Implicit motives as the missing link between visionary leadership, approach and avoidance motivation, and vision pursuit

Abstract

An unresolved question in visionary leadership research is, why must visions be high in imagery to cause affective reactions and be motivationally effective? Research in motivation psychology has shown that pictorial cues arouse implicit motives. Thus, pictorial cues from vision-induced imagery should arouse a follower’s implicit motives just like a real image. Hence, our fundamental proposition is that follower implicit motives and follower approach motivation serially mediate the relationship between leader vision and followers’ vision pursuit. We also examine the case of negative leader visions, with the central propositions that a negative leader vision arouses a follower’s implicit fear motives and that the follower’s implicit fear motives and follower avoidance motivation serially mediate the relationship between negative leader vision and the follower’s fear-related behaviors. Lastly, we assert that multiple implicit follower motives aroused by a multithematic leader vision exert additive as well as interaction effects on the follower’s vision pursuit.

How and When Does Visionary Leadership Promote Followers’ Taking Charge? The Roles of Inclusion of Leader in Self and Future Orientation

“… 11 However, there is no consensus on the effectiveness of visionary leadership on followers’ cognitive and behavioral reactions. On the one hand, most scholars propose that visionary leadership can stimulate followers to pursue the same vision, 12 engage in citizenship behavior 13 , 14 and improve their evaluation of the leader’s effectiveness. 15 It can also improve followers’ job outcomes.…”

Followers’ Motives as Moderators of the Effects of Transformational Leadership Behaviors on Follower Outcomes and Leaders’ Influence

“…Motives have been defined in terms of dispositional preferences for certain types of incentives (McClelland, 1985;. For instance, a person with a high power motive may have a preference for power-related incentives such as status symbols, prestigious positions, or public attention (Kehr et al, 2022). It seems likely that the leadership behavior of one's supervisor can also constitute an incentive, inasmuch as it matches the subordinate's motives.…”

“…For example, the sentences "two friends get together and prepare a party," "they go one step further with their new stunt," and "when he finds out that this captain saved more than 100 lives during a storm, he excitedly begins to investigate the matter" would be coded as each having single motive content: affiliation, achievement, and power, respectively (Schönbrodt et al, 2021). Kehr et al (2022) illustrated how John F. Kennedy's famous visionary speech provides an example of a single sentence that should be coded as having multiple motive content. Interrater ICCs were good (0.83 for affiliation content, 0.86 for power content, and 0.69 for achievement content).…”

“…Further, real leadership often happens in a team context rather within dyads, so real transformational leaders have to deal with the complex and diverse motive patterns of their team members. If transformational leaders, willingly or unwillingly, employ leadership behaviors that interact with multiple motives in their followers at the same time, complex interactive motivational and behavioral effects can be expected (Kehr et al, 2022), presumably on both the individual and group levels. However, at present, there is not sufficient research insight to formulate specific predictions about the expected shapes of these interactions.…”

“…However, at present, there is not sufficient research insight to formulate specific predictions about the expected shapes of these interactions. Kehr et al (2022) reported from a literature search that they could not find any published studies on how followers' motives interact. The only research these authors could find was on combinations of leaders', but not followers ', motives (e.g., McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982;Steinmann et al, 2015).…”