Past event
Department of Management Research Seminar: Professor Robert Wood, Macquarie University Inclusive leadership signatures: a social cognitive approach to contingent leadership models
Leadership studies typically use fixed measures of people and situations in between person analyses and base inferences about leadership behaviour on relationships between group level means. There are many limitations to this approach: group means may not be representative of many group members, group level relations may differ from the same relationships at the individual level (Simpson's paradox), and leadership behaviours and situations are not fixed. Contingency theories of leadership recognise differences in leadership styles and situations but are subject to the same limitations, which may explain the lack of supporting evidence and decline in contingency leadership studies.
Professor Robert Wood of Macquarie University will present findings from a current study, which uses the intrapersonal dynamic personality processes approach and the CAPS model (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) to operationalise a leadership signature, an individual unit of knowledge that captures the contingent relationship between self-evaluations and leader identity, calculated using repeated measures over 36 weeks. The resulting individual level leadership signatures (N=227) are then used to predict leadership emergence in initially leaderless student dorm groups (N=37).
Results show that changes in leader identify ratings are contingent upon self-evaluations of leader performance, there are stable individual differences in leadership signatures, and individual differences in leader identity signatures are related to leader emergence, based on peer ratings. Strength of the leader identity signature relationship is stronger for those with prior leadership experience.
Professor Wood will discuss the potential of using leader identity signatures and related contingent constructs as explanatory mechanisms for leader behaviour and resulting outcomes, such as inclusivity and diversity management, as well as the retesting of older contingency theories of leadership.
This event is organised with the support of the Global Office and the Centre for Research in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (CREDI).