, it is importantto point out thatthese forms of leadership are typically viewed

as different streams of research. For example,

team leadership research has typically focusedon the role of an individual leading the team. In

contrast, those authors examining shared lead-ership generally view it as a process versus a per-

son engaging multiple members of the team.In this section, we refer to the terms shared

leadership, distributed leadership, and col-lective leadership interchangeably, paralleling

their usage in the leadership literature.

Shared Leadership Defined

According to Day et al. (2004), team and sharedleadership capacity is an emergent state

something dynamic that develops throughouta teams lifespan and that varies based on the

inputs, processes, and outcomes of the team.

It produces patterns of reciprocal influence,which reinforce and develop further relation-

ships between team members (Carson et al.2007). The most widely cited definition of

shared leadership is that of Pearce & Conger(2003): a dynamic, interactive influence pro-

cess among individuals in groups for which theobjective is to lead one another to the achieve-

ment of group or organizational goals or both.This influence process often involves peer, or

lateral, influence and at other times involvesupward or downward hierarchical influence

(p. 1). Theterm shared leadershipoverlaps with

relational and complexity leadership, and dif-fers from more traditional, hierarchical, or ver-

ticalmodelsofleadership(Pearce&Sims2002).Highly shared leadership is broadly dis-

tributed within a group or a team of individ-uals rather than localized in any one individ-

ual who serves in the role of supervisor (Pearce


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& Conger 2003).More specifically, sharedlead-

ership is defined as a team-level outcome (Dayet al. 2004) or as a simultaneous, ongoing, mu-

tual influence process within a team that is char-

acterized by serial emergence of official as wellas unofficial leaders (Pearce 2004, p. 48). Simi-

lar to what weve described with respectto com-plexity leadership, when shared leadership can

be viewed as a property of the whole system,as opposed to solely the property of individu-

als, effectiveness in leadership becomes more aproduct of those connections or relationships

among the parts than the result of any one partof that system (such as the leader) (OConnor

& Quinn 2004, p. 423).

Research Evidence

Although a number of authors [beginning with

Mary Parker Follett (1924)] have discussed theidea of shared leadership, it has only gained

attention in the academic leadership literaturerecently, and relatively few studies have tried

to measure shared leadership. One exceptionis the work by Avolio & Bass (1995). In their

study, instead of raters evaluating the individ-ual leader, the target of ratings was the team it-

self. Avolio & Bass (1995) report that the team-

level measures of transformational and trans-actional leadership positively predicted perfor-

mance similar to the individual-level measuresin previous research.


One of thecriticisms of research on sharedlead-

ershipinvolves the lack of agreementon its defi-nition (Carson et al. 2007). For example, should

there be a generic definition of shared leader-ship that is qualified by such terms as transac-

tional or transformational shared leadership?

Other potential areas that have yet to beexplored involve certain boundary conditions,

mediators, and moderators that have been rec-ommended as a focus for future research. For

example, Pearce & Conger (2003) noted thatfuture research was needed to examine poten-

tial moderators such as the distribution of cul-

tural values, task interdependence, task com

tence, task complexity, and the team life cCarson et al. (2007) proposed that greate

tention be paid to levels of task competen

the team, complexity of tasks, and task independence in terms of examining how te

function when using shared leadership. Tauthors have also recommended that futur

search focus on the teams life cycle.Another area that has not received muc

search attention involves the environmewhich teams function. For example, Ca

et al. (2007) proposed that future researchamine the type of team environment tha

ables shared leadership, suggesting that thvironment consists of three highly interre

and mutually reinforcing dimensions: sh

purpose, social support, and voice. Thesthors described several organizational cli

factors that could potentially support mshared leadership in teams, including (a) sh

purpose, which exists when team memhave similar understandings of their teams

mary objectives and take steps to ensure cus on collective goals; (b) social support

scribed as team members efforts to proemotional and psychological strength to

another. This helps to create an environmwhere team members feel their input is va

andappreciated;and(c)voice,whichisth

gree to which a teams members have inputhow the team carries out its purpose (p. 12

Future research also needs to examineexternal team leaders affect the teams ab

and motivation to be self-directed and sin leadership (Carson et al. 2007). Hackm

Wageman (2005) suggest that an external letotheteamcanhelpteammembersmakec

dinatedand task-appropriateuse of their cotive resources in accomplishing the teams

(p. 269).In a nutshell, the time for examining sh

leadership may be upon us to the extent thaganizations are moving into a knowledge d

era where firms are distributed across cult

This suggests that individual-based hemodels of leadership may not be sustainab

and of themselves (Pearce 2004).


