The Two-Faced Leader: Effects of Leader Emotional Inconsistency on Follower Creative Performance

Abstract

Doctor of Philosophy 2016 THESIS SUMMARYBased on a review of the literatures pertaining to leadership, affect, and creative performance, the studies conducted as part of this thesis aim at testing a research model that examines how and under which conditions leader emotional inconsistency between happiness and anger is related to follower creative performance. For an experimental test of the proposed research model I collected data from 94 followers for whom a leader-follower interaction was simulated using a video manipulation. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that leader emotional inconsistency was positively associated with follower creative performance via increases in creative process engagement, but only for followers with high levels of epistemic motivation, which sheds light on the importance of follower's information processing capabilities when faced with complex emotional leadership. I replicated the results of the first study in a second experiment where a leader-follower interaction was simulated using a scenario manipulation. Using data collected from 81 followers, moderated mediation analyses showed that leader displays of emotional inconsistency were positively related to creative performance via increases in creative process engagement for followers with high levels of epistemic motivation. Both experimental studies provide evidence towards the directionality of the examined interrelationships across different types of experimental manipulations employed. Finally, I replicated the research model of this thesis in a field setting using a measurement scale of leader emotional inconsistency specifically developed for this study. Week-level data was collected from 60 leader-follower dyads working in two organisations and providing a total of 253 matched weekly leader and follower responses. Multilevel moderated mediation analyses showed that follower weekly creative performance follows from weekly leader displays of emotional inconsistency via increases in weekly creative process engagement for followers with high epistemic motivation. Taken together, the studies conducted provide both internal and external validity to the theoretically derived research model of this thesis.Keywords: Leader emotional inconsistency; happiness; anger; creative process engagement; creative performance; epistemic motivation; experiment; diary study; multilevel research; EASI theory 3 DEDICATION Kedves Tatámnak, nyugodj békében.To my dear grandpa, may you rest in peace.Szász Mihály (1925 -2016) 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many colleagues and friends supported me on my PhD journey and I would like to express my gratitude to them. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Yves Guillaume for steering me through the three intense years it took me to complete this thesis. As I never really warmed up to the label "student", I thank Yves for his patience and perseverance in dealing with a rebellious and at times stubborn PhD student such as myself. I also want to thank Prof Richard Crisp for his assistance in the writ...