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The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible consequences of the intra-individual level-based perceptions of participative, supportive and instrumental leadership styles and the dissonance factors of leadership styles perceptions on employee engagement using the information-processing and connectionist perspectives of leadership perceptions.

Hypotheses relating to direct and moderated effects of perceptions of leadership styles on employee engagement were tested using a two-stage intra-individual level study (n=172 in each stage). Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The findings revealed that perceptions of preferred and experienced supportive leadership styles are individually important predictors of employee engagement. It was also revealed that differentiated leadership styles have stronger (complementary) effect on employee engagement when the perceptions of experienced participative and supportive leadership styles were aligned with perceptions of respective preferred leadership styles. Furthermore, it was also found that the low level compared to the high level of dissonance factor or the difference between preferred and experienced instrumental leadership style acted as a complementer on employee engagement.

This study has made contributions to facilitate scholars to build better information-processing models and implicit theories for differentiated leadership and employee engagement links. Finally, the study provides new information on the consequence of perceptions of leadership style and the dissonance factor of leadership perceptions on followers’ actions such as employee engagement.

This will be the first empirical study examining the relationships between the dissonance factor of leadership perceptions of participative, supportive and instrumental styles and employee engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between culture and leadership style preference among Sabahans, namely Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun.

The sample of this research was selected based on purposive convenient sampling whereby all respondents are located in Kota Kinabalu. A questionnaire was administered for data collection with a sample of 219 employees from both the public and the private sectors. The data were analyzed using linear regression.

The evidence was found on the relationship between culture and leadership style preference among Sabahans, namely Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun.

Understanding on what is preferred by employees and what is practiced by the leaders will lead to better and improved performance among the employees. Better understanding on the influence of culture will help a leader to be more effective and successful in their role. Therefore, it provide implication that leader should understand the culture in order for them to be accepted by the followers.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study what leadership style preferred by the employees among Sabah ethnicity.

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore the perceptions of leader effectiveness and preference on gender and leadership style.

The interaction between authoritarian and participative leadership style and gender roles was examined for effectiveness and preference using video samples of dramatized leaders.

The results showed that although subjects found participatory leaders to be more effective and also preferred such a style over authoritarian leaders, male leaders were rated to be more effective and more preferred over female leaders. Women leaders who go against their gender stereotype were perceived as even less effective and less preferred than male leaders who exhibited the same style that was identified as a more masculine style.

The results suggest that women leaders continue to face challenges overcoming both sexual bias and stereotypes. Women leaders, regardless of style, face an uphill battle in terms of perceptions of effectiveness and preference regardless of who their followers might be. In addition, women leaders who go against the typical gender stereotype might be penalized even more.

Despite making progress on gender equity, the study demonstrated the continuing existence of sexual stereotyping and bias in people’s perceptions, even with “younger” subjects. Thus, we need to maintain our focus on actively changing the rules of the workplace (e.g. a recent Harvard Business School experiment) and changing the status quo. Until we level the playing field, we need to continue to play an active role in creating an organizational culture and shaping an environment that is fair and equitable.

This paper highlights the current status of gender bias and stereotyping using an innovative methodology of video case studies. The results also highlight the persistence of gender bias and stereotype even in a “neutral” setting with the younger subjects. In addition, the paper empirically demonstrates the double standards women often face in the workplace. Women leaders have often been expected to demonstrate more masculine traits at workplace (as exhibited by the authoritarian style), but when they do, they are penalized for acting out of their gender role.

The concept of “servant leadership” becomes increasingly relevant in organizations while the “authoritative leadership” style continues to be in place as one of the effective styles. The purpose of this paper is to explore which leadership style is perceived a preferred one in the public sector in Singapore. Empirical data come from a survey with school leaders in several school clusters in Singapore, with instruments designed by the researchers.

The paper is written up on the data drawn from the authors' research project. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis approaches were applied to analyzing the preference between “Servant leadership” and “Authoritative leadership” styles.

