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Connecting influence tactics with full-range leadership styles

Guy J. Curtis (School of Psychology and Exercise Science, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia)

Leadership & Organization Development Journal

ISSN: 0143-7739

Article publication date: 15 September 2017

Issue publication date: 23 February 2018

4711

Abstract

Purpose

Full-range leadership theory and power-and-influence approaches to leadership emerge from different theoretical traditions, but may overlap conceptually and practically. Previous research has found connections between full-range leadership styles and leaders’ influencing behaviors. However, this research has been conceptually and methodologically limited, neither examining all full-range leadership styles nor all common influence tactics, and measuring only employees’ perceptions. The purpose of this paper is to address these limitations.

Design/methodology/approach

Follower-rated leadership styles and influence tactics, and leader-rated leadership styles were surveyed for 160 pairs of leaders and followers (n=320).

Findings

Core influence tactics and apprising were correlated with, and predicted, follower-rated transformational and transactional leadership, but confirmatory factor analysis provided a more nuanced view of these relationships. Rational persuasion (negatively) predicted passive-avoidant leadership. There were few significant correlations between leader-self-rated leadership styles and followers’ ratings of leaders’ influence tactics.

Originality/value

This study extends upon previous studies by more comprehensively connecting full-range leadership styles and influence tactics, and doing so with both leader-rated and follower-rated leadership styles. The results help to provide a clearer picture of the overlap between full-range and power-and-influence theories of leadership. The mismatches between results from leader-rated and follower-rated leadership styles raise conceptual, practical, and methodological questions for future research.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Murdoch Executive Education, student researchers who have assisted with data collection for this paper, and Dr Brody Heritage for feedback on the confirmatory factor analyses.

Citation

Curtis, G.J. (2018), "Connecting influence tactics with full-range leadership styles", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 39 No. 1, pp. 2-13. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-09-2016-0221

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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