A more globalized workforce, coupled with technological advances in electronic communication, have led organizations to turn to virtual work teams at a rapidly increasing rate (Gilson, Maynard, Young, Vartiainen, & Hakonen, 2015). Leadership has been shown to aid team performance across work domains (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010), and there exist a host of functional leader behaviors that have been found to benefit face-to-face team performance (Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas, & Halpin, 2006). Attention to leadership in this new era of work teams is necessary to identify those specific behaviors that enable effective virtual team functioning. Team performance, whether in the virtual context or face-to-face, requires attention to taskwork (i.e., what people do) as well as the required teamwork (i.e., how people work together to go about doing the tasking; Morgan Jr, Glickman, Woodard, Blaiwes, & Salas, 1986). Thus, drawing upon the Consideration and Initiating Structure classification of leader behaviors, the current study sought to determine which behaviors are most critical to virtual team effectiveness and other important outcomes, specifically within the context of a virtual team working on a decision-making task. This study determined that Consideration leader behaviors are most beneficial for virtual team performance, team member satisfaction, and team potency in a decision-making context. Further, perceived leader effectiveness was found to predict team member satisfaction and team potency. This work has important implications for both science and practice, including extending existing leadership theory to a new context (i.e., virtual teams) and influencing leader behaviors for decision-making teams across work domains.

The problem of this study was to determine whether there is a significant relationship between certain situational factors and high and low scores on the leadership behavior dimensions of industrial supervisors. The behavior dimensions studies were the two dimensions of Consideration and Initiating Structure, as measured by the instrument used in the study.

The primary goal of this study was to examine ways in which leaders can influence followers motivation. Motivation is a key construct in industrial and organizational psychology due to its impact on employee performance. Modern motivation theories adapt a more sophisticated view of motivation in terms of definition, relationships, and operationalization. In particular, one new theory of motivation is the Pritchard and Ashwood Theory (2008). This theory proposes that motivation is comprised of four perceived relationships that, in combination, reflect the extent to which employees believe that their actions on the job will lead to need satisfaction. These four relationships are called connections. The relationship between two leadership behaviors, initiating structure and consideration, and the Pritchard and Ashwood motivational connections was examined. It was hypothesized that the two leader behaviors would have differential relationships with the four motivational connections. These differential relationships should facilitate targeted behavioral feedback to leaders to improve each of the motivational connections. Additionally, motivation was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between the leader behaviors and employee outcomes. The Pritchard and Ashwood Theory is operationalized by the Motivation Assessment Questionnaire (MAQ) (Pritchard, 2006a). A secondary goal of this study was to contribute to the validity evidence of the MAQ. This recently developed questionnaire has shown good psychometric properties and initial validity evidence has demonstrated moderate relationships between the MAQ and job performance. However, this is the first study of the relationship between the MAQ and employee outcomes with a large sample of full-time working adults. Further, this study expanded potential MAQ outcomes beyond employee performance to include organizational citizenship behaviors and turnover intentions. A sample of 208 employees was recruited from two central Florida companies. These employees responded to the MAQ and other study measures via a secure, online survey. Participating employees provided contact information for their supervisors who were then invited to participate in the study by providing criteria ratings. A large number of the invited supervisors participated (n = 195). Results indicated robust support for one of the leadership behaviors: consideration. Consideration was related to performance and this relationship was partially mediated by motivation. On the other hand, initiating structure was not related to employee performance. Consideration and initiating structure were not differentially related as hypothesized to the four motivational connections. This was due in part to the strong correlation between the two leadership behaviors (r = .73). Results provided additional validation evidence for the MAQ. The overall effort scale was not related to performance as it had been in the two previous studies that used a student sample. However, the average of the motivation connections predicted performance. Additionally, the MAQ predicted both organizational citizenship behaviors and turnover intentions. As mentioned previously, the sample was drawn from two central Florida companies. Although many of the study hypotheses were supported for the overall sample, the observed relationships were very different for the two subsamples. Similarly, findings in this study differ from previous studies using the MAQ with working students. Potential reasons for these differences are discussed.

The demand for highly qualified teachers is well documented, yet numerous stressors influence educators to leave their positions. The guiding question for this study was: Is there a relationship between perceived principal leadership behavior and the stress experienced by the novice secondary teacher? The target population was novice teachers in Louisiana. The purposive sample was delimited to novice secondary teachers having six semesters of teaching experience or less in grades 6 through 12. The ten largest parishes in Louisiana were selected to sample. Four of the ten parishes granted permission to survey novice secondary teachers. The Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, Form XII (Stogdill, 1963) was used to determine the perception of principal leadership in two dimensions: consideration behavior and initiation of structure behavior. The Teacher Stress Inventory (Fimian, 1988) was used to collect demographic data on the participants and to determine a composite stress score from five sources of stress and five manifestations of stress. The statistical analyses included stepwise multiple regression and one-way ANOVA. Data were analyzed with the Statistical Package for the Social Science Version16.0 (SPSS). Time management, along with discipline and motivation, were the top two sources of stress for novice teachers. Fatigue manifestation and emotional manifestation were the most conspicuous manifestations of stress. These results reflect relevant issues facing the contemporary teacher. Professional investment, the diminished autonomy teachers experience when the locus of control is external to the classroom, was the single most reliable source of stress to predict both initiating structure and consideration leadership behavior. Emotional manifestation was the single most reliable manifestation of stress to predict initiating structure xiv and consideration leadership behavior. No significant relationship was found between the demographic and organizational variables and stress in the novice secondary teacher. Principal leadership is a potential predictor of teacher retention. Thus, the findings of this study have implications for three specific areas: programs of support for new teachers, preparation and training of principal leadership, and policies that are critical for the successful principal.

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