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The purpose of this paper is to explore the Chinese leader–follower interaction model in school cases considering followers’ effect at varying social distances.

This study uses a case study approach.

First, Chinese leader–follower interactions in school cases are flexible in practice. Second, within leader–follower flexible interactions, contradictory perceptions and field-of-work consciousness foster different behavior choices between leaders and followers. Third, perceptions concerning the proximity of leaders to followers are positively influenced in relation to hierarchical distinctions and negatively influenced owing to private connections. Finally, the perceived leader distance of leaders from followers further influences the contradictory perceptions and field-of-work consciousness of leaders and followers and positively influences the degree of flexible leader–follower interaction.

This study examined a single institution; hence, results may have been influenced by school-specific features and conditions. Future research should study more organizations to explore whether their unique characteristics and contexts could affect leader–follower interactions, thus providing more generalized and universally applicable conclusions.

First, this study proposed a leader–follower flexible interaction model in school cases and the concepts of field-of-work consciousness and contradictory perceptions, exploring the active effects of followers in the leadership process to offer guidance toward better understanding the leadership process. Second, it was found that private connections between leaders and followers, as well as hierarchical differences, influenced the perceptions of both leaders and followers concerning leader distance in a Chinese context, and the influence of leader distance on leader–follower interactions was also analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the tendency of leaders to select their followers depending on their human capital factors such as age, education level, previous working experience and training.

The participants were 1,388 employees working in a randomly selected sample of 289 small-sized businesses operating in Yemen. A self-reported questionnaire was used to collect the data. The correspondence analysis method was used to explore the tendency of leaders to select their followers depending on their human capital factors.

We found significant corresponding relationships between leadership styles and the selection of the followers' human capital factors. The passive avoidant style was found to select middle-age, long-experience and fully-trained followers. Transactional style on the other hand was found to select young, middle-level experience and non-trained followers. The transformational leadership style was found to have no selection preferences towards any of the human capital factors except for working experience.

Although, some previous studies tried to understand the leaders–followers relationships, no one investigated the tendency of leaders to select their followers according to their preferences. This study contributes significantly to the leaders–followers theory by studying the selection process of the leadership style of their followers' human capital factors. Understanding this phenomenon could help explain why some leadership styles are more effective than others, especially in very limited resources contexts such as micro-sized businesses.

In recent years, China’s growing global economic influence has attracted more foreign workers, requiring leaders to have effective communication skills to manage diverse personnel to drive innovations. Although previous research studies revealed the effects of a leader’s motivating language (ML) on employee’s innovativeness, the mechanism and the boundary conditions for stimulating the relationship between ML and innovative work behavior (IWB) are scarce. Therefore, this study aims to examine employee’s creative self-efficacy (CSE) as a mechanism and coworker support (CS) as a boundary condition in the relationship between ML’s dimensions and IWB.

To test the moderated mediation model, this study collected the data from 283 workers and their respective supervisors at a Beijing-based multinational network company. The research applied a quantitative approach. SPSS and AMOS were used to analyze the data.

ML’s dimensions are positively linked to IWB. CSE was found as a mediator in these relationships. CS did not play its moderation roles on ML – CSE, ML – IWB direct or ML – IWB indirect (via CSE) links. ML’s direction-giving speech is found to be more effective in predicting CSE and IWB.

This is the first paper to examine the impacts of the three dimensions of ML on IWB.

The purpose of this paper is to fill important gaps by using the attachment theory and examining the effects of supervisors’ early family environment on their behaviors toward subordinates and subordinates’ responses.

The authors used samples of 334 supervisor–subordinate pairs from a manufacturing company.

The study finds that supervisors’ harmonious family environment has a positive influence on subordinates’ responses (job satisfaction, work-to-family enrichment and task performance) through the effect of supervisors’ positive working model and caregiving behavior. On the contrast, supervisors’ conflicting family environment has a negative influence on subordinates’ responses through the effect of supervisors’ negative working model and aggressive behavior.

Existing studies mainly explore the influence of organizational environment on supervisors’ treatment of their subordinates. However, few have examined the relationship between supervisors’ early family environment and their treatment of their subordinates.

Academic and practitioner attention to the constructs of authentic leadership and work engagement and their implications for organizations has grown dramatically over the past decade. Consideration of the implications of these constructs for high-performance human resource practices (HPHRP) is limited, however. In this monograph, we present a conceptual model that integrates authentic leadership/followership theory with theory and research on HPHRP. Then, we apply this model to systematically consider the implications of skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, and opportunity-enhancing HR practices in combination with authentic leadership for authentic followership, follower work engagement, and follower performance. We contend that authentic leadership, through various influences processes, promotes HPHRP, and vice versa, to help foster enhanced work engagement. By cultivating greater work engagement, individuals are motivated to bring their best, most authentic selves to the workplace and are more likely to achieve higher levels of both well-being and performance.

To explore the roles of perceived leader caregiving, and followers’ leader-specific attachment orientations, in followers’ experiences of negative interactions and emotions.

In a qualitative field study, individuals identified as secure and insecure (avoidant or anxious) on a pre-measure of leader-specific attachment, were interviewed regarding perceptions of leader caregiving and experiences of negative affective events in their current leadership dyad.

