Conceptualizing leadership perceptions as attitudes:using attitude theory to further the understanding of the relation between leadership and outcomes

Abstract

Leadership is one of the most examined factors in relation to understanding employee wellbeing and performance. While there are disparate approaches to studying leadership, they share a common assumption that perceptions of a leader's behavior determine reactions to the leader. The concept of leadership perception is poorly understood in most theoretical approaches. To address this, we propose that there are many benefits from examining leadership perceptions as an attitude towards the leader. In this review, we show how research examining a number of aspects of attitudes (content, structure and function) can advance understanding of leadership perceptions and how these affect work-related outcomes. Such a perspective provides a more multi-faceted understanding of leadership perceptions than previously envisaged and this can provide a more detailed understanding of how such perceptions affect outcomes. In addition, we examine some of the main theoretical and methodological implications of viewing leadership perceptions as attitudes to the wider leadership area. The cross-fertilization of research from the attitudes literature to understanding leadership perceptions provides new insights into leadership processes and potential avenues for further research. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.10.003
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Work & Organisational Psychology
Additional Information: © 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: leadership,leadership perceptions,attitudes,performance,attitude strength,Business and International Management,Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management,Applied Psychology,Sociology and Political Science
Publication ISSN: 1873-3409
Last Modified: 05 Dec 2024 08:08
Date Deposited: 04 Jan 2016 11:05
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
https://www.sci ... 1186?via%3Dihub (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2015-12
Published Online Date: 2015-11-06
Authors: Lee, Allan
Martin, Robin
Thomas, Geoff
Guillaume, Yves (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-0040-0453)
Maio, Gregory R.

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