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LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE

Unlike shared leadership, which has focused ongroups, leader-member exchange (LMX) the-

ory has focused on the relationship between theleader and follower (Cogliser & Schriesheim

2000). The central principle in LMX theoryis that leaders develop different exchange re-

lationships with their followers, whereby thequality of the relationship alters the impact

on important leader and member outcomes(Gerstner & Day 1997). Thus, leadership oc-

curs when leaders and followers are able to

develop effective relationships that result inmutual and incremental influence (Uhl-Bien

2006).This literature has evolved from focusing

exclusively on the consequences of the LMXrelationship to focusing on both antecedents

and consequences. For example, Tekleab &Taylor (2003) assessed leader and follower

levels of agreement on their mutual obligationsand their psychological contract with each

other. In a recent meta-analysis reported byIlies et al. (2007), the authors reported that

a higher-quality LMX relationship not only

predicted higher levels of performance, butalso organizational citizenship behaviors. Some

additional areas of focus in terms of high- ver-sus low-quality LMX relationships have been

the context in which those relationships havedeveloped. Kacmar et al. (2007) examined the

conditions under which leaders and followersin low-quality exchanges exerted more effort

in examining how the situation interactedwith the impact of supervisors. Using control

theory, the authors tried to explain howperceptions of supervisor competence, central-

ization, and organizational politics influenced

their willingness to exert effort on the jobbeyond what would be typically expected in a

less-than-effective exchange relationship.Additional research on the nature of the re-

lationship and how it is formed has focused onthe use of impression management tactics and

its impact on the quality of the LMX relation-ship. Colella & Varma (2001) investigated how

a followers perceived disability and use of in-

LMX: leader memexchange

gratiation related to LMX quality. By using in-

gratiation tactics, the individuals with disabil-ities were able to increase the quality of the

relationship between the leader and follower.

Similar results were reported by Sparrowe et al.(2006), who showed that downward-influence

tactics used by the leader affected the quality ofthe LMX relationship.

Extensions to LMX

The original work produced by Graen & Uhl-Bien (1995) on the role-making and role-

takingprocesseshasbeenextendedbyUhl-Bienand colleagues (2000) to examine how leader-

follower dyads transform from individual inter-est to shared interest based on the development

of trust, respect, and obligations to each other.Similar work along these lines has examined

the effects of goal congruence on the qualityof the LMX relationship. This work suggests

that to the extent that goals are similar or mu-

tually reinforcing, one would expect to producea higher-quality LMX relationship.

Additional LMX research on individual dif-ferences has examined the impact of gender on

the quality of the LMX relationship, althoughthese findings have been mixed. For instance,

Adebayo & Udegbe (2004) reported that fol-lowers in opposite-sex dyads perceived a better

LMX quality in comparison with those fromsame-sex dyads.

Recent research has moved beyond exam-ining LMX in terms of antecedents and con-

sequences and has examined the quality of the

leader and follower relationship as a modera-tor and/or mediator of performance. For ex-

ample, Sparrowe et al. (2006) reported that thequality of the relationship moderated the re-

lationship between downward-influence tacticsand helping behaviors. Martin et al. (2005) re-

ported that LMX either fully or partially medi-ated the relationship between locus of control

and several work-related outcomes such as jobsatisfaction, work-related well-being, and orga-

nizational commitment.In an extension of the linkages between so-

cial network theory and LMX, Graen (2006)


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put forth a recent transformation of LMX the-

ory that he refers to as the new LMXMMXtheory of sharing network leadership. Accord-

ingly, both Uhl-Bien (2006) and Graen (2006),

building on earlier LMXresearch, nowviewor-ganizationsas systems of interdependent dyadic

relationships, or dyadic subassemblies, and ad-vocate the importance of both formal and infor-

malinfluences on individual, team, andnetworkflows of behavior.