Followers perceived and interpreted negative interpersonal events and emotions in ways that reflected underlying attachment concerns, and embedded perceptions, of leader caregiving quality.

The study was small-scale but provides rich relational information on which future researchers can build to further explore the development and impact of leader-follower attachment dynamics.

Attachment-focused leadership development training may be useful in enhancing leader-follower relationship quality.

This study is the first to demonstrate qualitatively the associations between followers’ leader-specific attachment orientations, their perceptions of leader caregiving, and their experiences of negative affective events in the leader-follower dyad.

For the past several decades, the field of global leadership has made noteworthy theoretical and empirical progress. The role of a global follower, however, has not been addressed to date. This chapter focuses on global followers and global followership as vital elements of a global leadership process supporting a traditional followership view that “leadership can only occur if there is followership” (Uhl-Bien, Riggio, Lowe, & Carsten, 2014, p. 83). Two assumptions ground the arguments: global leaders and global followers are engaged in a partnering process of global leadership, and followers and global followers have distinctive characteristics influenced by their specific environments. To explore those assumptions, we start by introducing the followership theory and relevant followership characteristics. Subsequently, we address the role of context in global leader–follower dynamics, extrapolate global followership characteristics from relevant multidisciplinary literature, and offer an example of a global leader–follower partnership. Next, we examine mentions of global followers and global followership in academic and nonacademic literature, and define a global followership construct. The conceptual framework, global followership model, research agenda, and practical implications conclude the manuscript.

Building upon relational leadership theory, we develop a theoretical model examining the association between leader-follower congruence in follower role orientation and manager and subordinate relational and well-being outcomes. Follower role orientation represents individuals’ beliefs regarding the best way to enact a follower role. We predict that managers and subordinates who share similar role orientations will experience higher quality leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships and greater eustress than those who differ in their follower role orientations. Propositions are presented for direct effects between congruence and stress and indirect effects through LMX. Our theoretical model contributes to nascent research on followership by offering greater understanding of manager and subordinate beliefs regarding how followers should enact their roles, and the importance of considering leader (i.e., manager) as well as follower outcomes in the workplace. It also extends current thinking about stress as an important outcome of leader-follower relationships.

For many of the current leadership theories, models, and approaches, the answer to the question posed in the title, “Is leadership more than ‘I like my boss’?,” is “no,” as there appears to be a hierarchy of leadership concepts with Liking of the leader as the primary dimension or general factor foundation. There are then secondary dimensions or specific sub-factors of liking of Relationship Leadership and Task Leadership; and subsequently, tertiary dimensions or actual sub-sub-factors that comprise the numerous leadership views as well as their operationalizations (e.g., via surveys). There are, however, some leadership views that go beyond simply liking of the leader and liking of relationship leadership and task leadership. For these, which involve explicit levels of analysis formulations, often beyond the leader, or are multi-level in nature, the answer to the title question is “yes.” We clarify and discuss these various “no” and “yes” leadership views and implications of our work for future research and personnel and human resources management practice.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of interaction in the process of leadership. Interaction has been claimed to be a leadership competence in earlier research into leadership in the Royal Navy. The aim of this research is to define how interaction works within naval teams.

The research uses Grounded Theory. Following a series of leadership discussions in separate focus groups, discussion topics were coded and subjected to recursive qualitative analysis. The grounded approach is used to synthesise and develop existing leadership theory strands as well as to extend the trait-process approach to leadership.

The research discovers the key interaction behaviours of engagement, disengagement and levelling. Our findings support recent developments in follower-centric perceptions of leadership and in interaction specifically. The authors develop engagement theory by combining it with the less well researched area of leadership resistance. The authors then re-frame resistance as social levelling, a more comprehensive interaction mechanism.

The research is highly contextual because of its qualitative approach. Some of the detailed reactions to leadership behaviours may not found in other naval or military teams and are unlikely to be generalisable to non-military environments. However, the mechanism described, that of engagement, disengagement and levelling is considered highly generalisable if not universal. Rather than develop new theory fragments in an already confusing research environment, the authors fuse engagement and resistance theory to extend trait-process theories of leadership. The result is a coherent and integrative model of leadership dynamics which frames leadership in the mundane interaction of leaders and followers.

Interaction as a competence is strongly supported as is the encouragement of cultures which promote interaction. Selection procedures for future leaders should include interaction skills. The use of subtle methods of resistance are highlighted. Such methods may indicate poor interaction long before more overt forms of resistance are apparent.

The continual monitoring of leaders and implied ambivalence towards leadership could be critical to our understanding of leadership. A dynamic feedback circle between leaders and followers may be a more useful paradigm for the characterising of leadership throughout society. A better understanding of the power of followers to frame and re-frame leadership would help to manage the expectations of leaders.

This research uniquely uses Grounded Theory to extend current theories (competence based leadership and trait-process theories of leadership), explaining the complexity of leadership interaction. The research also synthesises and develops engagement and levelling (resistance to leadership) theories for the first time. As such the project suggests a full range model of follower response to leadership including subtle forms of resistance to power. The value of group-level analysis using focus groups is recommended, especially for other collective leader-follower approaches to leadership. The research is of interest to those studying leadership process theories, competencies, leader-follower traditions, engagement and power/resistance research.