About and beyond leading uniqueness and belongingness: A systematic review of inclusive leadership research

The purpose of this systematic review of 107 papers is to address the conceptual confusion about what inclusive leadership (IL) behavior entails and understand the theoretical development of IL. Synthesizing the divergent conceptualizations of inclusive leader behaviors, we propose a multi-level (i.e., employee, team, organizational) model of IL behavior consisting of four dimensions namely, fostering employee's uniqueness (e.g., promoting diversity); strengthening belongingness within a team (e.g., building relationships); showing appreciation (e.g., recognizing efforts and contributions); and supporting organizational efforts (e.g., promoting organizational mission on inclusion). Further, we provide a summary of studied variables as a nomological network in relation to inclusive leadership and an overview of the different theories (e.g., social exchange, intrinsic motivation) supporting the respective relationships and explaining the underlying mechanisms (e.g., reciprocity, motivation). We propose future research to empirically test the multi-level model of IL and examine the predictive value in terms of employee and organizational outcomes.     

Pursuing your leader development: Lessons from 101 executives

To lead effectively in a VUCA (i.e., volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment, leaders must quickly and continuously acquire new skills. However, formal development opportunities aren’t nearly enough to support the ongoing skill development leaders need to manage the level of complexity and change they are facing. Instead, leaders must take ownership of their own development. In this paper, we describe a straightforward, four-step process that leaders can implement to pursue their individualized development through leader development planning. Specifically, we walk leaders through the evidence-based steps of creating their unique leader development plan (LDP), including (1) identifying their leadership strengths and weaknesses, (2) setting effective leader development goals, (3) designing SMART strategies, and (4) reflecting, refining, and realigning their plan. Throughout the article, we detail positive examples as well as common pitfalls that we observed from our work supporting 101 mid- to senior-level leaders in designing their LDPs. Our purpose in doing so is to provide tools and examples to enable leaders at all levels to drive their development at their own pace.     

How do leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate shape employee exhaustion and engagement? Toward a cascading-effects model

Although researchers and practitioners increasingly focus on health promotion in organizations, research has been mainly fragmented and fails to integrate different organizational levels in terms of their effects on employee health. Drawing on organizational climate and social identity research, we present a cascading model of organizational health climate and demonstrate how and when leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate are linked to employee well-being. We tested our model in two multisource studies (N_{Study 1} = 65 leaders and 291 employees; N_{Study 2} = 401 leader–employee dyads). Results showed that leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate were positively related to their health mindsets (i.e., their health awareness). These in turn were positively associated with their health-promoting leadership behavior, which ultimately went along with better employee well-being. Additionally, in Study 1, the relationship between perceived organizational health climate and leaders' health mindsets was moderated by their organizational identification. High leader identification strengthened the relationship between perceived organizational health climate and leaders' health mindsets. These findings have important implications for theory and practice as they show how the dynamics of an organizational health climate can unfold in organizations and how it is related to employee well-being via the novel concept of health-promoting leadership.     

Creating comprehensive leadership pipelines: Applying the real options approach to organizational leadership development

Typically, firms consider leadership development (i.e., training focused on skills required for success in leadership roles) and succession planning (i.e., the creation and implementation of long-term plans that address changes in top leadership roles) as two distinct organizational initiatives. In recent years, however, scholars and practitioners have called for a new, more comprehensive approach that considers the organization as a system. Rather than considering succession planning and leadership development as distinctly different initiatives, organizations should work to create internal leadership pipelines that span entry-level employees to executives. To leverage potential advantages associated with instituting comprehensive leadership pipelines and to address practical concerns associated with risk and talent management, we propose the introduction of incremental investment in organization-wide leadership development programs via distinct, evaluative stages – a real options reasoning (ROR) approach to leadership. We argue that blending ROR with skills-based leadership models diversifies risk associated with investments in talent management and increases the ability for targeted, purposeful investment in potential organizational leaders.     

