A “Tower of Babel”? – interrelations and structure of leadership constructs

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive examination of different leadership constructs investigated extensively, namely transformational and transactional leadership, laissez-faire, consideration, and initiating structure, as well as leader-member-exchange. The theoretical overlap as well as the empirical correlations between these constructs is explored. Design/methodology/approach – Overall, 735 correlations were analyzed to generate a meta-analytical correlation matrix. Findings – The meta-analyses revealed highly interrelated leadership constructs (0.26<∣ρ∣<0.74). Results of confirmatory factor analyses suggest a one factor solution of leadership. Research limitations/implications – The uniqueness and construct validity of leadership constructs is challenged, calling for a revision of the respective leadership theories. Ultimately, an integrative theory of leadership should be developed which accounts for similarities as well as differences between leadership constructs. An integrated theory of leadership would help: researchers to combine their forces and, consequently, organizations across the globe to better select and develop leaders for the future. Practical implications – By taking a critical, cross-theoretical compare and contrast approach, the present study yielded a comprehensive picture of the interrelationship and partial redundancy of several of the currently researched leadership constructs. Originality/value – New insights into the overlap between leadership constructs were generated and confirmed by meta-analyses.

Leadership and work engagement: Exploring explanatory mechanisms

“…For instance, Derue et al (2011) showed that transformational leadership "has a significant relational component to it and overlaps conceptually and empirically with both initiating structure and consideration" (p. 38). Another meta-analytic study that also included transactional leadership, laissez-faire as well as LMX came to the same conclusion: there is considerable overlap between these leadership constructs (Rowold et al, 2015). A recent meta-analysis investigated more leadership styles and found that ethical, authentic, and servant leadership all correlate highly with transformational leadership (Hoch et al, 2018).…”

“…Despite several attempts to develop theoretical models on leadership and employee outcomes in leadership literature (see "Theoretical models on leadership and employee outcomes" below), no integrated process model of multiple positive leadership styles (and the translation of these styles into specific leader behavior) with regard to their shared effect on employee work engagement, based on theory, exists. Yet, meta-analyses with several positive leadership styles and leader behaviors indicate that there may be some construct redundancy (Banks et al, 2016(Banks et al, , 2018Derue et al, 2011;Hoch et al, 2018;Rowold et al, 2015). In addition, several positive leadership styles have relatively large correlations with work engagement (Banks et al, 2016;Hoch et al, 2018), which indicates the possibility of shared or common ground with regard to their effect on employee work engagement.…”

“…This rapid growth of proposed positive leadership styles also leads scholars to urge for an integration and an investigation of construct redundancy in leadership constructs (Derue et al, 2011; Rowold et al, 2015; Yukl, 2002). Moreover, positive leadership styles may not be so different after all (see, for example, Bormann and Rowold, 2018; Gottfredson and Aguinis, 2017; Rowold and Borgmann, 2013), which makes synthesis even more important.…”

Construct proliferation in leadership style research

“…Yet, we firmly believe that, so far, we have yet to reach that point for any of the leadership constructs that are addressed in this paper. We need even more meta-analytic work in the nature of Hoch et al (2018) and Rowold et al (2015) that exceeds single-sample insights to eventually reach a consensus regarding the redundancy of a specific leadership model.…”

Political activity of the Russian youth: a mobilization potential of the sources of political information

“…More than that, the growth of social demand for an effective management system [29] and power institutions for political innovation sounds more and more actively. Various scholars talk about an objective request to study the youth motivation for participation in public and political projects in leadership positions [30], as well as the principles of organizing the work of leaders with members of their movements and organizations [31], [32], [33], [34]. Independent objects of analysis are the leadership phenomena for the young people studying in high school [35], as well as differences in leadership models of various representatives from certain gender groups [36].…”