Disability Severity, Professional Isolation Perceptions, and Career Outcomes: When Does Leader–Member Exchange Quality Matter?

Abstract

Employees with disability-related communication impairment often experience isolation from professional connections that can negatively affect their careers. Management research suggests that having lower quality leader relationships can be an obstacle to the development of professional connections for employees with disabilities. However, in this paper we suggest that lower quality leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships may not be a uniform hurdle for the professional isolation of employees with disability-related communication impairment. Drawing on psychological disengagement theory, we predict that employees with more severe, rather than less severe, communication impairment develop resilience to challenges in lower quality LMX relationships by psychologically disengaging from professional connections and, in turn, bear fewer negative consequences of professional isolation on career outcomes. In two studies of deaf and hard of hearing employees, we find that in lower quality LMX relationships employees with more severe communication impairment perceive being less isolated than employees with less severe communication impairment, and, in turn, report better career outcomes. Overall, our findings suggest that employees with more severe communication impairment may develop effective coping strategies to manage challenges of perceived professional isolation for career outcomes when in lower quality LMX relationships.

A Moderated Mediation Model of Team Focus Transformational Leadership, Team Cohesiveness and Leader-Member Exchange for Project Success

“…The higher quality level of LMX not only provides higher support of leaders to their subordinates but also gives empowerment and motivation (Young et al, 2021), for the smooth accomplishment of organizational goals. Also, this higher relationship (e.g., LMX) increases the workplace and career outcomes of the employees (Lyons et al, 2023). Employees benefit most from their supervisor's encouragement and adaptability when they can engage with them in a relatively casual environment (Adhyke et al, 2023).…”

“…Employees benefit most from their supervisor's encouragement and adaptability when they can engage with them in a relatively casual environment (Adhyke et al, 2023). It has also been observed that a higher level of LMX reduces the negative emotions, attitudes, and behaviors of the subordinates and enables them to deal with interpersonal workplace challenges positively (Lyons et al, 2023). When leaders focus on the development of their team members, they can create a sense of shared vision and purpose, which can help to create a strong sense of camaraderie among team members, and TFTL often uses this sense of harmony to build relationships with team members (Ha, 2022;Sun et al, 2022).…”