Toward an overarching multi-level conceptualization of emergent leadership: Perspectives from social identity,and implicit leadership theories

Organizational leadership research has typically focused on hierarchal top-down leadership where the leader has legitimate authority over organizational tasks and roles. However, rather recently, research has emphasized the emergence of leaders within teams and groups, which is referred to as emergent or horizontal leadership. Due to its infancy, the concept has limited theoretical development and coherence. To further extend our understanding of the topic, we draw on social identity, and implicit leadership theories and offer a multi-level conceptualization of emergent leadership. We first compare emergent leadership to various leadership concepts and through a detailed review, identify mechanisms through which emergent leadership can be identified. Following that, we design an organizing framework based on existing research and then offer propositions presenting a multi-level conceptual model highlighting how different factors at different levels relate to informal leader emergence. We hope that by reforming the research of leadership emergence with a multi-level approach, we renovate the idea considering contextual factors and process mechanisms.     

The Effects of Multilevel Signals on Sex Discrimination Experiences Among Female Employees

In this study, we examine the effect of organizational‐level and individual‐level signals on sex discrimination experiences, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions in a sample of South Korean female employees and organizations. Results indicate that the percentage of women employed in organizations was negatively associated with sex discrimination experienced by women. The number of family‐friendly policies was also negatively associated with sex discrimination in a panel design but not in a cross‐sectional design. We also found that the relationship between individual participation in development activities (e.g., leadership development course, academic degree) and sex discrimination experiences was moderated by organizational‐level participation in development activities. Specifically, the negative impact of participation in development activities on sex discrimination is stronger for individuals in organizations with lower compared to higher levels of overall participation. The same was true for the individual educational level. The negative impact of individual educational level on sex discrimination is stronger for individuals in organizations with high educational level than for those in low organizational educational level. Further, experienced sex discrimination influences individual turnover intention via job satisfaction. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Dress and Identity: A Turkish Case Study

This paper examines how dress can be implicated in contests regarding individual and organizational identities. Identities are understood as being constituted within discursive regimes, and to be subjectively available to people in the form of self–narratives. The pluralism and polyphony that characterize organizations means that collective self–narratives are likely to be fractured, contested and multi–layered. It is in this context that attire is an important object symbol that conveys information about the individual and collective self. Here we focus on aspects of dress, especially the Islamic headscarf, and its role in the dynamics of collective identity maintenance and challenge in one all–female Turkish university department. Our ethnographic approach yielded multiple, related and sometimes overlapping story lines centred on dress. These we have chosen to represent as a single though multi–voiced faculty narrative in order to facilitate analysis of what was a particularly rich symbolic milieu. The principal research contribution of this paper is as a discussion of participants' clothing in the constitution of individual and organizational narrative identities, and its importance for understanding the dynamics of identity conflicts.     

The Comparative Influences of Transformational Leadership and Leader–Member Exchange on Follower Engagement

Scholars of transformational leadership and leader–member exchange (LMX) have argued that leaders are able to positively influence the job attitudes and behaviors of followers by different means. Whereas transformational leadership focuses on the leaders’ ability to transform followers through a global inspiring vision that encourages positive change among all employees, LMX highlights the importance of the leaders’ unique relationships with followers as the driver of positive attitudes and behaviors. Using field data gathered from 280 full‐time employees, the current research compared the influence of these two leadership styles on follower engagement. The results suggested that rather than the influence derived from inspirational leadership behaviors, it is employees’ unique relationship with their leader that creates follower engagement. Additionally, the results indicated that follower engagement mediates the relationship between leadership and key employee outcomes (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior [OCB] and employee turnover intentions). Implications to theory and practice are discussed.     