Over the years, LMX theory and research have

been targets of criticism. One pervasive crit-

icism of this literature revolves around mea-surement. For example, many different mea-

sures of LMX have been developed and usedsince the theory was first proposed (Yukl 2006).

Schriesheim et al. (1999, p. 100) argued, LMXscales seem to have been developed on ad hoc,

evolutionary basis, without the presentation ofany clear logic or theory justifying the changes

which were made. LMX research has also beencriticized for failing to conceptualize the social

context in which leaders and followers are em-bedded. With a few exceptions, the majority of

research is, quite explicitly, located at the dyadiclevel, with very little theorizing or empirical

work examining LMX work at the group level

(Hogg et al. 2004, p. 22). In other words, the-ory and research on LMX have focused on the

leader-follower relationship without acknowl-edging that each dyadic relationship occurs

within a system of other relationships (Cogliser& Schriesheim 2000, Yukl 2006). LMX theory

and research also tend to assume that peoplesimply evaluate their own LMX relationship

in an absolute sense. According to Hogg et al.(2004), this is an oversimplification of how peo-

ple judge relationships. The authors argue thatit is much more likely that followers evaluate

the quality of their LMX relationship not only

in the absolute sense (i.e., low versus high), butalso with reference to their perception of oth-

ers LMX relationships. Another criticism ofthe LMX literature is that most of it is based

on correlation designs. This was a central crit-

icism made by Cogliser & Schriesheim (2

regarding the lack of causal results reportthe extensive stream of research associated

LMX research.LMX research has also been criticize

not including more objective measures of

formance (Erdogan & Liden 2002). Frequeresearch in this area has collected perform

outcomes that were generated by the leadsupervisor. It is nowtime to extend this rese

by collecting independent outcome measthat logically would be influenced by the q

ity of LMX relationship.Another promising area for future rese

is to extend work on LMX theory acrosstures. Specifically, what are the implicatio

national culture for the formation and dopment of an LMX quality relationship, an

turn how would that link to key organizat

outcomes? Preliminaryresearch addressingquestion across cultures has produced s

interesting results. For example, Chen e(2006) reported that regardless of whethe

manager was American or Chinese, the quof the LMX relationship was related to coo

ative goal setting or interdependence.

FOLLOWERSHIPAND LEADERSHIP

Perhaps one of the most interesting omisin theory and research on leadership is the

sence of discussions of followership and itspact on leadership. Leadership researchers

follower attributes as outcomes of the leaship process as opposed to inputs, even tho

there have been a number of calls over the yto examine the role that followers play in

leadership process (e.g., Shamir 2007).

Romance of LeadershipOur examination of follower-centric view

gins with a focus on what the leadershiperature describes as the romance of le

ship. Meindl et al. (1985) proposed a sconstructionist theory to describe the rela

shipbetweenleadershipandfollowership. T


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argued that leadership is significantly affected

by the way followers construct their under-standing of the leader in terms of theirinterpre-

tation of his or her personality, behaviors, and

effectiveness.Accumulated research on the romance of

leadership has produced mixed findings. Schynset al. (2007) conducted a meta-analysis to

determine whether they could tease out theeffects controlling for such things as mea-

surement error and sampling bias while fo-cusing on whether followers had a tendency

to romanticize their perceptions of transfor-mational/charismatic leadership. Their results

revealed a modest relationship between the ro-mance of leadership and perceptions of trans-

formational/charismatic leadership, accounting

for approximately 5% of the variance in lead-ership ratings. In another study, Kulich et al.

(2007) examined the relevance of the romanceof leadershiptheory through an experiment that

compared how the performance of a male anda female leader was viewed by allowing partici-

pants to choose how much of a bonus to allocateto theleader. Their resultsshowed that themale

CEOs bonus differed substantially dependingon the companys performance, whereas no dif-

ferences were reported for the female CEO.Bligh et al. (2007) found that followers neg-

ative views of their work environment were

overly attributed to their leaders in that theyviewed the leader as more responsible for these

negative outcomes and situations than was war-ranted. Along the same lines, Weber et al.

