Are positive leadership styles—e.g. authentic ethical, servant etc.—valid representations of leadership behaviours? Perhaps not, according to this upcoming study.
This interesting study argued and empirically supported their hypothesis that positive leadership styles “conflate behaviors with subjective evaluations of leaders”.
They found that:
· “positive leadership styles are outcomes that depend on non-behavioral, evaluative factors, such as information about a leader’s previous success or value alignment between leaders and followers”
· Measures of leadership styles create “causal illusions by spuriously predicting objective outcomes, even when leader behaviors and other leader-specific factors are kept constant”
· Their findings “cast serious doubts on previous research claiming that positive leadership styles cause positive outcomes”
· And “positive leadership style research is not only wrong but also practically futile because its constructs and measures are amalgams that do not isolate concrete and learnable behaviors”
· Positive leadership styles like authentic, ethical or servant leadership “lack a solid empirical foundation, rendering these claims speculative”
· “leadership styles are not leader behaviors per se but rather a mix of what leaders do and how followers evaluate leadership
Unpacking the findings, it’s highlighted that positive leadership styles are “conflated constructs that might be partially behavioral, but in large part represent positive summary evaluations of leader behaviors and other leader properties”.
Summary next week.
Authors: Fischer, T., Dietz, J., & Antonakis, J. (2024). A fatal flaw: Positive leadership style research creates causal illusions. The Leadership Quarterly, 101771.
Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2023.101771
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