Role‐Modeling Leadership in Small and Medium Enterprises: The Role of Leader Identification, Leader–Member Exchange, Job Stress, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Intent

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are instrumental to most economies and leadership offers a means for SMEs to face today's business challenges. Despite the need for effective leadership in SMEs, researchers rarely examine leadership theories in this context. The SME context is characterized by proximal conditions that are conducive to role‐modeling leadership. Role‐modeling leadership, although popular in the practitioner literature, is an underdeveloped concept in the scientific literature because such leadership has been confounded with other leadership theories and behaviors. The present study showcases role‐modeling leadership as a distinct style of leadership and investigates its nomological framework between SMEs and large organizations. Using a sample of 371 employees across the UK, the findings supported (a) leader identification as an antecedent of role‐modeling leadership and (b) a chain of outcomes between role‐modeling leadership, leader–member exchange, job stress, job satisfaction, and turnover intent. However, the moderating effect of organization size was not supported. The present study contributes to theory by unraveling how a novel style of leadership is predicted as well as its relationship with important organizational outcomes. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.