(2001) reported that group success and failurewere overly attributed to the leader. However,

these authors also reported that attributions offailure to the leader may have had more sig-

nificant negative repercussions, with the failingteam consistently voting to replace their lead-

ers when the situation was more of the cause forthe teams failure.

Updates on Follower-Centric Views

Howell & Shamir (2005) put forth some im-portant theoretical propositions regarding how

follower traits and characteristics might influ-

ence leader and follower relationships (also see

Dvir & Shamir 2003). Specifically, they iden-tified followers self-concept clarity and collec-

tive identity as importantfactors in determining

how followers form charismatic relationshipswith their leader. Howell & Shamir (2005) then

suggested that followers, who have a personal-ized relationship with a charismatic leader, may

be more likely to show blind loyalty, obedience,and deference.

Carsten et al. (2007) examined how individ-uals hold divergent social constructions of fol-

lowership that seem to coalesce around levels ofpassivity or proactivity, which followers believe

could lead to effectiveness in their role. Thus,like leaders, not all followers are created equal

in the minds of followers. This pattern was re-

flected in the work of Kelley (1992), who con-ceptualized followers as falling into quadrants,

based on their being active or passive followersas well as whether they were critical or noncrit-

ical thinkers.


Shamir (2007) suggested that leadership ef-fectiveness is just as much a product of good

followers as it is of good leaders. Shamir

(2007) made some specific recommendationsfor future work on follower-centered research,

including examining how followers needs,identities, and implicit theories affect leader

selection and emergence as well as leader en-dorsement and acceptance; how follower in-

teractions/social networks influence the emer-gence of leadership and effectiveness; how

followers expectations, values, and attitudesdetermine leader behavior; how followers ex-

pectations affect the leaders motivation andperformance; how followers acceptance of the

leader and their support for the leader affect

the leaders self-confidence, self-efficacy, andbehavior; how followers characteristics (e.g.,

self-concept clarity) determine thenatureof theleadership relationship formed with the leader;

and how followers attitudes and characteris-tics (e.g., level of development) affect leader

behavior.


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In addition, more work needs to be done ex-

amining how followership is construed acrossdifferent industries and cultures. It is possible

that in more advanced and newly forming in-

dustries, the concept of followership may beconstrued and enacted differently than what we

might find in more established industries withlong histories of treating leaders and followers

in a particular way (Schyns et al. 2007).

SUBSTITUTES FOR LEADERSHIP

The substitutes-for-leadership theory focuseson situational factors that enhance, neutral-

ize, and/or totally substitute for leadership. For

example, a group of people engaged in elec-tronic brainstorming using technology, such as

a group decision support system, may operateas though there was a participative leader who

was leading the group, but in fact, leadershipcomes from the operating rules for using the

system to engage. Kerr & Jermier (1978) pro-posed the substitutes-for-leadership theory to

address some of the romance effects describedabove. This research stream focuses on a range

of situational/organizational and follower char-acteristics that might influence the leadership

dynamic (Howell et al. 2007).Since this theory was originally proposed, a

considerable amount of research has been com-

pleted to determine whether there are substi-tutes for leadership with respect to impacts on

performance. A number of authors have con-cluded that evidence is not sufficient to support

the main propositions in the theory (Dionneet al. 2002, Keller 2006). For example, Dionne

et al. (2002) tested the moderating effects oftask variability, organization formulation, or-

ganization inflexibility, and lack of control onthe relationship between leadership behavior

and group effectiveness. However, the authorsfound little support for the moderating effects

proposed by the substitutes-for-leadership the-

ory. This lack of support may be attributableto problems in measuring these substitutes for

leadership. Yet, revisions to the scale and its usein subsequent research have not provided any

further support for this theory.


Villa et al. (2003) recommended that futursearch consider including multiple moder

that may interact with each other to impactformance that might be erroneously attrib

to the leader. Dionne et al. (2005) suggethat future research consider testing the

possible conditions linking leader behaleadership effectiveness, and other situati

variables (e.g., substitutes), which include

leadership main effects model, (b) a substimain effect model, (c) an interactive or

effects model, (d) a mediation model, whthe substitutes mediate leadership impact

sus moderate, and (e) the originally propmoderated model. Future research should

focus more on the nature of the samples tincluded in tests of substitutes for leader

For example, one might focus on the culbackground as well as quality of ones follo

by sampling professional workers who funin highly independent roles, as a pos

sample for studying the boundary condit

for the effects of substitutes for leade(Howell et al. 2007).