Leadership and bodily knowledge in expert organizations:: epistemological rethinking

This paper argues that leadership knowledge has a bodily dimension, especially in expert organizations. Different knowledge types in leadership research are analysed and discussed on a basis of two dimensions: the nature of knowledge (tacit and explicit) and the knowledge actors (individual and collective). Bodily leadership knowledge refers to a special type of tacit knowing acquired through experience and social interaction over time. It is concluded that sensitive leadership and shared leadership describe individual and collective tacit leadership knowledge types, in which personal bodies have a central role in knowledge development. The paper suggests, among other things, that the bodily presence and distance of leaders are paradoxical elements in the leadership of expert organizations.     

The Effects of Leadership Style,Organizational Outcome,and Gender on Attributional Bias Toward Leaders

The current study examined the effects of leadership style (charismatic or autocratic) on followers' internal and external attributions for their organization's success or failure. In addition, role incongruence between the leadership style and gender was examined within the context of attributional error. Confirming the hypotheses, the results showed a three‐way interaction between leadership style, gender and organizational outcome. Supporting the role incongruity theory, when there was role incongruence between the leadership style and gender (i.e., the female autocratic leader), the attributions for failure were more unfavorable toward the leader. The effect of leadership style on internal attributions for failure was mediated by likeability of the leader. Overall, the current study was the first experimental investigation of the effects of leadership style, organizational outcomes, and gender on attributional biases within a single design.     

Examining transformational leadership,job satisfaction,organizational commitment and organizational trust in Turkish hospitals: public servants versus private sector employees

Leadership, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and trust have become important processes for healthcare management in recent years. One of the contemporary human resource management functions in the organizations involves engaging in leadership development, improving organizational trust and organizational commitment and increasing job satisfaction. Considering the rapidly changing healthcare technology and higher levels of occupational complexity, healthcare organizations are increasingly in need of engaging in leadership development in any given area of expertise to address ever-changing nature of the industry and the delivery of quality of care while remaining cost-effective and competitive. This paper investigates the perceptions of both public servants and private sector employees (outsourcing) on transformational leadership, organizational commitment, organizational trust and job satisfaction in Turkish healthcare industry. Additionally, the paper analyzes the predictability of organizational commitment based on employee – both public servants (physicians, nurses, administrative personnel and other healthcare professionals) and private sector employees (outsourcing) (auxiliary services such as administrative assistants, security personnel, kitchen, laundry and housekeeping employees) – perceptions of transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust. Using a survey instrument with items adopted from the transformational leadership inventory (TLI) [Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Moorman, R. H., & Fetter, R. (1990). Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Leadership Quarterly, 1, 107–142], the organizational commitment questionnaire [Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the organizational trust inventory (OTI) [Cummings, L. L., & Bromiley, P. (1996). The occupational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. In R. Kramer & T. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research (pp. 302–330). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage] and job satisfaction survey (JSS) [Spector, P. E. (1985). Measurement of human service staff satisfaction: Development of the job satisfaction survey. American Journal of Community Psychology, 13, 693–731], this quantitative study was conducted among 2108 healthcare employees (public servants and private employees) in two large government hospitals in Turkey. The study findings indicate a significant difference between the public servants and private sector employees in terms of their perceptions on two dimensions of transformational leadership (being an appropriate model, providing individualized support), overall transformational leadership and one dimension of job satisfaction (communication). The two dimensions of job satisfaction – operating procedures and communication – as well as organizational trust were the significant predictors of organizational commitment of public servants, whereas the two dimensions of leadership – individualized support and fostering the acceptance – as well as the two dimensions of job satisfaction – promotion and contingent rewards – and organizational trust were the significant regressors of organizational commitment of private sector employees. In addition, there is a significant difference between the predictors of the dimensions of organizational commitment (transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust) in terms of public servants versus private sector employees. Finally, organizational trust has a significant effect on overall organizational commitment as well as its three dimensions for public servants and private employees.     