It was found in the study that servant leadership is more acceptable than authoritative leadership and that servant leadership is more effective because it reflects a better use of leaders' power. The findings are displayed in this paper to demonstrate comparisons in the acceptability of servant and authoritative styles.

The paper demonstrates the perceptions of organizational members towards the leadership styles with positive impact on their professional life. Drawing on the insights from the analyses, the paper provides organizational leaders with insights on the relevance and effectiveness of their leadership styles.

The paper is original and is the product of empirical research, with instruments designed by the researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the leader’s emotional intelligence influences the leader’s preferences for different ways of combining leadership behaviors (i.e. combinative aspects of leadership style).

The authors used a hybrid design to collect the data to avoid common-method biases. The authors described a high-stress workplace in a vignette and asked participants to rank four styles of combining a task-oriented leadership (i.e. Pressure) statement and a socio-emotional leadership (i.e. Support) statement. The authors then asked participants to complete a Likert-scale based questionnaire on emotional intelligence.

The authors found that leaders who prefer to provide Support immediately before Pressure have higher levels of emotional intelligence than do leaders who prefer the three other combinative styles. Leaders who prefer to provide Pressure and Support separately (i.e. provide Pressure 30 minutes after Support) have the lowest levels of emotional intelligence.

A key implicit assumption in the work is that leaders do not want to evoke negative emotions in followers. The authors did not take into account factors that influence leadership style which participating managers would be likely to encounter on a daily basis such as the relationship with the follower, the follower’s level of performance and work experience, the gender of the leader and the gender of the follower, the hierarchical levels of the leader and follower, and the followers’ preferred combinative style. The nature of the sample and the use of a hypothetical scenario are other limitations of the study.

Providing leadership behaviors that are regarded as effective is necessary but not enough because the emotional impact of leadership behaviors appears to also depend on how the behaviors are configured.

This is the first study to show that the emotional intelligence of leaders is related to their preferences for the manner in which they combine task and social leadership statements. Furthermore, two-factor theories of leadership propose that the effects of task and social leadership are additive. However, the findings show that the effects are interactive.

The paper aims to explore Japanese followers' leadership preferences and consider the suitability of Bass and Avolio's full‐range leadership model in Japan.

A qualitative approach is used predominantly, including template analyses and several content analyses. Data collection is divided into two phases: Phase 1 was conducted by semi‐structured interviews and Phase 2 by questionnaires.

Results suggest the unsuitability of Bass and Avolio's full‐range leadership model in a Japanese context, indicate some impact of cultural changes in Japan, and identify liberal, trust, punctual, network, protective, and after‐five as Japanese culture‐specific preferred leadership styles.

The paper indicates that in a Japanese context not only is the new leadership approach of Bass and Avolio's model of value but also the traditional approach of House's path‐goal theory. Whilst the qualitative data of this study give insight into existing theories and leadership perspectives in Japan, findings should be further examined in future research.

The paper offers guidance for leaders who deal with Japanese followers by identifying leadership styles within Bass and Avolio's model, and culture‐specific leadership styles which are particularly preferred by Japanese followers.

This paper identified that, building upon Bass and Avolio's and House's leadership theories, a new Japanese leadership model, which particularly suits contemporary Japanese followers' leadership preferences, should be developed.

The study was conducted in the headquarters of a mining company in Perth, Western Australia. The findings suggest that the dissonance factor (perceived leadership style received versus preferred style) was higher for women than for men. Women, in fact, desired a more democratic style of leadership than men while the perceived styles were very similar for both genders. The dissonance factor was related to job satisfaction but it appears that the dissonance factor is a better measure of longterm commitment to the organisation while job satisfaction appears to measure a shorter‐term employee satisfaction. The results of the study suggest that high levels of commitment and job satisfaction are independent of the style of leadership received. This challenges the advice given by organisational behaviourists over the last few years that a democratic style was necessary to improve job satisfaction, reduce absenteeism and labour turnover and increase productivity.