Finally, to evaluate fairly the substitutetheory propositions will require more lo

tudinal research designs. For example, leawho are more transformational will develop

lowers over time to take on more leaderroles and responsibilities. The way such lea

structure the context to develop followerand the followership itself may ultimately

stitute for the leaders influence (Keller 20

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

Building on the work of Greenleaf (1

Spears (2004) listed ten characteristics resenting a servant leader: (a) liste

(b) empathy, (c) healing, (d) awareness, (e)

suasion, (f ) conceptualization, (g) fores(h) stewardship, (i) commitment,

( j) building community. Russell & S(2002) reviewed the literature on servant l

ership, distinguishing such leadership intobroad categories: functional and accom

attributes. Functional attributes include ha


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vision, being honest, trustworthy, service

oriented, a role model, demonstrating appre-ciation of others service, and empowerment.

In terms of accompany attributes, servant

leaders are described as good communicatorsand listeners, credible, competent, encour-

aging of others, teachers, and delegators.In general, the limited empirical research

on servant leadership has shown that it ispositively related to follower satisfaction, their

job satisfaction, intrinsic work satisfaction,caring for the safety of others, and organi-

zational commitment. Joseph & Winston(2005) examined the relationship between em-

ployee perceptions of servant leadership andorganizational trust, and reported a positive

relationship with both trust in the leader as

well as trust in ones organization. Washingtonet al. (2006) examined the relationship between

servant leadership and the leaders values ofempathy, integrity, competence, and agree-

ableness, and reported that followers ratingsof leaders servant leadership were positively

related to followers ratings of leaders values ofempathy, integrity, and competence (p. 700).


One major tenet of servant leadership pro-posed by Greenleaf (1991) was that followers

of servant leaders would be expected to be-come healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous

and more likely to become servants themselves(Barbuto & Wheeler 2006, p. 321). This sug-

gests that future research could take a morefollower-centric approach in looking at the

well-being of followers of servant leaders andthe ways in which their well-being affects the

ability of the leader and followers to perform.As with LMX, the measurement of servant lead-

ership is problematic. Already many different

measures of servant leadership have been pro-posed with scales and items varying based on

problems with its definition. Future researchneeds to examine how the personal values of

servant leaders differ from those of other lead-ership styles, such as transformational (Russell

& Stone 2002).

SPIRITUALITY AND LEADERSHIP

One might ask leaders the question, Do you feelthere is something missing in the work that you

do and the way you lead others? Many authorshave referred to that void and have attempted

to examine how a greater sense of spiritualityin the workplace may be fostered. The research

on workplace spirituality also now includes afocus on spiritual leadershipdefined as com-

prising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that

are necessary to intrinsically motivate ones selfand others so that they have a sense of spiritual

survival through calling and membership (Fry2003, p. 711).

Dent et al. (2005) examined how spiritual-ity and leadership was defined in the literature

and concluded, The field of study is marked byall of the typical characteristics of paradigm de-

velopment including a lack of consensus abouta definition of workplace spirituality (p. 626).

Fry (2003) contends that spiritual leadershipadds to the existing leadership literature com-

ponents that have been explicitly missing, such

as a sense of calling on the part of leaders andfollowers as well as the creation of organiza-

tional cultures characterized by altruistic lovewhereby leaders and followers express genuine

care, concern, andappreciation for both self andothers. Fry (2003) states, The ultimate effect

of spiritual leadership is to bring together orcreate a sense of fusion among the four funda-

mental forces of human existence (body, mind,heart, and spirit) so that people are motivated

for high performance, have increased organiza-tional commitment, and personally experience

joy, peace, and serenity (p. 727).


