Leadership & Organization Development Journal

– The paper seeks to investigate whether or not leader‐member exchange (LMX) is influenced by the personality of subordinates and/or supervisors., – Previous literature from the general leadership, personality, and LMX domains was used as a theoretical background for proposing certain types of relationships between the personality traits that make up the Big Five and employees’ perceptions of LMX. Personality data were collected from 195 matched pairs of employees and supervisors. LMX data were collected from 195 employees. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesized relationships., – Employees' conscientiousness, extroversion, openness, and neuroticism were found to impact perceptions of LMX. Likewise, supervisors' conscientiousness and agreeableness also impacted employees' perceptions of LMX., – The present study included two potential research limitations. First, personality was measured using the short‐version of the NEO‐FFI; thus, we were unable to run analysis at the facet level. Second, although we did have two sources of data (i.e. the supervisor and subordinate), there is a possibility that common method variance may have influenced some of the hypothesized relationships., – Results indicate there may be a dispositional basis to perceptions of LMX. Thus, the relationship between LMX and outcome variables (i.e. performance, turnover, satisfaction, etc.) may be only part of the story. Practitioners that want to maximize the relationship between employees and their supervisors would be well served to actively consider personality issues. In particular, some employees and some supervisors appear to be more willing to engage in exchanges than others., – As far as we know, this is the first study to investigate the influence of personality from two sources (i.e. the supervisor and subordinate) on LMX. It moves beyond the traditional study of demographic similarity.

– This study seeks to test the researchers' theory that a leadership development intervention called “leader assimilation” for newly appointed leaders and their subordinates will facilitate feedback‐seeking and a leader‐team dialogue which will accelerate leader/team learning, leader adaptation, and relationship building between the new leaders and their teams., – Robert Yin's positivistic multiple case study research method was used. Four primary modes of data collection were used in each of the three cases: observation during the five steps of the intervention, documentation review after the intervention, a pre‐ and post‐survey, and individual interviews with the leader and the leader's direct reports approximately seven days after the last phase of the intervention., – The researchers found support for their theory from a leader and team perspective. The three leaders in the study experienced accelerated learning, adaptation, and they built relationships with their teams. The leaders' teams experienced new learning and they built relationships with their new leaders., – The generalizability of findings is limited by the number of cases studied and by industry, leader, and team variation across cases., – The study provides supporting evidence for the importance and effectiveness of leader assimilations in helping new leaders learn, adapt quickly, and build relationships with their teams early in their transition., – The study is one of the first to report on the outcomes of an early leadership development intervention to help new leaders transition from one leadership role to another.

– This paper seeks to examine gender‐ and management‐ level differences in perceptions of effective leadership within a framework of new leadership models that focus on the processes of influencing self and others rather than leadership based on hierarchy., – A self‐report questionnaire was distributed to a sample of council employees. The responses were analysed using thematic matrix displays., – Males and non‐management employees (when compared with female and management) perceived effective leadership as that which emphasises fairness, equality and honesty, develops staff, fosters workplace harmony, and is trustworthy. Female employees emphasised communication, decision‐making ability, and supporting the leader as being important to how a work unit could contribute to organizational leadership effectiveness. Employees at the management level underscored vision, supporting the leader, and integrity as being important to how a work unit could contribute to organizational leadership effectiveness. Female and non‐management employees highlighted employee development, contingent reward, communication and vision as being central to how organizational leadership could contribute to the effectiveness of the work unit., – Unlike the literature that differentiates between charismatic and transformational forms of leadership, this paper views these two constructs as both being components of transformational leadership.

This article discusses the minimal conditions that must be present in order for movement towards resolution of interpersonal conflict to occur, and brings into question earlier assumptions about the amount of skill a person functioning as a third party mediator must possess in order to be effective.

– This exploratory study investigated the characteristics that chief executive officers (CEOs) associated with their success., – Twenty CEOs were interviewed and asked to identify characteristics they possessed, and that they felt were related to their success., – The two dominant characteristics identified were achievement orientation and humanistic approach, followed by positivism. Very little or no emphasis was placed on being inclusive, having integrity, having a balanced approach, learning and self‐awareness or having an external focus., – In order to further our understanding of effective leadership in organisations, future research needs to build on these findings by asking individuals who directly report to CEOs to comment on the characteristics they believe their CEOs possesses., – There are important implications from these results for the selection and development of CEOs., – This study is one of the few to comprehensively investigate CEOs' characteristics. Most of the earlier work was either theoretical or narrowly focused.