This research builds on Implicit Leadership Theory, which suggests that a
leader's performance is likely to be higher when there is congruence between a
follower's prototype of what a leader should be and his or her perception of the
leader's behaviour. The essence of effective leadership, according to this theory,
is being seen as a leader by others.
Data were collected from 196 leaders and 1,738 followers from 23 countries
within Cargill Incorporated, a US food and agricultural multinational. The
research was conducted in two phases. During the first phase data were
collected on followers' desired leadership values and their perception of their
leader's behaviour on the same dimensions. These data were used to compute a
congruence score based on a weighted sum of absolute differences. The
congruence score data formed the heart of an individualised Leadership Fit
Report written for each leader in the study showing the extent of congruence
across 21 leadership characteristics (see Appendix A).
The second phase of the study focused on a subset of 933 followers from five
countries testing the two hypotheses. The two hypotheses in Phase Two were
partially supported. The first was that congruence between desired leadership
values and perceived behaviour leads to high performance of a leader and
incongruence leads to lower performance. The second was that the relationship
between congruence and leader performance varied by nationality.
The cross-cultural test of Implicit Leadership Theory captured in Hypothesis
2 was particularly important to Cargill because it revealed unique and important differences between the five countries included in the second data set. This
study found that the nature of the relationship between congruence and leader
performance varies significantly between all five countries. More specifically
the data suggests that congruence does not always lead to high performance.
This study, albeit exploratory, makes theoretical, methodological and
practical contributions in the following ways.
i. A cross cultural test of Implicit Leadership Theory in a multinational
organisation with a significant sample size.
ii. An existing desired leadership values questionnaire was used and
developed further to measure leadership values and leader perception.
iii. All 196 leaders received a personalised feedback report showing the
level of congruence (or degree of fit) for 21 leadership characteristics.
iv. A methodological contribution was made by using Polynomial
Regression Equations and Response Surface Methodology to measure
the nature of the relationship between desired leadership values,
perceived behaviour and leaders' performance.
Implicit Leadership Theory was shown to be complex yet very relevant to
management practice. The research undertaken was exploratory yet it has
created the basis for on going discussion.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/115 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | McKie, David S. |
| Contributors | Huff, Anne, Communal, Christine, Fishwick, Frank |
| Publisher | Cranfield University, School of Management |
| Source Sets | CRANFIELD1 |
| Language | en_UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or dissertation, Doctoral, DBA |
| Format | 1883 bytes, 471431 bytes, 495353 bytes, 2536917 bytes, 988983 bytes, text/plain, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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