Developing holistic leaders: Four domains for leadership development and practice

Leadership development and practice have traditionally been quite narrow, with a decided focus on the analytical realm of leadership. However, the contemporary climate of corporate scandal and resultant loss of societal confidence, coupled with the evolving demands, needs, and expectations of employees, point to the potential need for a more holistic approach to leadership. Thus, this article proposes how management education and leadership development programs can develop holistic leaders that are adept at operating in the analytical, conceptual, emotional, and spiritual domains of leadership practice. An integrated model for holistic leadership development and practice that addresses all four of these domains is proposed, and grounded in both established and emerging leadership development theory. Additionally, a leadership development classification scheme is proposed based on classroom, job, and organizational contexts.     

Developing the Leadership Capacity and Leader Efficacy of College Women in Science,Technology, Engineering,and Math Fields

The current study examined the extent to which college women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors demonstrated differential levels of leadership capacity and/or leader efficacy than their non‐STEM, female peers. Data represented 14,698 women from 86 institutions of higher education in the United States. Results indicated similar levels of leadership capacity but significantly lower leader efficacy for women in STEM majors. Implications explore unique predictors of leader efficacy for women in STEM majors along with recommendations for changes to policy and professional practice that might address how the differential organizational contexts shape leadership development.     

Organisationales Commitment und seine Einflussfaktoren: Eine qualitative Metaanalyse

It is a result from increasing individualism and the ongoing deregulation of formal and psychological work contracts that organizational commitment has become one of the key concepts in management research and practice. There is growing empirical research not only on the effects of commitment on organizational performance, but also on its personal, organizational and contextual antecedents. In this literature review the state of the art in commitment-related research is presented and discussed. We refer to the grounding work of Meyer and Allen (1991) and their distinction between affective, normative, and continuance commitment. The paper is based on three meta-analyses and an additional systematic review of 61 empirical studies. They provide evidence for the fact that there is a shift from demographic to differential personality factors in research. Affective commitment and normative commitment can be explained by individual differences (e.g., self-efficacy and trustfulness), work environment (e.g., transformational leadership and controllability), and organisational characteristics (e.g., supporting human resources policy and interpersonal, distributive, and procedural justice). Continuance commitment has been found negatively correlated with affective and normative commitment. Significant antecedents are the same work-related factors as for the two other forms of commitment, but the coefficients are inverse. Contrary to former results, national culture has no effect neither on the link between other antecedents and commitment, nor on commitment itself.     

Gender inequities in the workplace: A holistic review of organizational processes and practices

In this paper, we provide a broad, integrative review of the degree to which gender inequities exist in organizational domains and practices covering areas such as performance evaluation, compensation, leadership, work-family conflict, and sexual harassment, spanning the employee lifecycle from selection to exiting the organization. Where the literature allows, we review intersectionality findings. We also review the factors and processes that facilitate and hinder gender equity in the workplace, by drawing on the most robust empirical evidence. Throughout the paper, we distinguish between findings that allow us to infer gender inequity versus gender equality. Consolidating these disparate literatures allows us to develop a model that explains how gender inequities cumulate across the employee lifecycle and are reinforced across multiple levels (i.e., societal, organizational, interpersonal, and individual). We also identify important gaps in the literature, suggest next steps for research and highlight practical implications for organizations aiming to advance gender equity.     

Constructive Leader Behaviors,Likelihood of Derailment,and the Cuboid Personality Framework: A Replication and Extension of Gough (1990)

Gough (1990b) applied the California Psychological Inventory's (CPI) “cuboid” framework to various leadership contexts, noting the potential for continued, future application of this model within the leadership domain. However, subsequent to this initial investigation (and one similarly oriented but differently executed project), no cuboid follow‐up has taken place. Applying the framework to a large sample of international managers, cuboid classifications were recorded across cultural regions, gender, race, age, organizational level, and industry. Associations with indices of leadership effectiveness and derailment were documented via averaged 360° ratings. Results generally support norm‐favoring individuals as exhibiting leadership advantage, although this effect differed slightly across the leadership dimension being assessed (although remaining relatively stable across hierarchical leadership position). Potential future applications of the cuboid model to the management and leadership domains are suggested primarily in the topical areas of cross‐cultural leadership (different occupancy rates were documented across regions of origin), leadership emergence (interpersonally oriented, norm‐favoring individuals predominantly occupied leadership positions), and leader development (low “satisfaction” and rule‐questioning leaders were generally rated as having lower effectiveness ratings and an increased likelihood of derailment).     

