Paradoxical Leader Behaviors: Leader Personality and Follower Outcomes

Abstract

We examined leaders’ Big Five personality traits as the antecedents and followers’ in‐role and innovative performance behaviors as outcomes of paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) in people management. We also examined the moderating effect of followers’ psychological capital on PLB and its relationship with followers’ outcomes. We drew on the trait theory of leadership, social learning theory, and the conservation of resources theory to derive our hypotheses. We tested our predictions with a sample of 131 managers and 609 followers. By and large, we found support for our predictions. More specifically, leaders’ traits of extraversion and openness to experience were positively related to followers’ PLB ratings. Conversely, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism among leaders were negatively related to followers’ PLB ratings. PLB in turn was positively related to followers’ in‐role and innovative performance behaviors. Followers’ psychological capital was found to moderate the relationship between PLB and followers’ in‐role performance such that the relationship was stronger when followers’ psychological capital was high than when it was low. The implications of these findings were discussed.

Does Paradoxical Leadership Facilitate Leaders’ Task Performance? A Perspective of Self-Regulation Theory

“…First, we contribute to the literature on paradoxical leadership by taking an actor-centric perspective and focusing on the intrapersonal consequences of paradoxical leaders and their own task performance. While previous studies have established that paradoxical leadership has an impact on followers [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], the impact on leaders who engage in paradoxical leadership behaviors has been largely overlooked since working through paradoxes is an effortful, multi-stepped process [ 46 ]. Behaving paradoxically may tax leaders’ cognitive resources, which can result in psychological stress for leaders, and therefore, possibly influence their attitudes and behaviors [ 1 , 14 ].…”

“…Emphasizing the coexistence of mutually independent elements, paradoxical leadership is a process that is based on personal characteristics and cognition, using a “both-and” strategy instead of an “either-or” strategy to resolve organizational paradoxes [ 1 ]. Research has documented the benefits of paradoxical leadership for employees, teams, and organizations; for example, positive impacts include the following: employees’ proficiency, adaptability, proactivity [ 1 ], voice [ 2 ], creativity [ 3 , 4 ], ambidexterity [ 5 ], resilience [ 6 ], in-role and innovative performance behavior [ 7 ], team perspective-taking, and innovative performance [ 8 ], as well as organizational creativity [ 9 ], ambidextrous innovation [ 10 ], and strategic agility [ 11 ].…”

Paradoxical Leader Behaviors and Followers Overall Justice and Citizenship Behaviors: The Role of Renqing Perception and Trait Agreeableness

“…When promoting employees to be managers, the organizations can purposely select those who with potential characteristics of PLB, such as holistic thinking, 17 extraversion and openness. 18 Second, given the serial mediation roles of two components of perceptions of renqing and overall justice on the PLB–OCB linkage, enhancing employees perceptions of renqing and then overall justice is an important pathway to improving OCB. Organizations and managers should be aware of the importance of perceptions of renqing , especially for those within collectivist-culture countries.…”

“…PLB has been confirmed to exert positive effects on Chinese employees outcomes, including psychological capital, 18 psychological safety, 19 engagement, 33 proficient, adaptive, and proactive behavior, 17 performance, 34 and creativity. 35 However, as every coin has two sides, Tripathi et al (2018) cautioned that the “both-and” essence of PLB may trigger followers feeling of uncertainty resulting in their defensive and counterproductive behavior.…”

“… 17 The core tenet of PLB is to respond to the paradoxical challenges and tensions in the organizational systems. 18 …”