Describes a study which was conducted within the state headquarters of a statutory body of the Australian Federal Government. It measured the level of perceived and desired autonomy people either received or wished for in decision making, level of job satisfaction and level of organizational commitment. There was no relationship between the perceived participation level in decision making and the level of job satisfaction. The level of desired participation in decision making by the people in the enterprise was greater than their perceived level of participation. The absolute difference (dissonance factor) between the preferred and perceived styles of leadership was significantly related to various outcomes. The smaller the difference, the greater was the level of organizational commitment, the higher was job satisfaction and the higher the level of job tenure. Thus it could be argued that the dissonance factor is an intervening variable which, when low, leads to high job satisfaction and then on to other benefits. Thus managers might consider measuring leadership styles, both preferred and perceived, as well as job satisfaction when they conduct the organizational attitudinal surveys. This would allow more understanding of the job satisfaction measure and the level of desired and perceived levels of involvement of the workforce.

Western researchers have concluded that generational groups of workers have different work characteristics and prefer different leadership styles. This paper investigates whether Western research applies equally to generational groups in Taiwan's workplaces, specifically in the higher education sector and manufacturing industry.

A total of 20 higher education institutions and 148 manufacturing SMEs in machinery manufacturing in Taipei were identified. After operational definitions for constructs were defined, a questionnaire was developed and administered. After data had been processed through editing, coding and tabulation, a statistical technique was selected where research expectation tests could be conducted. In order to test construct validity, factor analysis was also performed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to test for any significant differences between the variables under investigation.

The research shows that generational groups in manufacturing industry have different work characteristics and require different leadership styles, while there were no differences in work characteristics and preferred leadership style for generational groups in the education sector.

The results of this research provide some direction for leaders and researchers. Leaders should recognise the different work characteristics between generational groups and apply leadership styles that will positively contribute to employee motivation.

This article aims to introduce the theoretical underpinnings of a project that contributes to the empirical field research study literature concerning societal cultural and individual value priority effects on explicit preferred leader behaviour of employed businesspeople, and in some cases business students. The article then reviews research studies and results related to the theories and operationalisations.

This particular article is an introduction to the history and systems of the Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire XII (LBDQXII) instrument to assess preferred leader behaviour priorities, followed by a review of empirical studies employing the instrument.

The findings indicate that the LBDQXII is adequate for the task at hand, and that societal cultural differences moderate variability in preferences for leader behaviour associated with leadership effectiveness. The reputation of the LBDQXII has been damaged by researchers, editors, reviewers, and dissertation and thesis supervisors’ lack of knowledge or disregard of available knowledge concerning the development of the instrument, its use, and proper methods and methodology. The results in the project studies indicate that similarities such as the same local language coupled with geographic proximity lead to similar kinds of preferred leader behaviour priorities between countries and within countries having diverse sub‐cultures, such as China. Although the samples were all employed businesspeople, sample differences can have significant effects, such as influence stemming industry membership. A conclusion is that, carefully applied and analysed, the LBDQXII is a useful, reliable, and valid survey instrument that can be employed to prepare, educate, and develop expatriates and local managers as to what behaviours are expected in business organisations in different cultures.

The reliabilities of some scales in the LBDQXII are low for some dimension scales for some countries. An objective of the research project is to produce a shorter, more reliable survey for use across cultures. Studies in the project indicate an influence on factor structure apparently due to the overarching analytic cognition or holistic cognition nature of a society.

The practical implications of the project are to identify and measure preferred leader behaviour dimensions that are similar and different across national and sub‐national cultures. Such information can be used to develop global leaders and to educate and train managerial leaders for success in multiple countries. A conclusion is that the LBDQXII can be employed to prepare, educate, and develop expatriates and local managers for international assignments.

Explicit theories of leadership (ELTs) and implicit theories of leadership (ILTs) have received varying amounts of attention in leadership research. Reading the leadership literature, the author finds little consideration of ELTs (explicit theories of leadership), most study and report on implicit traits, or a mixture of implicit and explicit. A major contribution of this research project and this special issue of the journal is the development of testing and support of an explicit theory of leadership and presenting progress in its operationalisation, and it evaluates a widely used survey instrument across cultures.