Leader development in work and volunteer contexts: Expected practice and unexpected opportunities

Our knowledge and practice of leader development is grounded mostly in leadership at work, with little focus on the common experience of leading both work and in a volunteer context. To better understand how leaders develop as a result of leading not only in work but also in volunteer roles, we interviewed 40 leaders and sought to understand their motivation to lead in multiple domains, their process of development, and their outcomes of development. Our findings show that leading in multiple domains – at work and in volunteering contexts – plays an important role in leader development. Specifically, leaders develop through both expected practices (such as learning and developing new skills) and through unexpected opportunities that represent new opportunities to lead, exposure to new people and ideas, and new perspectives. Further, as a result of leading in both work and volunteering contexts, leaders reported developing a more integrated sense of themselves as “whole persons” as they engaged in both expected and unexpected development. We discuss ways in which a volunteering-based approach to leader development may open other important avenues for leader development beyond intentional, workplace-based approaches.     

Linking employee boundary spanning behavior to task performance: the influence of informal leader emergence and group power distance

Driven by fierce global competition, flatter organizational structures and the growing complexity of tasks, boundary spanning behavior (BSB) in externally dependent work teams has increasingly been emphasized in both theory and practice. The current study aims to answer the questions of whether, when and how an individual’s BSB impacts his or her task performance within a team. Based on a sample of 272 employees from 57 new product development teams in China, we found that informal leader emergence mediated the relationship between an individual’s BSB and his or her performance within a team. Moreover, group-level power distance positively moderated the association between BSB and informal leader emergence. An overall mediated moderation model of the effect of the interaction between BSB and group power distance (PD) on task performance via informal leadership emergence was also confirmed. In particular, the relationship between BSB and task performance via informal leadership emergence was stronger for teams with less PD than for those with more PD. The implications of the research are discussed.     

Networks and leadership development: Building linkages for capacity acquisition and capital accrual

Social networks can aid the leadership development process through facilitating access to important developmental assignments and the acquisition of capabilities to handle associated challenges. Although much of the traditional focus of leadership development has been on building intrapersonal capabilities, functioning effectively as a leader necessitates the development of interpersonal capabilities associated with dyadic ties and relational capabilities associated with patterns of ties within networks. Such capabilities allow aspiring managers to accrue not only human capital, but social and system capital as well. Aspiring managers can tap task, career, and friendship/support networks to aid developmental and career success. Structure factors, including strategic choices, network characteristics, and the technological interface moderate the ability of managers to convert potential network contacts into significant leadership development and capital accrual. Personal factors also influence leadership development prospects. Overall, there are many ways in which network concepts associated with dyadic and relational levels of analysis can facilitate addressing the challenges that are key to leadership development.     

Leading in the chaos of the 21st century

In the transition from a Newtonian paradigm of control and equilibrium to one of chaos and disequilibrium, organizations have substantially changed their structures (e.g., moving to diverse project‐based teams, advancing knowledge management, and building innovative cultures), but they have only minimally changed their leadership styles and practices. This paper describes a model of leadership proposed by Ron Heifetz that optimizes the characteristics of the 21st century in which the leader's role is to disturb equilibrium, differentiate between technical and adaptive challenges, and engage the followers in solving the organization's problems. This model is contrasted with other leadership models to validate its usefulness in the face of chaos, ambiguity, and rapid change. The commitment of the leader to holding steady in the face of predictably strong resistance and the dangers to the leader in using this model are discussed.