Part of the challenge in this area of leader-

ship research is simply defining what spiritualitymeans without necessarily tying it to onepartic-

ular religion or philosophical base. Dent et al.(2005) summarized a number of definitions of

spirituality that highlight some of the chal-lenges in building theory and research in this

area. The authors concluded that a wide array


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Cross-culturalleadership: theexamination ofleadership inmulticultural contexts

GLOBE: globalleadership andorganizationalbehavioraleffectiveness

of concepts/constructs is included in the defi-

nition of spirituality, but some of the commonelements are a search for meaning, reflection,

an inner connection, creativity, transformation,

sacredness, and energy.Fry (2005) defines spiritual leadership as

comprising the values, attitudes, and behav-iors that are necessary to intrinsically moti-

vate self and others to enhance a sense of spir-itual survival through calling and membership.

Yet, some authors criticize Frys model as wellas other models of spirituality and leadership

for not providing a sufficient understandingof what constitutes spirituality and the ways

in which it ties to leadership. For example,Benefiel (2005) criticized the work on spiri-

tuality and leadership, stating that it inad-

vertently draws upon outdated, discredited, orshallow approachesto spirituality;they reinvent

the wheel; they dip into credible theories ofspirituality but then dont fully develop them

or resolve the conflicts among them. Whilethese theories are comprehensive and creative

in the context of leadership studies, a more ro-bust, up-to-date, and sophisticated understand-

ing of spirituality is needed if theories of spir-itual leadership are to stand up under scrutiny

and be takenseriously in the wideracademy (p.727). Finally, there still seem to be two schools

of thought in this area of leadership research:

In one school, a set of scholars discuss spiri-tuality in the theological sense (Whittington

et al. 2005), whereas in the other school, thefocus is more on understanding the inner mo-

tivation and drive a leader creates in followersto enhance workplace spirituality (Fry 2005).

Until a definition of what constitutes spiritu-ality and leadership is agreed upon, it will be

difficult to conceptualize and measure theseconstructs.

CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP

Although most leadership research and the-ory has been developed and tested within a

Western context, a growing interest in researchand theory focuses on the role of leadership

across cultural contexts. This interest is driven

in part by the globalization of organizat

that encourage and, at times, require leato work from and across an increasingly div

set of locations. The result is an increased f

on cross-cultural leadership research (Geet al. 2007, House et al. 2004). Exten

reviews also exist for cross-cultural resethat is more tangentially linked to leader

(Hofstede 2001, Kirkman et al. 2006, Leet al. 2005).

Project GLOBE

Although there have been numerous criti

and discussions of work in this area (see J

nal of International Business Studies, VolNo. 6), the work of Project GLOBE (gl

leadership and organizational behavioral etiveness) constitutes one of the more ambi

and influential cross-cultural leadership sies. The study, as detailed in an edited b

(House et al. 2004), involved a group of mthan 160 researchers working in 62 socie

Research included a mix of quantitativequalitative investigations. The study was

signed to address a number of goals, theof which was to develop cultural dimens

at both the organizational and societal levanalysis, building upon the work of Hofs

(2001). A second major goal of the projec

toexaminethebeliefsthatdifferentcultureabout effective leaders. Although many o

leadership attributes and behaviors examvaried by culture, the research did determ

that certain implicit leadership theories (charisma/transformational, team-oriented

universal endorsement. A third phase oresearch involved ethnographies of indivi

countries based largely on qualitative data

Global LeadershipThe goal of identifying leaders who are

to effectively lead across a variety of culthas great appeal and has been the f

of numerous articles in both the acad(Mobley et al. 1999) and popular

(Goldsmith 2003, Green et al. 2003, L


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2004). However, substantial differences and

approaches remain in how global leadershipis conceptualized and defined. One approach

primarily focuses on international experience,

implying that leaders must spend time living indifferentculturesinordertobepreparedtolead

(Van Dyne & Ang 2006). A second approachemphasizes the competencies a leader needs to

have in order to lead effectively and success-fully across cultures (Mendenhall 2001). This

approach emphasizes having a broad set of ex-periences and competencies that allow leaders

to manage across cultures rather than focusingon a deep knowledge of one or two specific cul-

tures. This approach is reflected in the relatedwork on global mindset (Boyacigiller et al.

2004, Clapp-Smith et al. 2007) and cultural

intelligence (Earley et al. 2007, Thomas 2006).

