Pursuit of Whose Happiness? Executive Leaders' Transformational Behaviors and Personal Values

Abstract

This paper theorizes and tests how chief executive officers' (CEOs') transformational leadership behaviors, which motivate followers to do more than expected and act for the good of the collective, influence followers' commitment. We theorize that CEOs' values may either enhance or attenuate the effect of transformational behaviors on followers, depending on followers' reactions to the congruence or incongruence between leaders' internal values and their outward transformational behaviors. Self-enhancement values—focusing on the leader's own happiness—would attenuate the effect, whereas self-transcendent values—focusing on others' happiness—would accentuate the effect of CEOs' transformational behaviors on followers' commitment. Using a sample of 45 managers in two companies in China, we validated a Q-sort method of measuring personal values. Results of a second study using cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys as well as interview data from a sample of Chinese CEOs, top managers, and middle managers supported both the attenuation and the accentuation effects and validated the idea that middle managers can detect their CEOs' values.

A (Blurry) Vision of the Future: How Leader Rhetoric about Ultimate Goals Influences Performance

“…Since individuals gain deeper understanding when they possess both concrete and conceptual representations of a given phenomenon (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005), the assumption that a vision and values can combine to create a comprehensive sense of an organization's ultimate goal appears sensible (Collins & Porras, 1994;Fu, Tsui, Liu, & Li, 2010;Kotter, 1996;Yukl, 1998). Yet how do leaders move beyond helping employees gain an understanding of the ultimate goal to helping multiple employees gain the same understanding of the ultimate goal-the "shared" component of a shared sense of purpose?…”

Integration of Ethical Values into Activity-Based Budgeting

“…The key points underlined in the model can help managers to try to integrate effectively the values into the planning system because of the flexible and intuitive Activity-Based Budgeting approach, the integration of values in budgeting should also have personal effects on managers' lives. Ethical behavior could be seen as a prerequisite for a happy life and for future action in the pursuit of higher human values (Rego, Ribeiro, & Cunha, 2010;Fu et al 2010). This study, however, has some www.ccsenet.org/ijbm…”

A Cultural Contingency Model of the Effects of Leader-Society Value Congruence

“…Conversely, followers will respond negatively when the leader engages in behavior, but holds values that are different from expected, i.e., the values followers expect leaders to hold do not reflect the prevalent societal norms (Fu et al, 2010;Parsons & Shils, 1951). The less congruence followers perceive between their own and the leader's cultural values, the less they will have positive outcomes at the workplace (e.g., Adler, 1997).…”

“…For followers, leadership behaviors rather than leaders' cultural values may be subject to initial categorization, because behavioral discrepancy or similarity can more readily be detected than inconsistency or congruence in cultural value orientations. However, employees have keen observation skills to detect the differences in values, and are affected more by what they sense than by what they see and hear (Fu et al, 2010). Erez and Earley (1993) contend that cultural background becomes the major source of identity for employees to come together when differences arise between team members.…”

“…Nonetheless, a closer look at this body of work reveals that various mechanisms, i.e., interpersonal attraction, predictability, and interpersonal communication (Edwards & Cable, 2009;Meglino & Ravlin, 1998) that provide the basis for understanding the relationships that link value congruence to outcomes might also account for the effects of leader-society congruence. This suggests that the focus of cross-cultural leadership research need not be limited to practice-culture fit, because followers who are subject to managerial processes and leadership behaviors are affected more by what they sense than by what they see and hear (Fu, Tsui, Liu, & Li, 2010). In fact, the degree of congruence between the culturally determined values of followers and their leader's values may be significantly related to the follower positive work outcomes.…”