Authentic leadership and follower trust in the leader: The effect of precariousness

Orientation: In a business context characterised by precariousness and uncertainty, the importance of trusting leader-follower relationships is becoming critical to navigate imminent challenges preventing organisational sustainability and progress. The potential negative impact of related challenges could be reduced by encouraging leaders to adopt an authentic leadership style, culminating in various positive employee and organisational outcomes.Research purpose: This study investigated the impact of authentic leadership (AL) on follower trust in the leader (TL), while considering the possible indirect influence of perceived precariousness in the form of job insecurity.Motivation for the study: Establishing a high level of trust among the followers and their leaders employed by a manufacturing organisation under operational and financial pressure might contribute to a more effective functioning of the entity.Research approach/design and method: A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was applied. The Authentic Leadership Inventory, Workplace Trust Survey, and Job Insecurity Scale were administered.Main findings: Authentic leadership was a significant predictor of TL. Job insecurity did not moderate the relationship between AL and TL.Practical/managerial implications: Promoting an AL style will benefit manufacturing organisations as it will elevate the trustful relationship between leaders and followers, despite precarious working conditions.Contribution/value-add: The study emphasises AL’s critical role in cultivating a trustful relationship between followers and their leaders. The non-significant influence of job insecurity on a trustful relationship in a precarious work context was also highlighted.

Trust in the leader alleviates the negative effect of leader anger expressions on leader effectiveness

Purpose Leaders often provide negative feedback to underperforming followers with the intention of helping improve their performance. However, the anger expression that is often involved in the delivery of the feedback may cause followers to infer negative intentions and, thus, harm the effectiveness of the leader. The purpose of this paper is to examine, from a relational perspective, the condition under which the negative effect of leader anger expressions on leader effectiveness can be alleviated. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 355 participants in total through two main studies and two validation studies. Findings The author found that leader anger expression in negative feedback delivery had detrimental effects on leader effectiveness through follower-inferred negative intentions. More importantly, the detrimental effects of leader anger expressions on leader effectiveness were alleviated when followers had high levels of trust in their leaders. Originality/value Integrating leader emotion and trust literatures, the present research is the first to examine from a relational perspective (i.e. follower trust) the boundary condition under which leader anger expressions influence leader effectiveness.

The development of trust in virtual leader–follower relationships

Purpose Responding to calls to examine trust beyond the scope of the objectivist paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to qualitatively examine the trust relationship between leaders and followers in virtual work settings. Based on results, trust was operationalized based on extant theory (e.g. ability, honesty, integrity, benevolence; Mayer et al., 1995). Given the high degree of technology mediated communication prevalent in the workplace today, it was interesting that the authors also found evidence for followers’ perceptions of a leader’s level of media savvy (adeptness at using appropriate media dependent on the message being sent) as a salient phenomenon that appears to influence followers’ trust of their leaders in a virtual work environment. Other variables that influenced leader–follower trust relationships also emerged, including leader and follower personal characteristics, depth of relationship and time. These variables and their relationships are discussed in consideration of the existing trust literature with specific consideration of the context of virtual interactions. Implications and future directions are also discussed. Design/methodology/approach The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory, utilizing open-ended survey data from 137 working professionals (after data cleaning and eliminating incomplete responses). This study was an inductive, theory-building effort focused on analyzing participants’ views of their own experiences in interacting with their leaders in a virtual work environment. The authors utilize methods of grounded theory research that guide a researcher to recognize the theory that emerges from the data (Locke, 2002; Strauss and Corbin, 1998), which included microanalysis and open coding, followed by axial and select coding. Findings The authors found evidence for followers’ perceptions of a leader’s level of media savvy as a salient phenomenon that appears to influence followers’ trust of their leaders in a virtual work environment. Other variables that influenced leader–follower trust relationships also emerged, including leader and follower personal characteristics, depth of relationship and time. Research limitations/implications With any qualitative study, there are limitations to the generalizability of the sample to other populations. Although the authors developed considerable evidence to support the proposed relationships offered here, the authors are working with what is still a new and unexplored context: the virtual world. Perhaps the leader’s media communication skills moderate or otherwise impact the relationships found here and as supported by Mayer et al. (1995) and Mayer and Gavin (2005). Therefore, it would be of interest to examine possible differences in trust of the leaders by manipulating the media through which leaders communicate with their followers. Practical implications Given the findings, the authors believe the leader can communicate positively on follower development in a virtual setting, subsequently enhancing follower trust levels. The implications are also apparent on a much smaller scale: the relationships between leaders and followers. One common theme was that leaders should not completely eliminate face-to-face interaction in order to first develop and then maintain trust in a virtual work environment. This indicates the necessity for managers to not only develop a technical competence with computer technologies, but also the ability to render an appropriateness judgment in terms of what messages are most appropriate for what medium. Social implications Given the popularity of virtual settings, much interpersonal communication is now electronically mediated. However, even with the expansion of the virtual context, the authors still know little about how various forms of technology mediated communication by affect leader–follower relationships. Therefore, it is of interest to researchers and practitioners to examine the impact of virtual settings on interactions and relationships, specifically between the leader and follower. Originality/value This paper fulfills an identified need to study leadership in varied contexts, in this case the virtual workplace. Relatively few research papers have examined this context, thus creating originality and value.

