So close and yet so far away: A psychological distance account of the effectiveness of leader appeals

Abstract

Contradictory recommendations persist on how leaders best communicate goals to followers. Whereas scholars of visionary leadership recommend emphasizing the desirability of preferred end‐states, scholars of goal setting argue that the perceived feasibility of a goal determines motivation. This paper proposes and tests a synthesis based on construal level theory. Under relatively high (i.e., abstract) levels of construal, such as when leader–follower distance is relatively large, leader appeals that emphasize desirability (i.e., desirable appeals) are more likely to be effective than appeals that emphasize feasibility (i.e., feasible appeals). Under relatively low (i.e., concrete) levels of construal, such as when leader–follower distance is relatively small, feasible appeals are more likely to be effective. Two experimental studies in two different countries provide support for our predictions.

Seeing the Big Picture: A Within-Person Examination of Leader Construal Level and Vision Communication

“…Furthermore, it is important to recognize that the effect of visioning may be contingent on the psychological distance that exists between followers and leaders (Berson et al, 2015). Recall that van Houwelingen and colleagues (2017) recently demonstrated that desirability appeals, which are seen as characteristic of visions (van Knippenberg & Stam, 2014), were more effective when leader-follower spatial distance was high. This speaks to the importance of integrating antecedents and consequences of visionary leadership in future studies.…”

“…In terms of empirical research, van Houwelingen, van Dijke, and De Cremer (2015) showed that construal level influences leaders’ decision to discipline followers after transgression of moral norms. Demonstrating the importance of a match between the situation and leader communication in terms of construal level, van Houwelingen, Stam, and Giessner (2017) found that leader appeals to desirability (feasibility) were more effective when the spatial distance between leaders and followers was high (low). These developments suggest that construal level holds promise for explaining leadership phenomena, and we suspect that leader vision communication is a promising candidate given the parallels between visions and high-level construal in terms of temporal perspective and abstraction.…”

When does gender diversity enhance team performance? The dual need for visionary leadership and team tenure

“…However, leadership scholars have noted a myriad of issues with the transformational leadership construct and have advocated for research to “examine more empirically distinct aspects of leadership” (Van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013, p. 2). Indeed, many researchers have begun to examine leader vision communication in isolation, and vision communication is a growing construct in leadership research (e.g., Carton & Lucas, 2018; Kearney, Shemla, van Knippenberg, & Scholz, 2019; van Houwelingen, Stam, & Giessner, 2017).…”

The stages‐of‐change approach for prosocial behavior: Message tailoring to encourage blood donation

“…Moreover, as psychological distance decreases, the object or event is more likely to be represented in terms of concrete, detailed, and contextualized features, often referred to as low‐level construals (Liberman et al., 2002; Liberman & Trope, 1998; Trope & Liberman, 2003). More importantly, such varying mental construals are found to affect individuals preference, attitude, and behavior differently (van Houwelingen et al., 2017; Liberman et al., 2007; Trope & Liberman, 2010; Trope et al., 2007; Zhuang et al., 2018).…”

“…The former is linked to subordinate means (i.e., feasibility: the "how" of the action), whereas the letter is associated with superordinate purpose (i.e., desirability: the "why" of the action). Many communication scholars have applied this desirability-feasibility distinction to message designs and found that these appeals affect consumes at different levels of mental construal, and in turn, guide their attitudes and behaviors (Liberman et al, 2007;Trope & Liberman, 2010;Trope et al, 2007).…”