Comparative Leadership

Comparative research on the effectiveness ofleadership in different cultures was the basis of

early work in this field and continues to be amajor area of research (Dickson et al. 2003,

Dorfman 2004, Gelfand et al. 2007, Kirkmanet al. 2006). Such research compares leadership

in two or more cultures, examining the degree

to which a practice that was developed in oneculture applies to others. A common approach

examines the direct impact a cultural dimen-sion has on leadership. For example, one major

cross-cultural study examined theimpactof cul-tural values on the selection of sources of guid-

ance fordealing withwork events that managersare likely to face in 47 countries (Smith et al.

2002). This study identified which sources ofguidance were correlated with specific cultural

dimensions using several major cultural valuedimension frameworks.

Another common strategy examines the in-

direct influence of culture as it moderates therelationship between leadership practice and

relevant performance outcomes. Walumbwaet al. (2007) examined the effect of allocentrism

(collective orientation) and idiocentrism (indi-vidual orientation) on the relationships among

leadership (transformational and transactional)

and both organizational commitment and satis-

faction with supervisor. Allocentrics were foundto react more positively to transformational

leaders, whereas idiocentrics had a more pos-itive reaction to transactional leaders.


Although significant progress has been madein the cross-cultural leadership literature, sev-

eral important issues need to be addressed. Forexample, the term culture itself refers to a

complex set of constructs around which there isongoing debate. Not surprisingly, the attempt

to examine the effect that culture has on lead-ership brings with it the associated conceptual

and methodological challenges that are already

associated with cross-cultural research (Van deVijver & Leung 2000). Despite improvements

made over the years, a need remains for futureresearch to focus on levels of analysis when con-

ducting cross-cultural leadership research. Thisapplies to the development of explicitly cross-

level theoretical models as well as the use ofappropriate statistical techniques. Although the

relevance of levels is widely recognized, the im-plications of cross-level analysis are often not

reflected in the research design in this litera-ture, particularly when it comes to insuring a

sufficient number of cultures are included to

conduct the analysis. Many researchers assumethey can use the country as a convenient sub-

stitute for measuring culture, which may bean erroneous level of analysis given the diver-

sity of cultures represented in most countries.Large-scale collaborations such as the GLOBE

(House et al. 2004) study and the 47-nationstudy of Smith et al. (2002) are likely to be re-

quired to develop the types of samples neededfor such analytical approaches.

E-LEADERSHIP

Leading virtually involves leading people fromdifferent departments, organizations, coun-

tries, and sometimes even competitor compa-nies (Avolio et al. 2001). In virtual teams, chal-

lenges aremore likely to occur when distributed


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E-leadership:leadership whereindividuals or groupsare geographicallydispersed andinteractions are

mediated bytechnology

work occurs in different time zones, when local

communication and human infrastructures fail,when team members hardware and software

platforms are different, or when local work de-

mands require the immediate attention of col-located managers and workers, thereby creating

pressure to pursue local priorities over the ob-jectives of distant collaborators (A. Weisband

2008b, p. 6).Zigurs (2003) suggested that traditional

leadership models built on a foundation of face-to-face interactions may not fully explain how

virtual leadership and teams work. Specifically,howone provides feedback, encouragement, re-

wards, and motivation needs to be re-examinedwhere leadership is mediated through technol-

ogy. Zigurs (2003) suggests that the continuing

development in technology such as increasedbandwidth, wireless networks, integrated hand-

held devices, voice input, built-in video, videowalls, and automatic translation will no doubt

have a significant impact on how virtual teamscommunicate and how leadership is manifested

in such teams. To date, a great deal of the workon e-leadership focuses on either leadership in

virtual work teams or groups interacting in whatare called group decision support systems.

For example, Zaccaro & Bader (2003) providedan overview of the similarities and differences

between face-to-face teams and e-teams. They

specifically focused on the impact of leader-ship functions such as communication build-

ing, role clarification, team development, andeffective task execution and how they differed

when mediated through technology. Other au-thors have focused on the effects of structural

factors such as distance and multiple locationson e-leadership and virtual team effectiveness

(e.g., Cascio & Shurygailo 2003).

