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When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain

It is widely acknowledged that leadership is crucial for follower health. Under stress, positive leader behaviors such as transformational leadership may decrease and the risk of negative behaviors such as abusive leadership may increase. Followers experience these discrepancies in leadership betwee...

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Autores principales: Klebe, Laura, Klug, Katharina, Felfe, Jörg
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9196935/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35712180
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.816258
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author Klebe, Laura
Klug, Katharina
Felfe, Jörg
author_facet Klebe, Laura
Klug, Katharina
Felfe, Jörg
author_sort Klebe, Laura
collection PubMed
description It is widely acknowledged that leadership is crucial for follower health. Under stress, positive leader behaviors such as transformational leadership may decrease and the risk of negative behaviors such as abusive leadership may increase. Followers experience these discrepancies in leadership between routine and stressful periods as inconsistent. While positive and negative leadership is generally associated with follower strain, inconsistency may be stressful by itself, because it entails insecurity and unpredictability in the leader-follower relationship. We suggest that the level of perceived inconsistency and volatility in leaders’ behavior across situations is an additional risk factor for follower health. Moreover, we expect perceived inconsistency to be stronger when leaders are strained. This survey study with N = 304 employees examines the relationships between leadership inconsistency and leader as well as follower strain from a followers’ perspective. Participants rated their leaders’ transformational and abusive leadership separately for routine and stressful conditions, their leaders’ strain and their own strain. Employees who experienced stronger discrepancies in leadership between routine and stressful conditions, i.e., more inconsistency, experienced more strain. Moreover, from a followers’ perspective, inconsistencies were stronger when leaders were strained. The findings provide evidence that leadership is less stable and consistent than generally assumed and that inconsistency is an additional risk factor. Leader strain may threaten the consistency of leadership and thereby negatively affect follower health.
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spelling pubmed-91969352022-06-15 When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain Klebe, Laura Klug, Katharina Felfe, Jörg Front Psychol Psychology It is widely acknowledged that leadership is crucial for follower health. Under stress, positive leader behaviors such as transformational leadership may decrease and the risk of negative behaviors such as abusive leadership may increase. Followers experience these discrepancies in leadership between routine and stressful periods as inconsistent. While positive and negative leadership is generally associated with follower strain, inconsistency may be stressful by itself, because it entails insecurity and unpredictability in the leader-follower relationship. We suggest that the level of perceived inconsistency and volatility in leaders’ behavior across situations is an additional risk factor for follower health. Moreover, we expect perceived inconsistency to be stronger when leaders are strained. This survey study with N = 304 employees examines the relationships between leadership inconsistency and leader as well as follower strain from a followers’ perspective. Participants rated their leaders’ transformational and abusive leadership separately for routine and stressful conditions, their leaders’ strain and their own strain. Employees who experienced stronger discrepancies in leadership between routine and stressful conditions, i.e., more inconsistency, experienced more strain. Moreover, from a followers’ perspective, inconsistencies were stronger when leaders were strained. The findings provide evidence that leadership is less stable and consistent than generally assumed and that inconsistency is an additional risk factor. Leader strain may threaten the consistency of leadership and thereby negatively affect follower health. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9196935/ /pubmed/35712180 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.816258 Text en Copyright © 2022 Klebe, Klug and Felfe. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Klebe, Laura
Klug, Katharina
Felfe, Jörg
When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain
title When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain
title_full When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain
title_fullStr When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain
title_full_unstemmed When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain
title_short When Your Boss Is Under Pressure: On the Relationships Between Leadership Inconsistency, Leader and Follower Strain
title_sort when your boss is under pressure: on the relationships between leadership inconsistency, leader and follower strain
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9196935/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35712180
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.816258
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