Bruce Avolio

This study investigates how an employee's core self‐evaluation (CSE) affects their self‐regulation depletion in response to leader injustice. To reconcile the conflicting predictions of CSE reported in the existing leadership and justice literature, we propose and test a self‐esteem contingency model for CSE, drawing on the self‐determination theory (SDT) account of the self‐regulatory process. We hypothesize that when an employee's CSE is heavily contingent on the leader's approval and recognition (denoted as high‐level leader‐contingent self‐esteem), CSE facilitates a controlled form of self‐regulation in response to leader injustice, leading to self‐regulation depletion. Conversely, when one's CSE is less contingent on the leader's approval (denoted as low‐level leader‐contingent self‐esteem), self‐regulation facilitated by CSE in the presence of leader injustice is less of controlled, reducing the likelihood of …

Scholars have criticized positive leadership styles, such as authentic leadership, as being limited to influencing follower performance through relations-oriented behaviors without necessarily providing more task-oriented direction. Applying this behavioral leadership theory dichotomy, we extend authentic leadership theory and research by proposing and testing how authentic leadership influences followers’ psychological capital (PsyCap) and subsequent performance through both relations- (organizational identification) and task-oriented (role clarity) pathways. The results of a three-wave field study, multiple experiments, and a time-lagged, multi-source field study support that authentic leadership influences follower psychological resources and performance through both organizational identification and role clarity. Moreover, our results hold when controlling for other leadership constructs (ethical and …

Although holding oneself accountable is deemed important for effective leadership, CEOs tend to demonstrate a self-serving tendency when reporting their company’s performance to the financial community. Leaders do so by providing internal accounts for favorable performance and external accounts for unfavorable performance. The effects of this strategy on the financial community’s judgments of a company’s value, however, is frequently mixed. Guided by the actor-observer perspective, we propose that observers (i.e., analysts) are likely to provide higher forecasts for firms whose CEOs attribute unfavorable organizational outcomes to internal factors and favorable outcomes to external factors. Integrating this conceptual perspective with attribution theory, we predicted that CEO accounts will have a stronger influence on analysts’ forecasts when the company performs unfavorably versus favorably. Results of …

In this article, we propose a strategic view of leadership development, by defining a Leadership Service Academy (LSA) construct. The LSA represents a strategic approach that enables an organization and its leaders to institutionalize its own theory of leadership, narrative, models, learning methodologies, practices, and evaluation methods for determining the impact of investing in developing leadership. The LSA construct represents a shift in strategic thinking that involves moving beyond focusing on individual leader development training programs used for satisfying current role-requirements or tactical succession planning, to adopting a systemic view of leadership development aligned with the organization's strategic objectives, mission, values, and culture. Most leadership development research has focused on examining the efficacy of training methodologies linked to individual leadership models and …

Research Summary As important stakeholders of a firm, employees are critical to firm success because they are directly engaged in strategy implementation. Accordingly, we theorize that employees' views can impact assessment of the CEO by the board of directors beyond firm financial performance and security analysts' recommendations. Specifically, we hypothesize that employee approval of a CEO's leadership is predictive of the board's CEO dismissal decision, particularly when there is relatively higher firm financial performance, more positive security analyst recommendations, and lower CEO power. Using longitudinal data from 338 firms and 1,252 firm‐year observations between 2010 and 2018, we found empirical support for the above predictions. Our theory and supportive findings have important implications for research and practice regarding employee engagement, strategic leadership, and corporate …

Academics have lamented that practitioners do not always adopt scientific evidence in practice, yet while academics preach evidence-based management (EBM), they do not always practice it. This paper extends prior literature on difficulties to engage in EBM with insights from behavioral integrity (i.e., the study of what makes individuals and collectives walk their talk). We focus on leader development, widely used but often critiqued for lacking evidence. Analyzing 60 interviews with academic directors of leadership centers at top business schools, we find that the selection of programs does not always align with scientific recommendations nor do schools always engage in high-quality program evaluation. Respondents further indicated a wide variety of challenges that help explain the disconnect between business schools claiming A but practicing B. Behavioral Integrity theory would argue these difficulties are …

In the original article, there was a mistake in Table 2 as published. The mean and standard deviation of leadership emergence needed to be changed from “4.85 (1.53)” to “3.52 (0.97)” and nomination for promotion had to be changed from “3.52 (0.97)” to “4.85 (1.53).” These were reversed. The correlation of gender and leadership emergence (column 4) was reported as “− 16” but should have been “− 0.16.” The updated Table 2 appears below.

Leadership is a process where leaders enact certain behaviors to influence followers. Yet, each follower may view the leader’s enactment differently, owing to differences in disposition and context. Here we examine leadership as a property attributed by followers to their leader, influenced by both the leader and followers’ personal attributes and the situation in which leaders and followers interact. Guiding this study, we asked: how do followers’ affect (negative and positive traits), motivation (regulatory focus), and cognitions (identity) and their congruence with their leader’s corresponding attributes influence their ratings of transformational leadership? Participants operated in extreme situations where their lives were often at risk because of exposure to combat. Results based on a sample of 1587 US Army soldiers operating in 262 units show that when there is a higher congruence between leaders’ and followers …