Common Questions withE-Leadership

Some of the common questions or hypothe-ses suggested to guide research on e-leadership

and virtual teams have been summarized byAvolio et al. (2001), Barelka (2007), as well as

Ahuja & Galvin (2003) and include the follow-

ing: How does the nature and structure of t

nology impact how leadership style influefollower motivation and performance? W

effect will leadership mediated through t

nology have on trust formation? Will thenof the technology such as its richness or tr

parency be a factor in building trust in viteams? How will the leadership and loca

of teams and technology connecting memaffect the quality and quantity of their com

nication? How will the nature of the taskits complexity influence how leadership af

virtual team performance?

Group and Virtual Teams Research

A number of studies have examined

leadership and virtual teams. For examKahai & Avolio (2008) investigated the ef

of leadership style and anonymity on thecussion of an ethical issue in an electronic

tem context. Kahai & Avolio examined groups discussed an ethical issue by man

lating the leadership style of the target e-leand whether the group members were an

mous or identified. They reported thatquency of group member participation in

cussing how to address the ethical issue

greater when leadership style was transactiversus transformational.

Xiao et al. (2008) conducted a field exment focusing on surgical teams operating

real-life trauma center. In their study, the leader either was placed in the room with

surgical team or interacted with them vally. The authors reported that when the

leader was in the next room, the leadergreater influence on communications betw

the senior member in the room and other tmembers. However, when the senior leade

collocated, the amount of communicationtween the team leader, the senior member

junior members was more balanced. With

task urgency, theteamleaderwas more invowith the senior team member in terms of c

munication regardless of location, whereacommunication between the team leader

junior members was reduced.


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Balthazard et al. (2008) examined the me-

diational role of leadership and group memberinteraction styles in comparing virtual andface-

to-face teams. They reported that group mem-

bers in face-to-face teams were generally morecohesive, were more accepting of a groups deci-

sions, andexhibiteda greater amountof synergythan did virtual teams. Face-to-face teams ex-

hibited a greater amount of constructive inter-action in comparison with virtual teams, which

scored significantly higher on defensive inter-action styles.

Malhotra et al. (2007) collected survey, in-terview, and observational data on virtual teams

to identify the leadership practices of effectiveleaders of virtual teams. These leadership

practices included the ability to (a) establish

and maintain trust through the use of commu-nication technology, (b) ensure that distributed

diversity is understood and appreciated,(c) manage effectively virtual work-life cycles,

(d) monitor team progress using technology,(e) enhance visibility of virtual members within

the team and outside the organization, and(f) let individual team members benefit from

the team.


Hambley et al. (2006) advocate that future re-

search on e-leadership be conducted in fieldsettings. They recommend that virtual teams

working on actual problem-solving tasks andprojects be examined to help capture the moti-

vational element that may not exist with ad hocgroups working in the lab. A. Weisband (2008a)

argued, Future research may want to considerhow we lead in environments that lack any cen-

tral coordination mechanism, or how multipleleaders work together to innovate, create, and

help others (p. 255).

E-leadership areas recommended for futureresearch by authors of papers on the virtual

team topic include task ownership, cohesion,media richness (i.e., technologys capacity for

providing immediate feedback, the number ofcues and channels utilized, personalization of

messages, and language variety), communica-

tion quality, asynchronous and synchronous

communication, task complexity, and work-ing on multiple virtual teams simultaneously

(Kozlowski & Bell 2003, Zaccaro & Bader

2003). For example, Watson et al. (1993) stud-ied culturally diverse and homogenous virtual

groups and compared their interactions over a17-week period. They found that culturally di-

verse groups initially suffered in their perfor-mance but over time surpassed homogenous

groups, especially in terms of the number ofalternative ideas generated.

In summary, we expect that the work onvirtual leadership and team interactions will

continue to be a growth area for leadershipresearch. The fundamental issue for leader-

ship scholars and practitioners to address ishow technology is transforming the tradi-

tional roles of leadership at both individual

and collective levels by examining how exist-ing leadership styles and cultures embedded in

a group and/or organization affect the appro-priation of advanced information technology

systems (Avolio et al. 2001, p. 658).

CLOSING COMMENTSAND INTEGRATION

The evolutio

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