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Inclusive Leadership and Leader-Follower Relations: Concepts, Research, and Applications
The Member Connector, International Leadership Association (2008)
  • Edwin P. Hollander
  • Jaihyun Park
  • Brittany Boyd
  • Benjamin Elman
  • Mary E. Ignagni, Sacred Heart University
Abstract
Research on leadership over many decades has studied various psychological factors that have to do with effectiveness, such as leader personality traits and cognitive ability. Although leader qualities are especially important as they relate to followers, measures of leadership too often focus on leader behaviors apart from their effects on followers. As Burns (1978) has said, “Leadership, unlike naked power-wielding is … inseparable from followers’ needs and goals” (p. 19). This is recognized when a leader’s ability to exert influence depends on the attitudes of followers toward that leader, as in Barnard’s (1938) Theory of Authority and Hollander’s (1958) Idiosyncrasy Credit Model, both stressing positive impressions. Consideration matters, and its strength is exemplified by the research of Fleishman and Harris (1962) and Fleishman (1998) on the reciprocal relationship of the leader’s “consideration” and “structure” behavior on performance of work groups in industrial settings. They found higher “consideration,” in encouraging, communicating, and being concerned with employee needs, moderated the effects of “structure,” in organizing and setting goals, on higher independent measures of departmental performance. 
Keywords
  • psychological factors,
  • effectiveness,
  • leader personality traits,
  • cognitive ability,
  • leader behaviors
Publication Date
2008
Publisher Statement
Access to publication is "members only."
Citation Information
Hollander, E. P., Park, J., Boyd, B., Elman, B., & Ignagni, M. E. (2008). Inclusive Leadership and Leader-Follower Relations: Concepts, Research, and Applications. The Member Connector, (5).