Transformational leadership and employee innovation: Examining the congruence of leader and follower perceptions

Abstract

Organizations are relying on their leaders to demonstrate effective leadership behavior that positively affects employee innovation. However, discrepancies are often found between leaders’ self-perception and followers’ perception of leadership. Understanding the discrepancies is critical for narrowing the leader–follower perception gap and achieving congruence between leaders and followers. This forms the motivation of this study, which aims to compare and contrast the direct and mediated (through psychological empowerment) impact of transformational leadership behavior on employee innovation performance from the perspective of both leaders and followers. Multisource data using questionnaires were collected from 66 leaders and 220 followers in the United Arab Emirates. The results show that leaders’ self-perception scores were significantly lower than that of their followers. Also, discrepancies in perceptions of the direct impact of transformational leadership behavior on employee innovation were found such that a positive and significant relationship was found for followers while no significant relationship was found for leaders. Finally, psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee innovation performance for both leaders and followers, though leaders perceive the mediation of psychological empowerment to be stronger than followers perceive it to be. The study findings show the importance of obtaining multiple-source feedback to first assess the perceptions of both leaders and followers and then make necessary interventions (if required) to narrow perception gaps between leaders and followers since discrepancies could lead to poor organizational culture.

Whither compassionate leadership? A systematic review

“…Fifthly, not only should compassionate leadership be measured from the leaders’ perspective but also from the followers’ perspective. Measuring compassionate leadership from both leader and follower perspective is critical given that discrepancies are often found between leaders’ self-perception and followers’ perception of leadership (Sehgal et al 2021 ). A greater discrepancy in the leader–follower perception could lead to surprise, consternation, disbelief, or emotional distress among employees, which could lead to a poor organizational culture and employee productivity.…”

Linking emotional intelligence and transformational leadership: an application to technology sector firms’ leaders

“…Transformational leaders make their followers aware of how their work is meaningful for the organization, recognize employees' personal growth, and dedicate time to coaching, teaching, and developing employee strengths to reach their full potential (Sehgal et al, 2021).…”

“…The leader should use an innovative leadership style that encourages employees to think independently and improve their performance (Yucel, 2021). By communicating elevated expectations, transformational leaders help their followers to develop competencies such as responsibility and enthusiasm for the organization's vision, mission, and long-term goals (Sehgal et al, 2021). Ehrnrooth et al (2021) conceptualized transformational leadership as a set of particular leadership manners by which leaders can encourage and influence followers, that is, by acting, encouraging, communicating, and providing.…”

“…Transformational leaders are in charge of sharing personal and organizational moral values with the employees, increasing their inherent motivation (Tran & Vu, 2021). According to Sehgal et al (2021), motivated employees move beyond self-interest and commit themselves to the organization's goals, performing beyond expectations.…”

Effect of Leadership Empowerment on Personnel Creativity in Projects: Moderating Role of Project Culture and Mediating Role of Creative Self-efficacy

“…Empowering leadership is a set of behaviours of leaders that enable subordinates to bring novel ideas and solutions to particular problems that an organizational project is exposed to. Hence, the more empowering leader, the more creative the employees will be (Sehgal et al, 2021). On the Employee Creativity Creative Selfefficacy Leadership Empowerment Project Culture other hand, leaders with less empowering ability fail to produce self-reliant employees.…”