Leadership Variables and Business Performance: Mediating and Interaction Effects

Despite evidence that emotion-based leadership enhances firm performance, little is known about the variables mediating those effects. Adopting a multistakeholder, multimeasure approach, we examined the effects of three mediators (communicating/sharing a vision, organizational climate, and leader–follower trust) on the leadership–performance relationship and their interactive effects on performance in small professional service firms. Using four employee-perceived leadership paradigms (classical, transactional, visionary, and organic), we measured staff and customer satisfaction and financial performance. Findings confirm that the effects of the mediating variables on all performance measures vary with the prevailing leadership paradigm, and interactions between all variables strengthen their effects on performance.

Understanding How Perceived Leader Integrity Affects Follower Trust: Lessons From the Use of Multidimensional Measures of Integrity and Trust

Even though much research has emerged recently supporting the importance of perceived leader integrity judgments on how followers develop trust in their leaders, our efforts to understand possible mechanisms for these relationships have not yet yielded detailed explanations. One reason for this is that most research on perceived leader integrity and trust has used unidimensional measures of each construct, even though recent research has called for more complex treatments of them. The purpose of this study is to couple the use of a recently developed, multidimensional measure of perceived leader integrity with a multidimensional measure of trust to examine possible explanations of how they relate. Results support the value of modeling perceived integrity in two dimensions and support a more nuanced model of how integrity may affect trust when trust is similarly modeled as multiple dimensions. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of how leader integrity may affect trust and other outcomes.

Leader pride and gratitude differentially impact follower trust

Purpose Current research suggests a positive link between followers’ perceptions of their leaders’ expression of positive emotions and followers’ trust in their leaders. Based on the theories about the social function of emotions, the authors aim to qualify this generalized assumption. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that followers’ perceptions of leaders’ expressions of specific positive emotions – namely, pride and gratitude – differentially influence follower ratings of leaders’ trustworthiness (benevolence, integrity, and ability), and, ultimately, trust in the leader. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses were tested using a multimethod approach combining experimental evidence (n=271) with longitudinal field data (n=120). Findings Both when experimentally manipulating leaders’ emotion expressions and when measuring followers’ perceptions of leaders’ emotion expressions, this research found leaders’ expressions of pride to be consistently associated with lower perceived benevolence, while leaders’ expressions of gratitude were associated with higher perceptions of benevolence and integrity. Originality/value This paper theoretically and empirically establishes that leaders’ expressions of discrete positive emotions differentially influence followers’ trust in the leader via trustworthiness perceptions.